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,...
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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Conventional mouthwashes tend to be indiscriminate. Like many an antibiotic, they kill lots of helpful bacteria right along with the harmful ones. And that can have ripple effects throughout the body. Consider the small but compelling study just published in...
If you’re using a conventional over-the-counter mouthwash on a regular basis, you could be raising your risk of diabetes – or so research suggests. Consider, for instance, the 2017 study in the journal Nitric Oxide. For it, researchers tracked health data from 1206...
You hear more and more these days about probiotics – friendly bacteria that promote good health. One of the more important things they do is help keep harmful bacteria from taking over, essentially by crowding them out. In the mouth, this helps prevent gum disease...
Many of us have been conditioned to think of bacteria as the enemy. Antibacterial products are big business, as folks strive to keep their environment and body as antiseptic as possible. But is this the right approach? After all, not all bacteria are harmful. A...
Just because a health problem is labeled “genetic” doesn’t mean that you’re fated to get it. Genes are potential…until they’re triggered. And this is why there’s so much preventive power in lifestyle choices – the food we eat, the habits we keep. Twins provide 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...