Brush your teeth, save your life?

"Oral surgeon Dr. Gary Bouloux is about to pull a diseased wisdom tooth from his patient's mouth, using forceps that look like a pair of silver pliers. 'We're in good shape,' Bouloux assures his patient. In a smooth, quick motion, Bouloux snatches the white molar from the woman's gum with a loud snap. 'Strong bones,' Bouloux quips to his numb patient. 'You'll never break your hip.' And it might help cut her heart disease risk, too. In theory, by removing his patient's teeth ravaged by gum disease, 'we reduced the number of inflamed and infected sites in her mouth, which may reduce her overall inflammatory burden and thus reduce her risk for cardiovascular disease,' said Bouloux, an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Doctors have known for years that gum disease and heart disease are linked, but they have yet to reach agreement on the exact reasons behind the connection. Heart disease patients often have several risk factors such as high cholesterol or poor diet, making it impossible to single out bad dental health as a contributing factor" - CNN