Help Improve Your Dental Health

Regular brushing, flossing and checkups are important for good dental health, but there's more you can do to keep your teeth and gums healthy. Read more

Antibiotics, Periodontal Disease, and Cardiovascular Disease

We all know the mouth is a significant contributor to heart attacks and it turns out it is even worse for causing strokes, but what to do about it? Read more

Fear of Dental Fillings?

I'm afraid of going to the dentist. I know it is irrational, but I can't bring myself to go. How can I deal with this fear so that my teeth don't suffer? Read more

Study Links Osteoporosis Drugs to Jaw Trouble

(HealthDay News) -- The proportion of people taking widely prescribed oral osteoporosis drugs who develop a nasty jaw condition may be much higher than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Previous reports had indicated that the risk of developing osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) from bisphosphonates in pill form were "negligible," although there was a noted risk in people taking the higher-dose intravenous form of the drug.

But Dr. Parish Sedghizadeh, an assistant professor of clinical dentistry at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, said his clinic is seeing one to four new cases a week, compared to one a year in the past. This led him to investigate the phenomenon and publish the findings in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.

"This is more frequent than everybody would like to think it is," said Sedghizadeh, lead author of the study.

ONJ is characterized by pain, soft-tissue swelling, infection, loose teeth and exposed bone.

Dr. James Liu, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at MacDonald Women's Hospital at Case Medical Center, University Hospitals in Cleveland, said the finding "does not mean that women should stop taking the drug if they're on it. It does mean that there may be more frequent side effects than was previously known."

Bisphosphonates are medications used to reduce the risk of bone fracture and to increase bone mass in people with osteoporosis. They're also used to slow bone "turnover" in people who have cancer that has spread to their bones, and in people who have the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

Use of bisphosphonates has been associated with other problems in the past, including an increased risk of atrial fibrillation (a type of abnormal heart rhythm), unusual fractures of the thigh bone, and inflammatory eye disease.

After searching the USC School of Dentistry's electronic medical records database, the study authors found that nine of 208 patients taking Fosamax had active ONJ, a prevalence of about 4 percent. All were patients who had undergone some kind of dental procedure, such as having a tooth removed.

Fosamax (alendronate) is the most widely prescribed oral bisphosphonate and has been the 21st most prescribed drug in the United States since 2006, according to background information in the study.

The jaw complication has been seen in patients taking Fosamax for as little as one year. It seems to occur most frequently after routine tooth extraction, the study authors said.

Although no one is sure why bisphosphonates seem to have this effect only on jaw bones, Sedghizadeh speculated that the drugs may make it easier for bacteria to adhere to bone that is exposed after a tooth extraction.

Previously, experts had thought that ONJ in people taking intravenous bisphosphonates was related to their underlying condition (for example, cancer) than to the actual drug, Liu explained.

The USC School of Dentistry now screens every patient for bisphosphonate use.

"As a school now, we don't have complications any more, we only have referrals," Sedghizadeh said. "We put patients on anti-microbial, anti-fungal rinse one week pre-operatively or post-operatively. If they have been on bisphosphonates six months or a year or longer, then we have a prevention protocol which has been very, very effective."

According to a statement released by Merck & Co., which makes Fosamax, the new study "has material methodological flaws and scientific limitations, making it unreliable as a source for valid scientific conclusions regarding the prevalence of ONJ in patients taking alendronate."

No reports of ONJ have been noted in controlled trials involving more than 17,000 patients, the statement said.

More information
To learn more about ONJ, visit the American Dental Association.

Scientists Find Gene for Tooth Enamel

(HealthDay News) -- A gene that plays a role in immune function and the development of skin and the nervous system also controls the production of tooth enamel, Oregon State University researchers have found.

Their discovery about the gene Ctip2 (a transcription factor) could lead to new methods of repairing damaged enamel and preventing cavities, restoring teeth or even producing replacement teeth.

"It's not unusual for a gene to have multiple functions, but before this, we didn't know what regulated the production of tooth enamel," Chrissa Kioussi, an assistant professor in the college of pharmacy at Oregon State, said in a university news release. "This is the first transcription factor ever found to control the formation and maturation of ameloblasts, which are the cells that secrete enamel."

Kioussi and her colleagues studied baby mice in which the Ctip2 gene had been "knocked out" and its protein was missing. The mice had rudimentary teeth ready to erupt, but the teeth lacked the proper enamel coating and would never have been functional.

The findings appear in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using this new information about Ctip2, it might be possible to use tooth stem cells to stimulate the growth of new teeth, Kioussi said. She noted that some researchers have successfully grown the inner portions of teeth in laboratory animal experiments, but the teeth had no hard coatings because the scientists didn't know which gene controlled enamel growth.

"A lot of work would still be needed to bring this to human applications, but it should work," Kioussi said. "It could be really cool -- a whole new approach to dental health."

Many people have problems with eroded tooth enamel, and most cavities start as a hole in tooth enamel that allows decay to begin.

More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about oral health.

Health Tip: Prevent Bleeding Gums

(HealthDay News) -- Bleeding gums can occur because teeth haven't been properly brushed and flossed, or as a side effect of conditions including leukemia, scurvy or vitamin K deficiency.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine offers these suggestions to help keep gums healthy:

• Don't smoke or use other forms of tobacco.
• Take vitamin supplements, as recommended by your doctor.
• Don't take aspirin, unless your doctor advises otherwise.
• If medication is causing your gums to bleed, ask your doctor about possible alternatives.
• Massage your gums gently with an oral irrigation tool. Set the device on low.
• Make sure dentures fit properly, and talk to your dentist if they cause bleeding or soreness.
• If your gums do bleed, wet a gauze pad with ice water and hold it to the affected area.
  
  
  

Dental Spa

Just as it exactly sounds, Bangkok Smile Dental Spa is a unique dental practice that offers the combination of high quality dental service with the specialized relaxation of spa services and treatments. Can you imagine that visiting the dentist might one day be regarded as a treat, a pleasant session in which you’re pampered by personal attention before a little relaxing laser tooth whitening , root canal or surgical work? Dental Spa is your choice.

As well as dental treatment, a range of other treatments, such as massages, aromatherapies , hydrotherapies and facials are available, all against a backdrop of relaxing mood music and images. There’s a serious medical purpose behind this, beyond the need to get more people through the door and more income for the practice: there’s good reason to think that a relaxed patient is one who suffers less and whose treatment is more effective. Continue Reading >>

About Dr. Weston A. Price

In the early 1930s, a Cleveland dentist named Weston A. Price (1870-1948) began a series of unique investigations. For over ten years, he traveled to isolated parts of the globe to study the health of populations untouched by western civilization. His goal was to discover the factors responsible for good dental health. His studies revealed that dental caries and deformed dental arches resulting in crowded, crooked teeth are the result of nutritional deficiencies, not inherited genetic defects. Continue Reading >>

The 3 1/2 Year Success Of Root Canal Cover-Up

The Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation was organized on September 11, 1965, in order to make Dr. Weston A. Price's monumental work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration available to the public. This book clearly demonstrated to the world that human physical degeneration was basically a nutritional problem. The book made Dr. Price famous.

During the last 31 years, the Foundation has reprinted Nutrition and Physical Degeneration eight times, in order to meet the growing interest in his work.

The Foundation has also had custodial care of Dr. Price's vast dental research data. Documenting his incredible accomplishments are 220 articles, which can be found in the dental and medical literature, along with two additional books. Unfortunately, until recently, Price's dental research remained unknown.

Much of Price's research is contained in two monumental volumes entitled Dental Infections Oral & Systemic and Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases. While these works have long been in the PPNF library, it was only just four years ago that the Foundation became aware of their importance. These volumes have moldered in obscurity because Dr. Price's research was suppressed and buried over 70 years ago by the autocratic action of a minority group of dentists and physicians who refused to accept the focal infection theory. Continue Reading >>

Dr. Sorin on Dental Health

Dr. Robert M. Sorin, DMD, discusses his comprehensive, integrated approach to your dental health.