WOODBURY, Minn. - When it comes to dental health, sounds like us guys need to step up our game.
“There’s a lot of men that just come to the dentist if there’s a problem, like a broken tooth or a tooth that’s hurting,” says David Louis, a dentist at HealthPartners Dental Clinic.
Louis says most of us should be going to the dentist once a year, where they're looking for things that may be happening below the surface.
“Periodontal disease, in particular, can effect everybody. It can even affect teenagers,” Louis says. According to Louis, periodontal disease is where you start losing bone around your teeth.
Louis says our oral health can be linked to things like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
To keep our mouths healthy, it's about getting back to the basics.
“The most important thing you can do for your oral health is to floss,” Louis says. “We know that the best dental insurance in the world is dental floss.”
Secondly, Louis says watching your diet goes a long way to keep our pearly whites in tip-top shape.
“If you are avoiding sugar, you are starving the bacteria that causes tooth decay,” he says. “You need two things to cause tooth decay: you need bacteria and you need sugar.”
If you love your sugar and haven't been to the dentist in a while, there's no judgment when you make that appointment to get things back on track.
“We hope that you don't feel embarrassed or ashamed because of not coming. We welcome everybody,” Louis says.