Smoking can weaken your immune systems

Dental researchers have found that smoking can weaken the pulp in your teeth and reduce its ability to fight disease and illness. Apart from a significant threat to dental health, cigarette smokers face known medical risks of heart disease, lung cancer, and emphysema.

Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University said that the weakened pulp due to smoking was because smokers developed weakened defense mechanisms inside their teeth.

“That might explain why smokers have poorer endodontic outcomes and delayed healing than non-smokers,” said Anita Aminoshariae, associate professor of endodontics and director of predoctoral endodontics. “Imagine TNF-? and hBD-2 are among the soldiers in a last line of defense fortifying a castle. Smoking kills these soldiers before they even have a chance at mounting a solid defense,” reported Science Daily quoting the study’s main findings in the Journal of Endodontics.

The study is crucial as there is little research on the endodontic effects of smoking, i.e., inside of teeth. It was found that smokers were at significantly more risk of developing gum disease and twice the probability of needing root canal treatment.

Case Western’s School of Dental Medicine included 32 smokers and 37 non-smokers with endodontic pulpitis or dental-tissue inflammation in the study, reported Science Daily website.

“We began with a look at the dental pulp of smokers compared with nonsmokers,” Aminoshariae said. “We hypothesized that the natural defenses would be reduced in smokers; we didn’t expect them to have them completely depleted.”

However, an interesting finding was that two patients who gave up smoking reclaimed the ability of their defense systems.

Along with Aminoshariae, former students of the School of Dental Medicine Mohammed Bakkar and Caroline Ghattas Ayoub, faculty members Catherine Demko, Tracey Bonfield, Andre K. Mickel, and Thomas A. Montagnese, and researcher Santosh Ghosh participated in the study.