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,...
It’s been known for a while that social isolation may interfere with a person’s health and well-being. Research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity,...
Good nutrition is key to mouth/body health, and that means opting for real food, not the ultra-processed junk that continues to dominate many Americans’ diets. Lab-made creations such as chips, hot dogs, enriched bagels and American cheese have been a staple of the...
Consider this: Roughly half of all American adults have some degree of gum disease. Now consider this: Most of the top 10 causes of death these days are conditions that science has shown to be linked with gum disease. Just how much poor periodontal health raises...
Is there anyone - cranky contrarians aside - who wasn’t ready to bid “good riddance” to 2021 this past weekend? Before we close the door on yet another strange and often challenging year, though, we want to take one last look back on what transpired on this blog...
If you’ve got receding gums, you’re far from alone. About half of adults under age 65 do - and 88% of seniors - usually a result of things like clenching or grinding, smoking, oral piercings, or just brushing or flossing too aggressively. But while gum recession is...
Just as we were finishing up work on our blog post for this week, we got some terrific news from Charlie Brown at Consumers for Dental Choice. So we quickly decided to shift gears for this week and instead share the news with you. The headline on that news item? #1...
Your body has a natural ability to heal. You see it, for instance, any time you get a cut, scratch, or scrape. You bleed, and the blood clots to close the wound. Inflammation kicks in to clean and heal the site. New tissue is created. There are things we can do to...
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...
Here’s the thing about tooth enamel: Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Your body doesn’t have any way to grow more of the stuff. So we stress nutrition to support ongoing remineralization of that enamel and keep both mouth and body more alkaline than acidic, among other...
You gotta admit, it’s a headline just tempting you to click: Trouble is, the study being reported on doesn’t actually tell you what that headline promises. What it does say is that, when it comes to preventing plaque-induced gum disease, some home hygiene practices...
It’s been just over a year since the FDA finally changed its tune on dental mercury. They now advise against it for “certain groups of people,” including pregnant and nursing mothers, those who plan on getting pregnant, children, people with neurological diseases...
Most of your adult teeth come in before you’re a teenager. So why the big delay in getting your wisdom teeth - something not seen in other primates? A new study in Science Advances offers an explanation at last. To solve the riddle, researchers created 3D...
If only one or two studies provided evidence of fluoride’s harm to the developing brain, you might not think much of it, but in fact, dozens of published studies have done so. The latest, published a couple months ago in NeuroToxicity, followed 103 mother/child...
As any celebrity would, actor Stanley Tucci has been hitting the media circuit to promote his newest projects - in this case, a book and a TV series. But in the course of a recent interview for Virgin America’s inflight magazine, he also spent some time talking...
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...
Ozone is powerful stuff for fighting infection, reducing pain, and promoting healing. Yet according to a recent review of the research, it doesn't seem to be quite up to disinfecting a root canal treated tooth. Overall, the results demonstrated that ozone therapy...
Though some American dentists continue to fill teeth with mercury amalgam, about half no longer do. That’s some serious progress in our fight for a mercury-free future! And they’re not just holistic or biological dentists. They’re dentists who have seen the global...
Evidence shows the risk that “silver” mercury amalgam fillings pose to human and environmental health. Even the FDA now advises against them for roughly two-thirds of Americans. Still, many dentists prefer it, especially for filling the back teeth - teeth that...
We all know that spinach is what gave Popeye his amazing strength. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxO758l7JVM But have you ever wondered why spinach and not some other vegetable? Back in 1870, Erich von Wolf, a German chemist, examined the amount of iron...