As if smoking wasn’t bad enough for you, if you need another reason to consider quitting, consider the connection between smoking and gum disease. Whether or not you smoke, a good oral care routine will help with the effects of gum disease causing bacteria, but you certainly aren’t doing yourself or your teeth and gums any favors by continuing to indulge in that unhealthy habit. Take a look at some of the ways smoking and gum disease go hand and hand and how to protect your periodontal health.

• produces very bad breath
• higher incidence of canker sores
• other dental concerns associated with smoking

If you need a method for how to fight bad breath, one simple solution is to stop smoking. Of course if that is your only problem, you can always pop a breath mint. No, the problem with smoking and gum disease goes much deeper. Smoking produces a dry environment in the mouth. Not only is that conducive to chronic bad breath, but it also creates the perfect environment for gum disease causing bacteria. This bacterium needs a dry climate to do its damage. Smoking gives it the perfect opening. Smokers have a harder time staying hydrated and keeping their mouths’ moist than non smokers.

While canker sores aren’t generally associated with gum disease, these painful little sores are still a pain. Smokers are believed to have a higher rate of incidence for these troublesome lesions. No one has found a long term negative effect of canker sores, but why tempt fate? Stopping smoking may not eliminate all of your canker sore problems, but it might help.

If a higher rate of gum disease and other dental diseases isn’t enough to encourage you to stop the habit, think about the other damage smoking is causing to your teeth and gums. Mouth cancer is more likely in smokers than in those who don’t smoke. Any dental work you have done will take longer to heal as well. Of course who can overlook the staining that takes place on the teeth? Any way you look at it, smoking spells disaster for your oral health.