Happy New Year! #2017

Happy 2017!  It's a new year and a common time to be a new you.  In fact, a recent Marist poll shows that the number one resolution for 2017 is to be a better person.  Losing weight and exercising more, eating better, improving health, and spending less are most people's top goals this year.

We at Fifty-Seven 57 Dental want to help you achieve your New Year's Resolutions!  A healthier you includes a healthy mouth, so be sure to keep your teeth pearly white this year by going to your routine dental exams and cleanings.

Eating well can help keep your teeth healthy, too.  Cutting down on sugary foods and drinks is important for dental health and overall health.  Leafy greens are not only low in calories, but can be good sources of calcium, which helps strengthen teeth, and folic acid, which may help prevent gum disease.  You can find a nice summary of waist and tooth friendly foods here.

Ensuring routine care of your teeth may also help save money.  Generally speaking, preventing problems or addressing them when they first are known is typically easier (and less costly) than waiting until they become bigger concerns.  I tell this story to my patients all the time: when I was in high school (or maybe college ... it was a long time ago!), the door handle to my mother's Honda got stuck to the point where we would have to jimmy it in a particular series of directions to get it to open.  When my father learned of the cost, he said he'd wait to fix it.  A few months later, the door would not open at all, and with three daughters to taxi around, it became a somewhat emergent situation.  Not only did my parents need to pay the amount to fix the door and door handle that they were originally quoted, but the mechanics had to take the door off, too, requiring extra time and labor costs!  In the same way that it's easier to fix a door handle than to take off the entire door to fix the handle, it's easier (and less annoying, less visits, etc., etc.) to have a cleaning/fluoride treatment/filling than a root canal!

I can't help too much with the exercising more resolution, unless you want to walk to our practice!  Or maybe take a walk through nearby Central Park afterwards.  Other than that, you may want to check out this article, which may hold the key to explaining why some people love and other people detest exercise.  (Spoiler alert: blame or thank your parents!  There's a good chance this is an innate love or hate that is influenced by variation in your dopamine receptors.)

Are Your Teeth Naughty or Nice?

With the holidays upon us, I wanted to take some time to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and help you decide which holiday treats are mouth healthy and which are not.   A recent online article listed some foods to avoid, and I would like to reiterate and add my own opinions to the list.

Alcohol can dry your mouth, so be sure to also drink some water in between sips of eggnog.

 Perhaps no candy is more synonymous with the holidays than candy canes!  Refreshing and delicious, the candy cane is also hard and tacky, so not only might it break a tooth, but the candy will stick in the grooves of your teeth, too.  Even if you don’t crunch down on this peppermint treat, you can also damage your teeth by bathing them in a sugary solution should you enjoy the candy cane by sucking on it.  This is true of all hard candies.

Starchy foods can be deceptively damaging.  Not only can foods like chips and jelly donuts stick in the grooves of your teeth, but they can easily lodge between your teeth, so be sure to brush AND floss after a holiday party.

Desserts are best enjoyed after meals when salivary flow is increased and is more likely to wash away food particles and can help neutralize sugars and acids.

Enjoy what you want, but do it in moderation.

If you would like to foster healthy tooth habits with a young one during the holidays, you can download Hermey the Elf’s Healthy Teeth Checklist here!

Common Dental Problems

A recent Huffington Post article discussed six common dental problems that we face as we get older.  The good news is that we are all living longer!  The bad news is that we only get one set of teeth, and they age with us.  But more good news: many issues that plague aging dentition can be corrected or prevented.  If you are afflicted with any of these common dental problems, call or email us and we would love to help you out!

Love and Politics

This has nothing to do with teeth, but I found this Washington Post article, written this past summer, interesting and topical, with Election Day coming soon!  No matter your party affiliation, don't forget to vote!

Healthy Halloween Habits

It’s Halloween!  Or, as I like to call it, Job Security Day.  It is estimated that we eat almost 3.5 pounds of candy on Halloween; that’s a lot of sugar!  I love sugar (many of my patients know that I love a frozen Snickers), but it has the potential to damage your teeth.  Below are a few things you and your family can do to enjoy the Halloween bounty and stay mouth healthy.

• Eat more chocolate!  Hard candies prolong the amount of time the sugar stays in your mouth.  As it mixes with saliva, it is almost bathing your teeth in sugar.  Sticky and gummy candies increase risk of cavities by sticking to your teeth for a long time.  Sticky candies are also more difficult to wash away from the tooth surface.  Sour candies might be the worst type, though, as the added citric acid weakens tooth enamel.  However, chocolate is more easily washed away, so think of this as another benefit of eating chocolate (well, at least as compared to other candies).

• Eat Halloween candy with or shortly after main meals.  More saliva is produced when eating, so the increased salivary flow can help wash away the sugary treats.

• Limit your intake.  Like almost everything else, sugary foods are best enjoyed in moderation.

• Drink water after eating Halloween candy.  If you can’t easily get to a toothbrush and toothpaste, drinking water after eating can help wash away food particles.  It helps clean your mouth AND has no calories!

• Brush and floss your teeth.  Obviously, it is still important to brush and floss.

Of course, you can always ask me any questions you have about how your diet can affect your teeth.  And if you want, check out the American Dental Association’s tips on having a mouth-healthy Halloween.  Have a good Halloween and stay safe.  And don’t forget to brush and floss!

Sex! .... And Oral Cancer

A recent article in the Washington Post that oral cancer is becoming more prevalent in men.  The data, culled from insurance claims, shows a 61% increase in oral cancer in men from 2011 to 2015.  The article suggests that the prevalence of Human Papilloma Virus (“HPV”) is part of the reason. 

HPV is a group of viruses named for the warts (papillomas) it can sometimes cause.   There are some strains of HPV that can also lead to cervical, anal, penile, and even oral cancers.  HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection, or STI; in fact, it is so common, that most sexually active men and women have been exposed to it.  Oftentimes, there are no symptoms of HPV infection, and one can exhibit symptoms long after exposure.  The good news is that many HPV infections do go away, and do not cause cancer.

The Post’s article reports that although smoking rates have fallen, oral cancer incidence has increased.  (Smoking, drink, and the two combined have traditionally been thought of as the main risk factors of oral cancer.  There is no discussion of vaping or e-cigarettes in this article.)  The article reports the findings of a study following young people that found a higher prevalence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma caused by HPV16 in men compared to women, and that men were less likely to clear HPV infection.  (There are other data from this study that I won’t discuss here.)

One of the reasons for the rise in oral cancer is that more young men and women engage in oral sex, thinking that it is safer, and, of course, oral sex cannot result in a pregnancy.  The Post also discusses that younger men are also more likely to have more partners than older men.  

The most important takeaway from this data and article is that disease does not discriminate.  Risk factors such as tobacco use and drinking, while still important, are not the sole predictors.  It’s also important to recognize that HPV affects men, too (remember: HPV is an equal opportunity infector).  I am happy to discuss more about oral cancer and HPV with all my patients, and strongly encourage you to also consult with your physicians as well should you have any questions.

You can read more information about HPV at the Center for Disease Control’s Fact Sheet.  And you can purchase the original study through the Journal of Infectious Disease’s website here

Do I Really Need to Floss?

Since the summer, many patients have been asking me if they really need to floss.  No doubt encouraged by the many articles suggesting that flossing may not be necessary, I instantly broke the hearts of men and women when I highly encouraged my patients continue flossing.  I’m not a researcher, but I can tell you that, anecdotally, I can usually tell when my patients don’t floss or when they’ve been lax about it.  My coworkers have memorized what I tell patients about flossing: it’s like weight lifting; it hurts at first, but the more you do it, the stronger your gums get.  They know I tell my patients how I myself keep spools of floss scattered about my apartment to remind me to floss because I don’t like flossing either.

            But flossing your teeth is important because it helps remove food and plaque between teeth, where toothbrushes have difficulty reaching.  Floss also helps remove food trapped under the gums between these teeth as well.  So flossing, like brushing, helps break up the colonies of plaque that stick to your teeth.  Once this gunk, or biofilm, is removed, however, the bacterial colonies start to repopulate your teeth again, which is why my colleagues and I recommend you brush and floss your teeth daily. 

The recent mainstream articles seem to gloss over periodontitis.  Periodontitis is a disease affecting the gums and bone surrounding teeth.  Periodontitis can lead to infections and loss of teeth and its surrounding bone.  While flossing cannot cure periodontitis, it can help arrest the disease process at gingivitis, which is another reason I still encourage flossing.

While perhaps most of these studies are flawed, by design or execution, I want to make clear that the studies have not proven that flossing is not beneficial.  (Unless, of course, you are cutting into your gums with the floss; don’t do that!)   The Associated Press’s story contains links to the original studies if you’re interested in reading them.  Also worth mentioning is that the main review consulted in the AP’s article finds that flossing in conjunction with brushing is more effective in reducing gingivitis than brushing alone.  There has also been a study showing a decrease in cavities between teeth when professionals routinely flossed children’s teeth and administered fluoride, so maybe we just aren’t flossing effectively at home.

Inhalable Novocaine

The FDA has approved a needleless way for dentists to deliver anesthesia: a nasal spray.  While it is not yet available, it will be soon, and we will certainly let our patients know!  Although only available for certain upper teeth, this may pave the way for more pain-free dentistry in the future.  You can read more about this novel approach at the link below.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/08/26/Nasal-spray-safe-effective-anesthetic-for-dental-work/1721472240135/