We recently stumbled across a kind of interesting study on how patients understand gum disease and how dentists address it. A fairly impressive 74% of the 224 patients who took part said that they understood gingival health to be very important. (“Gingiva” is the...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, NMD, CCN Is it possible that your teeth have a biological effect on other parts of your body? To understand this concept, let's consider the therapeutic effects of Chinese acupuncture. Chinese acupuncture believes there is a universal life...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, NMD, CCN During a patient's first visit to our office and at their hygiene appointments, we always use pH test paper to test the saliva. This very simple test provides us with valuable information. It helps us evaluate both an individual's...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, NMD, CCN A recent dental journal article I read described, at length, the oral/systemic connection, i.e. the influence the teeth and gums have on the whole body (the "system") and vice-versa. It referred to the overwhelming attention this...
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...
Though dentistry and medicine are still treated largely as separate spheres, most Americans acknowledge the link between oral and whole body health. As the latest survey on such things tells us, 92% of adults and 96% of parents say oral health is very or extremely...
Oxygen. Food. Water. Sleep. These are non-negotiable. Sure, we can exist for a certain amount of time without them, but after a point, you run into trouble. Stop breathing, say, for more than a few minutes, and brain damage starts to occur. Similarly, you need...
By now, you’re probably well aware of the risk factors for complications from COVID-19 - age, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and such. Yet as a recent paper in BDJ notes, such risk factors “do not account for the other 52% of deaths arising from COVID-19 in...
Last week, the Sugar Association - an industry group - filed a petition with the FDA, asking them to “ensure all sugar content claims related to sugar and sugar substitutes are truthful and non-misleading.” To this end, they want every ingredient that sweetens your...
The link between diabetes and gum disease is pretty straightforward: Have one, and you’re more likely to have the other. Both conditions are rampant in the US, with about half of all adults having some degree of gum disease and 34.2 million having diabetes....
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...
A healthy lifestyle - including great oral hygiene - is invaluable for reducing your risk of the chronic diseases so prevalent in the 21st century. That includes cancer, which a recent editorial in Harvard Public Health notes is poised to overtake heart disease as...
One of the big challenges of gum disease is that it’s easy to overlook symptoms until the disease has progressed quite a bit. There’s typically no pain, and even tell-tale signs such as puffy gums or blood when you brush and floss aren’t apparent in every case....
Chronic inflammation is one of the common denominators of gum disease and systemic illness. But “systemic” includes more than just physical conditions but mental, as well. Through recent years, there’s been a rising tide of both medical and media interest in the...
If you could stand side-by-side at a mirror with one of your distant ancestors, one thing you might notice is that your mouth is a whole lot smaller than theirs. The question of why is at the heart of a new book by orthodontist Sandra Kahn and biologist Paul R....
While acute inflammation is a necessary part of the immune response and healing process, chronic inflammation is another story. Chronic inflammation is what happens when the inflammatory response doesn’t stop as it should. It keeps on keeping on, like a...
We’ve known for a long time that diabetes and gum disease often occur together. Now new research continues to show just how strong that association is. For instance, one recent study of more than 300 dental patients found that those with gum disease were more...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, CCN Removing a tooth is certainly an unfortunate event for a patient both physically and emotionally. However, having the tooth properly extracted may prevent health related complications from occurring in years to come. There are two...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, CCN That's a strange question to ask - or is it? Did you know that most metals found in your mouth have the ability to create an electrical charge? This charge can be responsible for numerous side effects that are rarely associated with...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, CCN If you ask most people, "What do your teeth have to do with your overall health and wellness?" the answer most likely given is, "I never really thought about it," or "I didn't know that my teeth had anything to do with my overall...