There was a sobering headline on Bloomberg last week: According to the latest statistics, we now spend nearly $10,000 on healthcare per person each year, yet our life expectancy is far lower than dozens of other developed nations. We’re number one in the world in...
Late last week, the internet went temporarily crazy with headlines like this one: Unfortunately, that’s not exactly what the paper being reported on was all about. The paper was an advisory from the American Heart Association on dietary fats and heart disease, and...
If you’re like most, you get lots of health screenings from lots of providers each year. Gynecologists run annual Pap smears. Urologists screen for prostate cancer. Primary care physicians conduct annual physicals to look for all kinds of potential health concerns....
Meet the parotid gland: It’s the largest of your salivary glands, and there’s one on each side of your mouth. They’re on the insides of your cheeks, just in front of your ears. That makes them particularly vulnerable to cellphone radiation. Through the years, a...
If your life demands that you gulp down your food and hit the ground running, a new study suggests that the old admonishment to “chew your food” is good advice. Turns out, the simple act of chewing your food before swallowing it can boost your immune system....
It’s a new year – a time when, like a lot of people, you may be considering a fresh start in many areas of your life. Health goals are most common – losing weight, exercising more, cutting back on sugar, meditating, relaxing, increasing leisure time or developing a...
One thing we are deeply grateful for this Thanksgiving is our patients. We appreciate the trust they place in us. We’re honored that they’ve chosen our office out of many to provide for their oral health care needs. So to our patients, we say thank you. Each and...
If you’ve got chronic acid reflux or GERD, chances are you’ve wound up with a scrip for a proton pump inhibitor (PPI). From a dental standpoint, there’s good sense in controlling reflux. After all, the stomach acid can destroy the enamel on your teeth, leaving the...
If you’re like most people, you’ve at least partly internalized the “expert view” that divorces your teeth from your body, acting as though they have nothing to do with each other. You don’t have to justify the split. After all, the body is an incredibly complex...
This is for all the smokers out there, particularly cigarette smokers. It’s also for all of you out there who love someone who smokes. We know you’re out there. Missouri has one of the highest smoking rates in the country. This is not, we repeat not, a lecture. You...
We live in a tech-driven environment, able to virtually be in many places at once. While this can simplify many aspects of our lives, it also means we’re not always inhabiting the space we’re in. Our minds are always elsewhere. Over time, this lack of attention and...
It’s never fun to lose a tooth. Though extraction may relieve your pain, no one enjoys being at the end of all options. Losing a tooth is hard – really hard. The resulting gap can be unsightly. Your ability to chew food may change. Over time, your teeth may shift,...
Our thanks to the office of Dr. Vern Erwin for letting us share this post from their blog. Seems not a day goes by that you don’t hear something about how the microbes in your gut are key to overall health. But while you’re deciding how to feed it the healthy...
We don’t have to tell you the importance of oral health on overall health because, chances are, you’re already doing what you need to do to stay healthy. When it comes to your teeth, you brush, floss, schedule routine dental visits, and do your best to eat well....
Last year, “vaping” was one of the new words that made the Oxford English Dictionary just a tiny bit fatter. No surprise, really. The popularity of e-cigarettes has only gone up, offering the opportunity to inhale vapor rather than the smoke of traditional...
For some of us, when it comes to coffee, we can’t get enough. Sure, coffee is one of those beverages that goes in and out of favor with regard to health. Just within the past week, we’ve been told that parents’ coffee consumption may raise risk of...
Whether you bake, boil, roast or fry them, potatoes are the most eaten vegetable in the United States. (Tomatoes come in a distant second.) It might be that the ruddy spud, wholesome in appearance, cheap to eat, is a perfect medium. Butter, bacon, cheese, sour...
It’s not a fact we should be proud of: Missouri has one of the highest smoking rates in the country. This has big implications for dental health. After all, tobacco use is the number one risk factor for gum disease. On top of that, recent research suggests that...
There’s one moment during a dental hygiene visit that a whole lot of people dread: the moment when the dentist or hygienist asks about your flossing habits. Some tell the truth. Others dance around the question. Some sheepishly admit the truth and promise to start...
By Michael G. Rehme, DDS, CCN Working in the oral cavity can certainly create some interesting challenges. We are constantly fighting a battle with infections that are found in the soft tissue and/or the underlining bone structures. These infections can come from...