Floss or Die?: A Conversation with Dental Scientist Mark Ryder

Ever heard the expression "floss or die?"

Laugh if you will, but there might be some truth to it after all. As Mark Ryder, DMD, chair of the division of periodontology in the UCSF School of Dentistry, explains, the mouth is both a window on our health and a doorway to disease.

What kind of disease? How about clogged arteries, strokes, and blood clots. That is to say nothing of high blood sugar and an increased incidence of premature births.

The list is a scary one because the millions of bacteria that clump together in plaque are a bad bunch. They secrete toxins. They evade the body's defenses. They cause a local inflammatory response far from their source. Indeed, 80 percent of infections in the body are so-called biofilm infections, which adhere in the same way plaque sticks to our teeth.

No wonder dentists often consider themselves "physicians of the mouth." Yet the general public —not to mention legislators— still seem baffled by what Ryder considers gospel: Oral health is the key to overall health.

Why else, he wonders, would proposed cuts in health assistance to the poor include eliminating dental visits? Cutting down on the risk of heart disease would certainly save much more. And dentists are often the first to spot signs of unrecognized diseases, such as osteoporosis, or provide graphic evidence to patients that smoking is ruining their teeth and gums and, thereby, their health.

Not that Ryder is standing pat on a soapbox. A researcher and teacher as well as a clinician, he has begun to study if Vitamin D reduces the effects of inflammation. His theory might surprise you.