One thing we can all be grateful for this Thanksgiving is the start of a holiday season that’s a little more like what we’re used to. Of course, this one brings its own particular stresses - extra travel hassles, higher prices - but it’s still an improvement over...
Ask any person how to keep their teeth and gums healthy, and you’re apt to hear about brushing, flossing, and limiting sugar. An answer you might not hear is “sleep.” Yet a good amount of research supports the idea, with some studies finding lack of sleep even more...
This week, we're swapping posts with another biological dental office, Pride Dental in Arlington, TX. Our thanks to them for letting us share this post on the Tooth/Body blog - and for sharing our recent post on turmeric and gum health with their patients and other...
If you ever had any doubt of just how much vitamin C matters to oral and whole body health alike, check out this 16th century English surgeon’s description of scurvy, a/k/a extreme vitamin C deficiency: Their gums were rotten even to the very roots of their teeth,...
Sometimes called “Indian saffron” because of its bright yellow color, turmeric has long been known for its antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory powers. In fact, it’s been used in medicine for nearly 4000 years. Science has shown that the dominant...
One of the most commonly given reasons for skipping regular dental visits is the cost. Yet there’s also a cost to forgoing care. For one, it considerably raises the risk of developing gum disease, caries (tooth decay), and other problems - problems that only get...
Prevention is the best medicine, especially when it comes to gum disease, which affects nearly all adults. For it’s not just a matter of keeping your teeth in your mouth - untreated periodontal disease ultimately means tooth loss - but also supporting your whole...
Since the pandemic began, plenty of research has suggested a role for the mouth in how COVID happens - particularly that good oral health and hygiene may be protective to some degree, at least lessening the risk of severe illness. Now, a new paper in the Journal of...
While it might seem like the links between gum disease and other inflammatory conditions is something that’s only been recently discovered, some of them have been known for many decades. Researchers were talking about the oral/heart health relationship way back in...
Since the start of the pandemic, there’s been a fair amount of talk about how spiking stress levels seem to have contributed to more dental problems. More than 70% of dentists surveyed saw an increase of patients experiencing teeth grinding and clenching,...
A Mediterranean diet is an anti-inflammatory one, so you’d think that it might be especially helpful in lowering the risk of gum disease, which is marked by chronic inflammation and linked with other inflammatory conditions. That’s exactly what a new study in the...
Once upon a time, if you said that conditions in the mouth could have any kind of impact on whole body health, folks might have looked at you funny. Because of the historic divide between dentistry and medicine, the mouth was long treated almost as if it didn’t...
When you go to give blood, you’re screened for risk factors that could make the donation unsafe. Donations are also tested for bacteria, viruses, and such - tests which must all be negative before the blood can be used for a transfusion. But if a new study is...
As the pandemic continues, some folks remain nervous about visiting the dentist. Yet there are still no documented cases of patients becoming infected through dental care. In the US, less than 1% of dentists have found to be COVID-positive. More, international...
Maybe the best thing you could say about vaping is that some evidence suggests that it may help some adults quit regular cigarettes - emphasis on the word “some.” In fact, over half of adult e-cigarette users also use conventional tobacco products. In young adults,...
For lots of us, the holidays are a time of amped up stress - although this year, it might be hard to tell the difference between holiday stress and what we’ve all grappled with throughout this wildly challenging year. The American Psychological Association reports...
When it comes to your health and well-being, what you eat matters, as a recent study in PLOS Medicine reminds. The research team set out to answer two basic questions: 1) Can a healthy diet offset the effects of obesity on mortality?, and 2) Can normal weight...
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...
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...
At the start of this week, word went out to smokers and vapers that their habits may increase the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 - not that this is at all surprising. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. Smoking and vaping hurt the lungs and weaken the immune...