Can Dental Care Fight Pneumonia? Regular checkups linked to protection against bacterial disease

Bacterial pneumonia is a serious illness "associated with significant morbidity and mortality," he said, adding, "Anything we can do to reduce the burden of disease is important." File noted that aggressive approaches to reducing the bacterial burden in the mouth using chlorhexidine rinses or gels are now the standard of care when hospital inpatients are on a ventilator. Doll said the link between bacteria in the mouth and pneumonia is fairly straightforward. After all, she said, there's a "direct conduit" between the mouth and the lungs, and it is easy to aspirate bacterial species that can cause disease. http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/IDWeek/61071?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2016-10-28&eun=g721819d0r&pos=2