Did you know that mouths also “age?”
This was what a dental expert revealed in a roundtable discussion in Pasig City last Thursday.
Oral and maxillofacial surgeon Gelo Militante raised the need to be aware of the concept of mouth aging following statistics that showed roughly 46% of people ages 30 and above have gum disease.
The disease is the main factor in tooth loss, according to the 2022 Oral Health Report of the World Health Organization.
It is also one of the most prevalent oral conditions that affect adults in their middle years.
But according to Militante, a former national president of the Philippine Dental Association, oral health problems do not just plague the elderly.
It also happens to young people, who he said are similarly prone to developing problems such as gum disease — which in turn leads to mouth aging.
“Aging is not in [numerical] order… you may be young at age but your health is old,” the dental expert said on April 13.
This was reiterated by Listerine Philippines marketing manager Miguel Gamboa, who said that “even a 30-year-old can have an aged-looking mouth.”
He added that it is not about the numerical age, but the “oral habit” that determines whether the mouth is aging or not.
Militante also shared more similar scenarios to explain the concept.
According to him, there are reports of young people dying nowadays because of health conditions like heart disease or diabetes.
“The thing here [is] — it’s not the age, it’s the lifestyle,” the dental expert said.
“We have to do something because the first line of defense in terms of overall health is oral health,” Militante added, referring to the phenomenon of mouth aging.
“There is a very good connection between oral health and systemic health. Why? We eat with our mouths. We drink with our mouths. We do everything in our mouths. Literally,” he said.
“So that’s why, since we cannot prevent them, the gist here is the long-term objective of the Philippine Dental Association and all dental health professionals — [it] is not to eradicate, but lessen and reduce the risk of these [oral health] problems,” Militante added.
The dental expert said that while there is no Google definition of mouth aging, he said he interprets it as “a deterioration of the oral structures such as the teeth, gums, [and] the bones inside the oral cavity.”
Gamboa added that this deterioration is “caused by germs.”
For Militante, the progression of oral health disease can be hindered by regular visits to dentists and diligently practicing good oral hygiene.
This, he said, involves “meticulous” brushing, flossing, and rinsing with mouthwash.
The dental expert said that the last step is important since brushing only cleans 25% of the mouth’s surface.
The rest is still covered with what he called a plaque biofilm.
“There are areas in the mouth which [are] what you call hard-to-reach areas, the things between your teeth… Even brushing cannot do it,” Militante said, referring to toothbrushing.
“Why use a simple water if you can have a good mouth rinse?” he added.
Gamboa also shared that 90% of Filipinos potentially suffer from poor oral health because of skipping the last step in a good oral regimen — mouth rinsing.
According to him, only one in every ten Filipinos uses mouthwash.
“When you brush kasi, hindi siya nakakapatay ng germs. It’s like, when you go out and you wash your hands with water. Water cannot kill germs, right? Similarly, water can’t kill germs in your mouth. You need something like a mouthwash to really kill the germs,” Gamboa said.
He added that a proper mouth rinse is achieved when it is done two times a day for 30 seconds.
Listerine is among those that offer good quality mouthwash which can help fight the phenomenon of mouth aging and maintain good oral health. Some of its variants include the Total Care Zero, an alcohol-free mouth rinse with germ-killing powers.