This innocent bathroom habit can destroy your heart

It’s part of the daily routine for millions — sip, swish and spit.

But that innocent habit, one that seems to be a good way to keep your gums and teeth healthy, might instead be setting you up for high blood pressure and heart disease.

Using bacterial-zapping mouthwash every day turns out to be a very high-risk way to freshen your breath!

Saying YES to NO!
Those commercials for mouthwashes sure make it seem like we’d all be walking around with killer bad breath if we didn’t use them every day.

But it turns out those antiseptic dental products are what can be the killers.

You see, not all mouth bacteria is bad or causes tooth decay and gum disease. And just like your gut bacteria, there are plenty of very important kinds that live in your mouth and shouldn’t be swished away every day.

Some recent research has discovered that oral bacteria are what help provide your body with the essential molecule nitric oxide, or NO.

Wipe out those bacteria, and you’ll deplete your supply of NO.

Without enough nitric oxide, your blood pressure can soar, and you’re smack in the crosshairs for heart disease. You see, NO is your guardian when it comes to keeping your heart healthy, as it causes blood vessels to expand, increases blood flow and even prevents blood clots from forming.

And if guys had enough natural NO in their bodies, all of those “male performance” pills would be in the trash!

One expert on the molecule, Dr. Nathan Bryan, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, calls a “loss of nitric oxide” the first “event in the onset and progression” of heart disease.

To further back these findings, a study out of the Queen Mary University in London discovered two years ago that the antiseptic ingredient chlorhexidine, when used twice a day for just a week, was enough to bump up the blood pressure of healthy volunteers by 3.5 points.

Right along with that, the researchers also discovered that the nitrite production in the mouth had dropped off by over 90 percent. (Chlorhexidine is added to an OTC brand popular in the UK called Corsodyl and in some Rx mouthwash products in the U.S.)

But Dr. Bryan doesn’t limit the danger to that one antiseptic ingredient. He warns that any mouthwash that kills mouth bacteria can be just as risky.

Since our production of NO starts dipping naturally after age 40, it makes sense to do whatever we can to keep this vital molecule working on our behalf.

To do that, you’ll need to say YES to adding some delicious foods to your diet that will boost your NO production.

For example:

• Go for the green (and red!): Leafy green veggies like lettuce, spinach, and watercress as well as beets are some of the foods with the highest amount of natural nitrates (that your body can convert into NO).
• Don’t forget the berries: Strawberries and raspberries also help your body make more of this molecule, and, to a lesser degree, bananas, raisins and figs.
• Garlic can help, too: While it doesn’t contain a lot of nitrates, it can fuel NO production. That’s one of the reasons garlic is such a heart-healthy addition to your diet.

And if you’re wondering why veggie nitrates are good for you and those added to processed meats (as well as nitrites) aren’t, it all has to do with a complex chemical process — one that can happen when meat is charred or overcooked, producing some not-so-healthy compounds called nitrosamines.

That’s something you don’t have to worry about with that spinach and beet salad!

“Use of antiseptic mouthwash could put patients at risk for CVD” August 26, 2017, News-Medical Life Sciences, news-medical.net