Lost Wanderer

My short list of advice for maintaining your dental health is:  Brush and floss after every snack and meal.  Water-pick also whenever you can.  Get your teeth checked and cleaned every 6 months.  Get that tool to identify plaque at home (see below).  Don’t suck on citrus fruits.  Don’t chew on ice.  Don’t hold metal nails in your mouth when hammering.  Try to avoid Epstein-Barr.  Don’t drink energy drinks, sports drinks, fitness water, and cola.  For now, drink fluoridated water.  Use xylitol and take vitamin K2.  If you want to use an electric toothbrush, get the oscillating kind.  Get your teeth sealed.   Get amalgam fillings for now, but keep an eye on new materials as they come along.   Drink lemonade or ice tea through a straw, and rinse immediately afterwards, then brush as soon as possible.

Defenders of amalgam fillings point out the following facts:  A person with 7 amalgam fillings (the average) absorbs about 1 microgram of mercury daily.  You get about 6 micrograms a day from food, water, and air. You would need to get around 45 micrograms a day to have the slightest risk of the being able to detect any blood changes signaling the beginnings of mercury’s effects.  A study of Portuguese children showed no evidence of neurological problems from dental fillings.  The findings showed no detectable loss of intelligence, memory, coordination, concentration, nerve conduction, or kidney function during the 5-7 years the children were followed. (Dental Tooth Fillings Containing Mercury Don’t Affect Children’s Brain Development, Study Suggests, Studies Evaluate Health Effects of Dental Amalgam Fillings in Children)  (But, for a contrary view see: Root Canals, Extractions and Mercury Amalgam Fillings)

As far as filling baby teeth, according to a recent literature review there isn’t enough evidence to be able to say which filling materials is best among the various types used. (No Clear Winner Among Fillings For Childhood Cavities, Types of Fillings, and Dental Filling Options – American Dental Association)

Also, dental mercury accounts for less than a quarter of a percent of all environmental mercury pollution.  Currently available composite fillings cause more secondary cavities, sometimes slowly release bisphenol A, may contribute to plaque formation, don’t last nearly as long, cost more, and are often not covered by insurance. (Amalgam Fillings Are Safe, But Skeptics Still Claim Controversy, Researcher Says)  

However, people are still concerned about amalgam, and in the quest to improve dental materials scientists have developed a replacement for it that is made from bile acids.  These are acids that are produced by your liver and stored in your gallbladder.  They claim it is hard, durable, and strongly resistant to cracking.  (Stronger Material For Filling Dental Cavities Has Ingredients From Human Body, and Scientists develop dental filling using bile acids)  And researchers have found that braided polyethylene fibers can be added to non-amalgam composite fillings that will increase their toughness by up to 433%. (Fibers Used In Bullet-proof Vests Quadruple Toughness Of Dental Composites)

Dentists have been using dental sealants with success for years, (Dental Sealants) although some people have questioned their safety. (Dental sealant safety reconsidered – new research fails to find environmental hormone risk)  Sealants work by preventing decay from starting in the nooks and crannies of your teeth.  

Following similar reasoning, researchers have adopted technology from the semiconductor industry that enable them to polish teeth to the nanoscale smooth level.  The idea is that they become too smooth for bacteria to cling to, and then they can be removed easily through brushing.  (New Tooth Cavity Protection: Nanoparticles Make Surface Too Slippery For Bacteria To Adhere)

It turns out that manual toothbrushes work just about as well as electric ones at reducing plaque and gum disease.  Researchers looked at 40 years of research, including 29 high-quality trials, and found that the only electric toothbrushes better than manual ones (by 11% with plaque and by 6% with gingivitis in three-month trial) were those where the head of the toothbrush rotates back and forth in an oscillating motion.  (Manual toothbrushes work just as well)  

I will mention several topics here I have blogged about before.  Xylitol is a naturally occurring sugar in many fruits and vegetables, prevents cavities, and has a very low glycemic index. (Food from Finland, and Xylitol - Lost Wanderer)  Vitamin K2 plays a vital role in the development of facial bones, as well as providing possible protection against cavities.  It normally enters the diet through eating the meat of grass fed – not grain fed - animals.  (Vitamin K2 – Lost Wanderer, On the Trail of the Elusive X-Factor: A Sixty-Two-Year-Old Mystery Finally Solved By Chris Masterjohn)  Periogen is a product that is purported to dissolve tartar. (Dissolve Tartar with Periogen – Lost Wanderer)

I haven’t investigated the issue of fluoridation enough to have an informed opinion.  All I can say is that one side of this debate is either delusional or lying.  Here are some sites that discuss it:  (Fluoride Action Network, Water fluoridation - Wikipedia, Safety – Fluoride Information Network, Community Water Fluoridation – CDC, Is Fluoride Safe? By Charles Wilson, DDS, and 150+ Fluoride Facts, horror stories and cover-ups by Floyd Maxwell, BASc) 

Scientists have developed a device that is used to identify plaque build-up, and has been designed for use in the home.  It is the size of a toothbrush, and has a blue light that is shone in the mouth.  The viewer looks through yellow glasses with a red filter, and they see any plaque as a red glow.  (New Tool To Improve Oral Hygiene Developed) 

Researchers have developed a test that tells the likelihood a child will get cavities.  The test works by looking at the relative proportions in saliva of different types of sugar chains, known as oligosaccharides. (USC Dental Researchers Develop First Test For Predicting Cavities In Children)

Researchers have found that they can repair damaged tooth enamel, in the early stages of decay, by soaking teeth in a solution of calcium, phosphate and fluoride, the three substances that make up tooth enamel.  They found that for the mixture to work the ingredients must be combined with the protein casein phosphopeptide at a pH of 5.5.  It’s applied using a custom fit mouth tray, along with a saliva-proof sealing gel.  They expect it to be available for patients in 5 years.  (New treatment could banish dental fillings)

Dental erosion is when the enamel is stripped from your teeth, causing them to become brittle and painful.  It’s caused by acids from such things as soft drinks, sports drinks, herbal teas, some fruit juices, beer salts, Lucas candy, aspirin, acid reflux, and bulimia.  (More U.S. Teeth Susceptible To Silent Enamel-eating Syndrome)  In one study it turned out that, from worst to least damaging drinks, the order was: lemonade, energy drinks, sports drinks, fitness water, ice tea, and cola.  (New Study Indicates That Popular Sports Beverages Cause More Irreversible Damage To Teeth Than Soda)  I would have thought lemonade and other citrus products were healthy, but apparently not totally, and until more is known people are recommending drinking lemonade through a straw, and rinsing or brushing right after drinking it. (Does consuming too much lemon juice cause harm to tooth enamel?) 

I ran across this video (Cure Tooth Pain) that claims you can stop tooth pain with a mixture of mashed garlic, lemon juice, and salt.  One critic was naturally concerned that the lemon acid would destroy the tooth enamel, and recommended oil of cloves instead.  Another person recommended a hot salt water rinse. 

Some dentists are especially concerned about Mountain Dew.  They argue that this drink is worse than others because of its especially high levels of caffeine and sugar.  They have dubbed the blown out mouths they see, “Mountain Dew Mouth.” (Watch what you Dew! Dentists sounding the alarm about heavy soft-drink consumption among teens) 

It turns out that alkaline substances used in industry can also damage tooth enamel. (Exposure To Alkaline Substances Can Result In Damaged Teeth)  And you are never supposed to hold tacks or nails in your mouth when you are working. 

More than three dozen studies show that dental cavities are not caused by breastfeeding.  It turns out that infant’s cavities are actually caused by a recently discovered type of bacteria, which is called Early Childhood Caries (ECC).  Furthermore, breastfed children are actually less likely to develop this disease than bottle fed children.  ECC correlates with (but is not necessarily caused or caused by): pregnancy complications, traumatic birth, cesarean sections, kidney disease, maternal diabetes, and viral or bacterial infection. For the neonate, risk factors seem to be premature birth, sugary foods, Rh incompatibility, a salty diet, allergies, iron deficiency, gastroenteritis, pacifier use, malnutrition, prenatal exposure to lead, infectious diseases, and chronic diarrhea. (Big Bad Cavities: Breastfeeding Is Not the Cause by Lisa Reagan of The Natural Child Project)

There seems to be no strong research that supports routinely removing disease-free impacted wisdom teeth.  The reasons for this are the difficulty of following a population over 10 to 20 years, and the small number of adults with impacted wisdom teeth, since they are routinely removed.  Of course, this does not mean they shouldn’t be removed, we just don’t know.  (No Wisdom In Routinely Pulling Wisdom Teeth, Study Says)    

Chewing on ice is bad for your teeth because you are subjecting your teeth to a thermal shock when the enamel contracts.  Heat has the opposite thermal shock effect, so drinking hot drinks isn’t ideal either.  And if you have fillings the effect is even worse, since the dental materials will contract or expand differently than the tooth.  It can make for painful teeth, and in the worst case the tooth can fracture. 

If your teeth are sensitive to heat or cold this could also be because you might have a small fracture in a tooth.  Your dentist can test for this possibility.  (Is chewing ICE bad for your teeth?)  

People who have a general sensory sensitivity with their hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch also very often have sensitive teeth.  Such people avoid loud noises, bright lights, perfumes, itchy clothing, and hot and cold foods. (Wear Sunglasses? You May Have Sensitive Teeth)   

It turns out that a desire to chew ice is one symptom of iron deficiency.  Seith Roberts suggests that one of the few crunchy things in the hunter gatherer days were bones, bone marrow has lots of iron, so this desire evolved because it was adaptive. (Pagophagia and the Umami Hypothesis)  

For those who are hoping for a perfect solution to many dental problems, Japanese scientists have been able to grow a new tooth in a mouse.  They did this by taking two types of cells, mesenchymal and epithelial, separately growing large numbers of them, putting them together into a drop of collagen, growing a tiny tooth, and then inserting it into the mouse’s mouth.  The transplant grew into a perfect new tooth.  (Toothless mice can eat again)  Researchers have also been able to regrow mouse teeth from tooth buds extracted from mouse embryos, although in this case the teeth were simpler and with fewer facets.  (Teeth regrown for the first time) Inventors claim that they have developed a device that massages gums with pulsed ultrasonic waves that can grow a toot from a tooth root.  They also say that it can also be used to stimulate bone growth.  (Smile! A new Canadian tool can re-grow teeth say inventors, and How to regrow or repair bad teeth naturally) 

They’ve found mutant chickens with teeth, alligator teeth that is.  The discovery led researchers to speculate that chickens might still have most of the genetic machinery necessary to grow teeth, and they have found that they can induce teeth to grow in normal chickens by changing the expression of certain molecules.  The hope is that this research could one day lead to re-growing teeth in people.  (Mutant Chicken Grows Alligatorlike Teeth)

Since bone loss often causes tooth loss, it seems relevant to mention that scientists have developed an injectable toothpaste-like solution that hardens in the body, and provides a porous biodegradable scaffolding for the formation of new bone.  It works by using a combination of stem cells and growth factors.  (Injectable artificial bone developed)

A research team has developed software that can detect osteoporosis using routine dental x-rays.  The method does this by measuring the thickness of part of the lower jaw.  (Dentists Could Detect Osteoporosis, Automatically)

It’s probably best to avoid getting the Epstein-Barr virus since it has been found to be associated with inflammatory diseases of the mouth. (Epstein-Barr Virus Associated With Inflammatory Diseases Of The Mouth)  

Another oral problem people often have is Halitosis, or bad breath.  (Bad Breath (Halitosis) – ADA)  It can be caused by certain foods, poor dental hygiene, dry mouth, and tobacco products.  It can also be caused by various medical conditions, such as an infection in the respiratory tract, chronic sinusitis, tonsil stones, trimethylaminuria, postnasal drip, chronic bronchitis, diabetes, gastrointestinal disturbance, or a liver or kidney ailment.  If you are on a low carb diet, or fasting, you could develop ketone breath, which happens when ketones build up in your body and are released in the mouth. 

One common piece of advice for managing bad breath is to use a tongue scraper, since bacteria on the back of the tongue is often the source of the problem. (Using a tongue scraper or brush can cure bad breath.)  Other advice is to use a water pick, drink more water, chew gum that is cinnamon flavored and contains xylitol, and to floss. 

Scientists have found that the more oral bacteria you have the higher the risk you have of having a heart attack.  (The More Oral Bacteria, The Higher The Risk Of Heart Attack, Study Shows)  

Besides heart disease there are a number of other conditions associated with poor oral health.  (It’s important to remember that the nature of the relationship in each case might be only correlational, or it might be causal in one direction or the other.  Or it could even be reciprocal.  So, the relationship of each comorbid condition to oral bacteria must be considered separately, although in many of these cases the nature of the relationship is reasonably clear.)   These conditions include Alzheimer’s, premature birth, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, osteoporosis, Sjogren’s syndrome, certain cancers, eating disorders, syphilis, gonorrhea and substance abuse.  (Oral health: A window to your overall health, Diabetes and Oral Health Problems, Dental Health May Influence Alzheimer’s, Gum Disease, Heart Disease, Premature Births, and Vitamin K2 - Lost Wanderer)   

One form of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) might be triggered by a rare reaction to dental metals.  In one Swedish study, 76% of CFS patients who tested positive for metal allergy, on the MELISA blood test, and then had their metal fillings replaced, achieved some or full health improvement.  (Further arguing for some sort of allergic like connection with CFS, it might also be caused by gluten intolerance, celiac disease, and chronic sinusitis.) (Encyclopedia – Chronic fatigue syndrome, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Chronic Mercury Poisoning?)  

From GutBuddies – Safe dental anesthesia for helminth hosts, there is a new type of dental anesthesia available for drug sensitive patients that doesn’t involve any needles or medications, because it works by using cold to numb your teeth.  The gumEase G100 is filled with a chilled saline solution, and fitted around your teeth to cool them to -7 degrees C.  Several of the devices used in sequence will work for almost all normal procedures, its 100% pain relief lasts for up to twenty minutes, and it can also be used post-operatively at home.  The device is FDA approved, currently available for dentists to try, and is probably less expensive than regular anesthesia.  (I wonder about any problems this product might create for patients who have cold sensitive teeth.)  

GumEase is also being tested for relief from tension and migraine headaches (Migraine Headaches - Lost Wanderer), and patients who have tried it report it works for these conditions also.  (Study to Determine Efficacy of gumEase cryoanesthesia Mouthpiece in Treating Migraine and Tension-type Headache Pain without Drugs to Begin)

Your can purchase the gumEase G100 from CryoDevices, or Olympic Dental and Medical Devices.  For dental application it’s about $110 for a box of 10, and for migraines a 3 pack costs about $36.  In the UK you can contact George Harrell at gharrell@cryodevices.com.