Not news: Sugar contributes to tooth decay. After all, sugar is the favorite food of harmful bacteria and other microbes that live in your mouth. And it’s not just the white crystal stuff you may be envisioning, but all foods that are digested as sugar, such as...
Originally posted April 14, 2021 “Avoid nitrates,” we’re told, as if all nitrates were alike. But plenty of perfectly healthy foods contain them naturally: beets, radishes, turnips, leafy green vegetables, onion, garlic, apples, watermelon, grapes, and more. No,...
There are lots of reasons why so much sugar gets added to ultra-processed food products. Adding sweetness is only the most obvious one. Sugar is also used as a preservative and to help fermentation along. It can act as a coloring or bulking agent. It can modify...
Probiotics have an important role to play in your oral health. As a new [2020] paper in the Journal of Functional Foods notes, Recent studies including clinical trials strongly suggest the active role of probiotics in prevention and treatment of oral infections,...
Oral health and gut health are inseparable. Each one affects the other. This is particularly so with gum disease, a condition that can ultimately lead to bone loss in the jaw. That bone loss sets the stage for tooth loss. It’s long been thought that the cause of...
But let’s get back to the subject of real sugar, the favorite food of harmful oral bacteria (as well as something craved by many of the humans who host them!). They love the stuff - and, of course, what goes in must go out. Their metabolic waste is incredibly...
Even when you’re not speaking, your tongue has tales to tell. Consider, for instance, the research presented in 2020 at Heart Failure Association (HFA) Discoveries, a platform for the European Society of Cardiology. Scientists found that heart patients’ tongues...
The dental benefit you get from eating healthfully isn’t all about avoiding the foods that can lead to decay and gum disease, although that’s a part of it. Nor is it just about giving your teeth, gums, and bone the nutrients they need, although that’s a part of it,...
“Avoid nitrates,” we’re told, as if all nitrates were alike. But plenty of perfectly healthy foods contain them naturally: beets, radishes, turnips, leafy green vegetables, onion, garlic, apples, watermelon, grapes, and more. No, what the infamous “they” are...
Every few years, it seems there’s a big freakout about how your toothbrush could be speckled with bits of fecal matter courtesy of open-lid toilet flushes. It’s no wonder, really. A poo-covered toothbrush isn’t particularly nice to think about. Only, your brush may...
When a study has yet to be peer reviewed, you should take it with a proverbial grain of salt. But if new research out of U Mass proves to be correct, it offers another nice reminder of how the mouth is a window to the body. Our earlier post about COVID severity and...
There are more than a few reasons you might give for why water fluoridation is bad policy. For one, any benefit it gives comes from applying it directly to the teeth, not swallowing it. You might also note the lack of rigorous evidence in support of the practice or...
While 2020 is a year that a good many of us would probably prefer to forget, there are also things that make it worth remembering. For one, it’s the year that the FDA changed its tune on mercury amalgam, recommending against its use in about 60% of the US...
A new study has added yet more evidence that vaping changes the oral microbiome - and not for the better. "The oral microbiome is of interest to us because research shows that changes in its microbial community as a result of environmental and host factors...
Even when you’re not speaking, your tongue has tales to tell. Consider the research recently presented at the online event Heart Failure Association (HFA) Discoveries, a platform for the European Society of Cardiology. Scientists found that heart patients’ tongues...
Probiotics have an important role to play in your oral health. As a new paper in the Journal of Functional Foods notes, Recent studies including clinical trials strongly suggest the active role of probiotics in prevention and treatment of oral infections, including...
You probably already know vaping isn’t great for you, but you might still think it’s less harmful than smoking. For that, you can thank a whole lot of marketing from the vape companies, much of which is directed at young people. But a new study in Science...
In these days of working to stop the spread of COVID-19, most dental offices are closed for everything except for urgent or emergency care. And when they do need to treat patients, more dentists are having them rinse with chlorhexidine before procedures as an extra...
You may have heard about the links between gum disease and heart disease, diabetes, even rheumatoid arthritis. Psoriasis? Maybe not. Until now. For a study published last summer, researchers sought to “explore the relationship between psoriasis and a combination...
It’s been nearly a 100 years since J. Kilian Clarke of St. Mary’s Hospital in London first described one bacterium he found to be “fairly constantly present in early carious lesions.” He called it Streptococcus mutans. S. mutans is “an extremely active producer of...