The Spit Test: Protecting Your Heart | Dr. Gina Pritchard

00: 00 Importance of the Spit Test
00:16 The Five High-Risk Bacteria
01:14 How Bacteria Enters the Bloodstream
01:57 Link Between Bacteria and Heart Attacks
02:37 Preventing Heart Diseases by Eliminating Bacteria
03:22 The Need for The Spit Test

AA = Aggregatibacter Actinomycetemcomitans
PG = Porphyromonas Gingivalis
TF = Tannerella Forsythia
TD = Treponema Denticola
FN = Fusobacterium Nucleatum

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If you want to avoid future diseases and future health problems, you need the spit test. You need to know if you have any of the five high-risk bacteria, germs, or pathogens living in your mouth. These five bacteria are AA, PG, TF, TD, and FN. We'll have the full names in the description below. These five bacteria specifically have been linked and contribute to heart attack, stroke, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, inflammatory diseases, bone loss, certainly dental implant failures and periodontal disease locally, and other systemic problems. They've even been tied to childbearing related issues.

So, even if you're younger, meaning of childbearing age and you're male or female, potential mother or father, you want to make sure you're tested for these bacteria and that you lower or even eliminate all five of these bacteria.

So, the bacteria get into the bloodstream. They live primarily in the mouth, up under the gums. We can collect them, as I said, in the saliva or in your spit, but there's at least five ways that they then travel to various parts of the body. For one, the mouth has a lot of blood vessels in it, and they can easily get into the blood stream, even if your teeth and gums and mouth are healthy, even if you don't have any bleeding or gum disease.

These bacteria can also get into the bloodstream because we swallow our spit or our saliva, and these bacteria get into our GI tract and then into the bloodstream. There's a variety of waves. Once it's in the bloodstream, studies have identified that they're active and alive, for example, at the site of a heart attack. Where the heart attack originates in the heart, these bacteria have been identified.

In fact, Dr Pesci and his research team identified these bacteria at the site of the heart attack back in before 2013. The American Heart Association came out with a paper in 2013 saying there's enough evidence that these pathogens are contributable to at least 50% of heart attacks.

So you want to have these bacteria tested, certainly if you're a child-bearing age, and most certainly if you're concerned at any age, but 40 or 45 and older and have a family history of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, all of those diseases are listed in the beginning, for prevention purposes, you want to know if these bacteria are in your mouth now because now, they can easily be eliminated by your dental team, the dentist, the dental hygienist, and working collaboratively with your nurse practitioner, your doctor, your MD, your DO. These teams can easily ensure that these pathogens are treated appropriately and don't come back.
This may be a test that you haven't had done: The Spit Test. Learn more today.