If you lose teeth, you lose your memory

If you want to have an excellent memory when you are older, it is better to clean your teeth every day. And is that a study published in the European Journal of Oral Sciences reveals that if you lose your teeth, you will also lose your good memory.

The study, led by Patrick Hansson and Karin SunGard, involved 273 participants between 55 and 80 years old who had 22 teeth on average (ten less than a full dentition). The participants had to answer a series of memory tests.

After analyzing the results, scientists from Umea University and the University of Stockholm were able to verify that people with fewer teeth remembered less things.

The amount of teeth a person has is responsible for between 14% and 20% of the variation in memory, the authors told the Daily Mail.

People who had most of their teeth had a memory approximately 4% greater than those who did not. According to scientists, this may be because the nerve endings that innervate the jaw are connected to the hypothalamus, the brain area linked to memories.

As a second hypothesis, scientists question whether the action of chewing, which increases blood flow in the brain, could contribute to the phenomenon. Likewise, they think that the fact that people without teeth avoid certain foods could cause a little intake of vitamins, proteins and neurologically necessary calories.

Finally, the scientists conclude that brushing your teeth is a very good step to prevent dementia, since the bacteria in the mouth could well travel to the brain and cause inflammation and damage – another factor that links your mouth with your mind. Health, after all, is integral.