The Power Of Fluoride

In an advance toward solving a 50-year-old mystery, scientists are reporting new evidence on how the fluoride in drinking water, toothpastes, mouth rinses and other oral-care products prevents tooth decay. Their report appears in the ACS journal Langumir. Karin Jacobs and colleagues explain that despite a half-century of scientific research, controversy still exists over exactly how fluoride compounds reduce the risk of tooth decay. That research established long ago that fluoride helps to harden the enamel coating that protects teeth from the acid produced by decay-causing bacteria. Newer studies already found that fluoride penetrates into and hardens a much thinner layer of enamel than previously believed, lending credence to other theories about how fluoride works. The report describes new evidence that fluoride also works by impacting the adhesion force of bacteria that stick to the teeth and produce the acid that causes cavities. The experiments - performed on artificial teeth (hydroxyapatite pellets) to enable high-precision analysis techniques - revealed that fluoride reduces the ability of decay-causing bacteria to stick, so that also on teeth, it is easier to wash away the bacteria by saliva, brushing and other activity.

Rinsing Your Mouth Can Help Your Arteries

Cleaning your mouth and cleaning your arteries could be as simple as a once-a-day oral rinse if additional studies confirm preliminary findings about a new product. Biomedical Development Corporation (BDC) on April 23 will present data to the American Academy of Oral Medicine showing that its oral rinse was safe and effective at fighting gingivitis in a recent clinical trial. But the most surprising finding of the study was that users of the oral rinse showed lower LDL cholesterol levels than the placebo group. "We didn't expect to see any difference in LDL cholesterol," said Dr. Charles Gauntt, the study's principal investigator. "We expected to see improvements in oral health, and we did. But we also monitored a number of biological markers for inflammation. The results showed the oral rinse had no adverse effects and users exhibited lower levels of LDL, or what many people know as bad cholesterol. This definitely merits further study." The three-month, phase II trial was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The trial was preceded by a phase I clinical trial for safety and a phase II pilot efficacy clinical trial. Another, longer phase II trial is now under way and will evaluate gingivitis patients over a six-month period. This new trial, conducted by the Center for Oral Health Research at the University of Kentucky, will monitor gingivitis and LDL cholesterol levels as the previous trial did. The NHLBI is funding the research, which is also supported by the Kentucky SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program. BDC's product is designed as a once-daily, 30-second oral rinse. The active ingredient is a proprietary formula based on iodine. The National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheet on iodine addresses a variety of important roles for iodine in the human body, from helping the thyroid function properly to appearing to play a part in the body's immune response system. About 40 percent of the world's population is thought to be at risk of iodine deficiency. Gauntt also notes that iodine is known to be effective in inactivating viruses, bacteria and funguses. He is intrigued by recent clinical studies showing what appears to be a closer link between oral health and cardiovascular health. Although scientists cannot yet fully explain how the two are connected, there is ample statistical evidence to suggest that gum disease and heart disease are closely related. According to the American Academy of Periodontology, people with periodontal disease (gum disease) are almost twice as likely to have coronary artery disease. The academy also notes that one study showed stroke victims were more likely than the general population to also have oral infections. Gauntt believes that future research might make it much clearer that a healthy mouth, free of gum disease and its associated toxins and bacteria, is critical to a healthy cardiovascular system. Although further study is required, he adds, he believes BDC's oral rinse may eventually prove to be an important tool in keeping both mouths and cardiovascular systems healthy, in addition to proper nutrition and exercise. Phyllis Siegel, CEO of BDC, said that while results of its ongoing clinical trials are pending, a specific formulation of the product called iCLEAN®, designed for general mouth cleaning, will soon be available.

Earliest Dentisty Found !

Team leaders Federico Bernardini and Claudio Tuniz, of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy, worked with researchers at Sincrotrone Trieste and other centers in Italy and Australia to analyze the 6,500-year-old "human mandible". The tooth is part of a human jawbone found in Slovenia near Trieste. The researchers note that evidence of prehistoric dentistry is sparse, so they hope the find will help them better understand early dental practices. The tooth is a left canine, whose crown bears the traces of filling with beeswax. The researchers used a range of tools to examine the tooth, including "synchrotron radiation computed micro-tomography (micro-CT), Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating, Infrared (IR) Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)". The results showed the tooth was worn, exposing an area of dentin, and also bore a vertical crack in the enamel and dentin layers, the upper part of which was filled with beeswax. The team suggests the filling was probably applied around the time of the individual's death, but can't be sure whether it was shortly before or even shortly after. "If the filling was done when the person was still alive, the intervention was likely aimed to relieve tooth sensitivity derived from either exposed dentine and/or the pain resulting from chewing on a cracked tooth," they write. If it was applied before death, then it is the earliest known direct evidence of a dental filling being applied for therapeutic, pain-relieving reasons. In a press statement, Tuniz speculates that the severe wear of the tooth is probably due to the fact people of that era used their teeth for lots of other things, not just eating, for instance Neolithic women used their teeth to cut or hold thread when weaving. Bernardini says this is possibly the "most ancient evidence of pre-historic dentistry in Europe and the earliest known direct example of therapeutic-palliative dental filling so far".

Novacain And Missing Wisdom Teeth

Researchers from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine have discovered a statistical association between the injection of local dental anesthesia given to children ages two to six and evidence of missing lower wisdom teeth. The results of this epidemiological study, published in the April issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association, suggest that injecting anesthesia into the gums of young children may interrupt the development of the lower wisdom tooth. "It is intriguing to think that something as routine as local anesthesia could stop wisdom teeth from developing. This is the first study in humans showing an association between a routinely- administered, minimally-invasive clinical procedure and arrested third molar growth," said corresponding author, Anthony R. Silvestri, D.M.D., clinical professor in the department of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. Wisdom teeth are potentially vulnerable to injury because their development - unlike all other teeth - does not begin until well after birth. Between two and six years of age, wisdom tooth (third molar) buds begin to develop in the back four corners of the mouth, and typically emerge in the late teens or early adulthood. Not everyone develops wisdom teeth, but for those who do, the teeth often become impacted or problematic. The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons reports that nine out of 10 people will have at least one impacted wisdom tooth, which can cause bad breath, pain, and/or infection. For this reason, many dentists recommend surgery to remove wisdom teeth to prevent disease or infection. A developing wisdom tooth, called a bud, is vulnerable to injury for a relatively long time because it is tiny, not covered by bone, and only covered by a thin layer of soft tissue. When a tooth bud first forms, it is no bigger than the diameter of the dental needle itself. The soft tissue surrounding the budding tooth is close to where a needle penetrates when routine dental anesthesia is injected in the lower jaw, for example when treating cavities. Using the Tufts digital dental record system, the researchers identified records of patients who had received treatment in the Tufts pediatric dental clinic between the ages of two and six and who also had a dental x-ray taken three or more years after initial treatment in the clinic. They eliminated records with confounding factors, such as delayed dental development, and analyzed a total of 439 sites where wisdom teeth could develop in the lower jaw, from 220 patient records. Group one, the control group (376 sites), contained x-rays of patients who had not received anesthesia on the lower jaw where wisdom teeth could develop. Group two, the comparison group (63 sites), contained x-rays from patients who had received anesthesia. In the control group, 1.9% of the sites did not have x-ray evidence of wisdom tooth buds. In contrast, 7.9% of the sites in the comparison group - those who had received anesthesia - did not have tooth buds. The comparison group was 4.35 times more likely to have missing wisdom tooth buds than the control group. "The incidence of missing wisdom teeth was significantly higher in the group that had received dental anesthesia; statistical evidence suggests that this did not happen by chance alone. We hope our findings stimulate research using larger sample sizes and longer periods of observation to confirm our findings and help better understand how wisdom teeth can be stopped from developing," Silvestri continued. "Dentists have been giving local anesthesia to children for nearly 100 years and may have been preventing wisdom teeth from forming without even knowing it. Our findings give hope that a procedure preventing third molar growth can be developed." Silvestri has previously published preliminary research on third molar tooth development, showing that third molars can be stopped from developing when non- or minimally-invasive techniques are applied to tooth buds.

Breath Test Reveals Alot

In The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 26 March online issue, researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles report how people with high levels of both hydrogen and methane in their breath are more likely to have a higher body mass index (BMI) and a higher proportion of body fat. They suggest the presence of certain bacteria in the gut causes it to extract more calories from food, adding to weight gain. Lead author Ruchi Mathur, director of the Diabetes Outpatient Treatment and Education Center in the Division of Endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai, says in a statement: "This is the first large-scale human study to show an association between gas production and body weight," adding that "this could prove to be another important factor in understanding one of the many causes of obesity." Mathur and her colleagues tested the exhaled breath of 792 people and found four patterns: normal breath, or breath containing higher levels of methane, higher levels of hydrogen, or higher levels of both gases. And the participants' whose breath had higher levels of both methane and hydrogen were the ones significantly more likely to have a higher BMI and higher proportions of body fat. A gut bacterium called Methanobrevibacter smithii is responsible for most of the methane produced in the human gut. Mathur says that usually bacteria like M. smithii are beneficial because they help extract energy and nutrients from food. But if there is too much M. smithii, it alters the energy balance so as to make the person more likely to put on weight. It does not do this directly, but by the effect it has on neighbouring bacteria, the researchers suggest. M. smithii produces methane by scavenging hydrogen from other microrganisms. The researchers propose that this gives hydrogen- producing bacteria a boost, making them more efficient so as to extract more nutrients and calories from food. It is this, which eventually leads to weight gain, says Mathur. Mathur is also working on another study that seeks to confirm the link between M. smithii, obesity and pre-diabetes. On that study the participants are given a dose of antibiotics to wipe out the bacterium so that researchers can compare how efficiently they digest food when they have the bacterium in their gut to when they do not. Mathur says we are only "beginning to understand the incredibly complex communities that live inside of us". "If we can understand how they affect our metabolism, we may be able to work with these microscopic communities to positively impact our health," she adds. Several examples of the surprising ways gut bacteria influence the human body have emerged in recent years. For instance, an animal study published in the Journal of Proteome Research in February 2012, suggests that gut bacteria may play a role in obesity by slowing down the activity of energy-burning brown fat. And in a study published in February 2013, US scientists describe how gut bacteria form part of a complex system that maintains the body's blood pressure.

Sleep Apena and Children

Obstructive sleep apnea, a common type of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), has been linked to elevated rates of ADHD-like behavioral issues in kids, in addition to learning and adaptive problems. The findings were published in the journal Sleep and came about after a five-year study which analyzed data from a longitudinal cohort called the Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA). The study assessed Caucasian and Hispanic kids ranging in age from 6 to 11 years to measure the incidence and prevalence of SDB and its consequences on neurobehavioral functioning. Michelle Perfect, PhD, the study's lead author and assistant professor in the school psychology program in the department of disability and psychoeducational studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said: "This study provides some helpful information for medical professionals consulting with parents about treatment options for children with SDB that, although it may remit, there are considerable behavioral risks associated with continued SDB. School personnel should also consider the possibility that SDB contributes to difficulties with hyperactivity, learning and behavioral and emotional deregulation in the classroom." The study consisted of 263 kids who participated in a sleep study and a neurobehavioral test of assessments which included youth and parent-documented rating scales. The outcomes revealed that 23 kids had incident sleep apnea that developed during the trial period, while 21 kids had persistent sleep apnea for the entire length of the study. An additional 41 children who started out with sleep apnea stopped having breathing issues during sleep when examined at the five-year follow-up. In children with incident sleep apnea, the risk of having behavioral issues was four to five times higher. In kids with persistent sleep apnea, that risk was six times higher. Compared with children who never experienced SDB, those with sleep apnea were more inclined to have parent-documented issues in the areas of: • attention • disruptive behaviors • hyperactivity • social competency • self-care • communication Kids with persistent sleep apnea were shown to be seven times more likely to have parent-documented learning issues and three times more likely to earn grades of C or under. Research reported at the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in 2010, revealed that the academic grades of children with sleep apnea are worse than students who do not have sleep-related breathing problems. The authors noted that this was the first sleep-related study to utilize a standardized survey to measure adaptive functioning in normal youths with and without SDB.

Flouride in Drinking Water

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Adelaide, Australia, has produced the strongest evidence yet that fluoride in drinking water provides dental health benefits to adults, even those who had not received fluoridated drinking water as children. In the first population-level study of its kind, the study shows that fluoridated drinking water prevents tooth decay for all adults regardless of age, and whether or not they consumed fluoridated water during childhood. Led by UNC School of Dentistry faculty member Gary Slade, the study adds a new dimension to evidence regarding dental health benefits of fluoridation. "It was once thought that fluoridated drinking water only benefited children who consumed it from birth," explained Slade, who is John W. Stamm Distinguished Professor and director of the oral epidemiology Ph.D. program at UNC. "Now we show that fluoridated water reduces tooth decay in adults, even if they start drinking it after childhood. In public health terms, it means that more people benefit from water fluoridation than previously thought." The researchers analyzed national survey data from 3,779 adults aged 15 and older selected at random from the Australian population between 2004 and 2006. Survey examiners measured levels of decay and study participants reported where they lived since 1964. The residential histories of study participants were matched to information about fluoride levels in community water supplies. The researchers then determined the percentage of each participant's lifetime in which the public water supply was fluoridated. The results, published online in the Journal of Dental Research, show that adults who spent more than 75 percent of their lifetime living in fluoridated communities had significantly less tooth decay (up to 30 percent less) when compared to adults who had lived less that 25 percent of their lifetime in such communities. "At this time, when several Australian cities are considering fluoridation, we should point out that the evidence is stacked in favor of long-term exposure to fluoride in drinking water," said Kaye Roberts-Thomson, a co-author of the study. "It really does have a significant dental health benefit."