Dr. Nammy Patel talks about your thyroid, its importance in immune response, and its role in causing cavities and gum disease.
Thyroid is a hormone, T3 and T4. It controls your metabolism as well as a lot of other activities, and it’s so important in your immune response. It is so important in our day to day activities. So it’s really interesting to note that there is a huge rise in changes in thyroid, especially for women. My personal feeling, probably some of that has to do with the use of birth control in the last 50 years or so.
And what happens is that, when the thyroid levels are off, we actually get more bleeding gums and we actually get bone loss and the patients are more at risk, have a higher risk for cavities and gum disease. So I always recommend coming in every three months for cleanings and also making sure that the iron levels are normalized, and seeing a naturopath or seeing another doctor to make sure that’s looked at.
