It’s all about the floss

It has come to our attention that a recent Business Report Daily item about the latest top 10 quality-of-life ranking for the state of Colorado has some faithful readers mystified.

Seems our fair state gets high marks when it come to behaviors that promote longevity for our dedication to oral hygiene, as well as positive attitudes about aging, exercise and fitness and caffeine intake. The report indicated that those who are dedicated flossers have a reduced chance of developing heart disease.

As one BRD subscriber succinctly put it, “What the hell does flossing your teeth have to do with heart disease?”

The connection between gum disease and heart disease is not without its skeptics, even ones not on our electronic mailing list, according to an article on www.webmd.com.

“One of the talks I give is called, ‘Investigating the Links Between Periodontal Infection and Vascular Disease: Are We Nuts?'” says epidemiologist Moise Desvarieux, MD, PhD, from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “It’s not a connection that people naturally think of.”

The key is that the “State of Longevity” surveyed people over the age of 50, nearly twice that of most of our curious readers.

It comes as no surprise to even the youngest baby boomers that bacteria between our teeth can migrate into our bloodstream and cause atherosclerosis. Just one more on the ever-increasing list of things that can kill us stone-dead in a literal heartbeat without any sort of mechanical or technological intervention whatsoever. No guns, no knives, just misplaced poundage and wayward microbes, and kaboom! — it’s game over. (That, by the way, does not qualify as “a positive attitude about aging.” I wasn’t surveyed.)

So, kids, listen to your dentist. And those of you who are already flossing for your heart, pick up a copy of NCBR’s Baby Boomer Retirement Guide in the May 25 issue. It’s the one with the whitewater raft trip on the cover.

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