The dark truth behind those bright smiles Ah, for the glamorous life of a cosmetic dentist. No more bratty kids or cranky codgers filling up the waiting room. No more extractions, fillings, or root canals. You’ll spend your afternoons bleaching Lindsay Lohan’s teeth or straightening Ashton Kutcher’s smile. Who knows? You could end up with your own Extreme Makeover-style reality TV show. Before you decide to enter into the realm
There are lots of good reasons to stop smoking, and now the Journal of Periodontology has yet another one. According to a new study published in the September issue of the journal, smokers take far longer to recover from periodontal plastic surgery than non-smokers. The study looked at 10 smokers and 10 non-smokers for two years. Both groups underwent treatment to help soft tissue reattach to the root surface of
A kernel of popcorn that went unpopped. A piece of ice like an iceberg. Grueling nighttime grinding. Who knows what started a fissure down the length of that tooth? As the pain mounts, so does the frustration, because longitudinal tooth fractures — which extend through the long axis of the tooth and expand with time — are often invisible to the naked eye and difficult to detect with conventional radiology.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) July 6 Dental assistants who work with substances called methacrylates may be at risk of developing asthma or chronic respiratory symptoms, a study has found. Methacrylates are used in dental filling materials and bonding agents, like those used to cement porcelain veneers, crowns, and orthodontic brackets. Dental assistants are exposed to airborne methacrylate particles when mixing these materials or during placement or removal of dental restorations.
Coffee can be complicated and tobacco tenacious, but the toughest tooth stain dentists grapple with is the dark blue-gray caused by tetracycline. How dark can it be? So dark that doctors now avoid prescribing this antibiotic to children lest they spend a lifetime afraid to smile. So dark that none of the professional tooth-color reference scales go this far toward blackness. Yet dentists are gaining ground in the effort to
You couldn’t attract a mate without an inviting smile. Your employment prospects would be rather limited too. Maybe that’s why Pearl Jam, Charlie Chaplin, and Laura Nyro all wrote songs called “Smile.” But what makes a good smile? In the September 2007 issue of Angle Orthodontist, Pieter Van der Geld and his colleagues at Radboud and Tilberg universities in the Netherlands, conclude that people are most satisfied when their smiles
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Do a Google search for “amalgam” and “danger” and you get over 460,000 hits. Small surprise. Health advocates rail against the danger of “silver” mercury (amalgam) fillings. Some even claim that removing existing amalgam restorations will radically improve patients’ health. Meanwhile, amalgam boosters staunchly defend the alloy. But in the decades that amalgam has been on trial, neither the prosecution nor the defense has found enough evidence to win its
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sep 6 Young adults who lose their teeth to cavities or gum disease may have an increased risk of dying from heart disease later in life, a new study suggests. The findings, reported in the journal Heart, add to evidence linking oral health to heart health. A number of studies have suggested that gum disease may contribute to heart disease over time — though it’s still
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) May 17 Two studies published this month provide additional evidence that treating gum disease in pregnant women may prevent preterm birth. “These data suggested that periodontal treatment should be included in prenatal care programs,” conclude Dr. Catia M. Gazolla of Vale do Rio Verde University in Tres Coracoes and colleagues, who authored one of the studies. Both reports appear in the May issue of the Journal
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) April 4 Detecting head and neck cancer early, when the odds of successful treatment are best, may be as simple as gargling with saline and spitting in a cup, according to a study conducted by a Miami, Florida-based research team. Oral rinsing flushes out a protein called CD44 — a known biomarker for cancers of the head and neck. It also detects altered DNA related to
WASHINGTON (Reuters), April 30 – Sugary foods and drinks and nonfluoridated bottled water may be helping to rot the teeth of more young U.S. children, reversing four decades of progress against tooth decay, U.S. health officials said on Monday. An estimated 28% of U.S. children ages 2 to 5 had a cavity in at least one baby tooth between 1999 and 2004, the National Center for Health Statistics said. This
