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Swooshing with mouth wash will increase your blood pressure
Swooshing, stops the conversion of nitrate to nitrite by the bacteria living in your mouth – since nitrite help dilate blood vessels, your blood pressure rises
Gut bacteria might have some value, but the bacteria residing in your mouth – they’re up to no good.
They cause
- Bad breath
- Cavities
- Gum disease
- Heart disease
They should be “eliminated”.
Brushing, flossing and swooshing, with a minty flavoured mouth wash, is the healthy thing to do.
And lots of people do it.
It is estimated 30 – 45 % of people living in the US and UK, regularly cleanse their mouths, with an anti-septic rinse.
Mouth bacteria do good too
Oops ! Killing the bacterial residents of your mouth, may not be the “healthy” thing to do.
They’re doing good.
Specifically, they’re doing a little chemical wizardry, that helps keep your blood pressure lower. Effectively protecting you from ischemic heart disease and stroke.
The nitrogen cycle
Inorganic nitrogen comes in various forms
- Nitrate (NO3–)
- Nitrite (NO2–)
- Nitrogen oxide
Plants are obsessed with getting nitrates and nitrites, this is why farmers use fertilizers.
But, in humans…………..
The nitrogen of significance is nitric oxide.
It is a gaso-transmitter
That just means it is a gas, which “talks” to the cells it encounters. It’s main message is RELAX !
When blood vessels hear this – they do exactly as instructed. They RELAX, this causes the blood vessels to dilate i.e. they get a little wider.
A wider blood vessel is able to move more blood through, so blood pressure drops.
The body has a few different ways, to ramp up nitric oxide production, you can boost your nitric oxide
- By exercising
- By sun tanning
- By eating your vegetables, particularly beetroot
AND by NOT using an anti-septic mouth wash.
The mouth bacteria “do it”
Exactly how, is still a bit sketchy – but they’re definitely responsible for step 1 in the process, which involves converting dietary nitrates, into nitrites. The process happens in the salivary glands.
And these little guys, are sensitive……
This is what a group of researchers recently discovered…..
Rinsing with mouth wash
The researchers enlisted the help of 19 young healthy non-smokers, who were not mouth wash users. On the mornings, when they were required to check-in to the lab, they had to skip breakfast and have avoided nitrate rich foods.
At the start of the study, base line levels of nitrates and nitrites were recorded EVERYWHERE. Levels were measured in their mouths, blood and urine.
In addition to this, they were hooked up to a blood pressure monitoring machine for a 24 hour period, and instructed to take their own blood pressure with a home monitoring kit.
It was business as usual for the next week, after which they reported back to the lab and all the tests were repeated.
Next, the volunteers were then sent home with a giant bottle of mouth wash, with instructions to use it, twice a day for a week, before returning to the lab for the same battery of tests.
NOTE : The brand of mouth wash used, was Corsodyl, which contains 0.2 % chlorhexidine as it’s active ingredient.
The perils of swooshing
The team discovered, a week of swooshing with mouth wash, STOPPED the conversion of nitrate to nitrite in the mouth. The effect of this, virtually no nitrite could be detected in the blood.
And……………… blood pressure climbed upward.
The climb was tiny, a couple of mm of mercury, but it was significant.
This means it was REAL.
And, real enough to matter. Ouch !
Stop mass exterminations
We’ve waged war against our gut flora for years, with
- The widespread use of antibiotics and soaps
- The incorporation of artificial chemicals and the avoidance of “fibre”, in our diet
- The adoption of modern birthing practices
And we’re paying a health price.
Absent or aberrant microflora have been implicated in many modern ailments, including obesity, auto-immune diseases, digestive disorders, even post-menopausal breast cancer.
This research suggests, our oral microbiome, also needs to be taken care of.
Ditch the mouth wash !
Further reading
Don’t be afraid of being in the dog house
Houses with dogs have EXTRA bacteria. We need more good bacteria in our squeaky clean world to help us avoid autoimmune disorders.
Sniffing out who is behind your high blood pressure
What if cholesterol build up is a red herring ? What if, high blood pressure is due to someone, not something, putting the squeeze on your blood vessels.
Your genetic fingerprint is a lot less human than you think
You have your mothers eyes, your fathers ears and your bacteria’s personality profile. The bacteria in your body outnumber you 10 to 1, their genes are you
Want to bring your high blood pressure down ?
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