Vitamin D & Dental Implant Success

Once you’ve gotten dental implants, you might think your restored smile is guaranteed. After all, this procedure’s long-term success rate is 95%! However, your new replacement teeth can fail if you’re not careful. That said, try improving their odds by increasing your vitamin D levels. The latter nutrient can make your treatment recovery smoother and your implants more successful. To learn more, here’s a summary of how vitamin D benefits implants and tips on getting more of it.

How Does Vitamin D Help Implants?

Vitamin D strengthens body processes that ensure physical health. As it turns out, though, these same processes improve dental implants’ success. High vitamin D levels, therefore, make your treatment more effective by:

Improving Implant Fusion

One of vitamin D’s core functions is building and supporting healthy bones. This is due to your body needing it to absorb calcium, the primary part of bone tissue.

Since the vitamin thus promotes bone growth, it helps your implants fuse with your jawbone. The latter fusion is necessary for treatment success, as your replacement teeth won’t be secure without it.

Making Post-Treatment Infection Less Likely

Besides growing healthy bones, vitamin D also regulates and boosts your immune system. Its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties support immune health, muscle function, and brain activity.

This strengthened immunity, in turn, makes post-treatment infection less likely. That’s especially important for implants due to gingivitis, gum disease, and dental abscesses leading to tooth loss.

How to Up Your Vitamin D Intake

You can experience vitamin D’s implant benefits by upping your intake. To do so, consider following the tips below:

• Eat a Vitamin-Rich Diet – Meals with fatty fish, beef liver, and fortified dairy products will raise your body’s vitamin D levels.
• Take a Daily Supplement – If you can’t get the vitamin from your food, you could always get it from a supplement. Take one that puts your levels at 600-800 international units (IU).
• Tan Yourself  – Your body can make vitamin D naturally when exposed to sunlight. Absorb twenty minutes of sunshine daily so you get the right amount.

It never hurts to improve your implant’s chance of success. That said, use the above tips and other methods to ensure your restored smile sticks around for a long while.

About the Practice

West Arvada Family Dental is based in Arvada, CO. As led by Dr. Jeramiah Paylor, the practice promises its patients healthy smiles and stress-free care. To that end, its staff offers preventive, cosmetic, and restorative dentistry, including emergency procedures. Whether you need a dental checkup or a dental implant, the West Arvada team will do the job right! For more information or to book an appointment, you can reach them at their website or by phone at (720)-776-4900.