Dental Health
Periodontal stem cell transplantation shows promise
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Periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) have been found to be the most efficacious of three kinds of clinically tested dental tissue-derived stem cells, reports a study published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (20:2), freely available on-line.
According to researchers in Seoul, South Korea, transplantation of PDLSCs into beagle dogs modeled with advanced periodontal (gum) disease that affected their premolars and molars, which are morphologically similar to the corresponding areas in human dentition, was most effective. PDLSCs showed the best regenerating capacity of the periodontal ligament (which attaches the tooth to the alveolar bone in which the teeth sit), alveolar bone, cementum (material that comprises the surface of a tooth’s root), peripheral nerve and blood vessels when compared to similar transplants using dental pulp stem cells (taken from the center of teeth) or periapical follicular stem cells (taken from the developing root).
“Periodontitis, characterized by bone resorption, periodontal pocketing and gingival inflammation, is the most common cause of tooth loss in adults and affects 10 to 15 percent of adults worldwide,” said corresponding author Dr. Pill-Hoon Choung of the Seoul National University School of Dentistry. “Our study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of autologous stem cell transplantation (i.e. transplant of a patient’s own cells) using three kinds of autologous dental stem cells similar to mensenchymal stem cells.”
FREE Dental Services for Low-Income Children
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Up to 150 low-income children will receive free dental services on Saturday, Feb. 5 from Nova Southeastern University’s College of Dental Medicine.
Known as “Give Kids a Smile” day, the event will provide services such as X-rays, exams, cleaning, prophylaxis, fluoride treatment, sealants and restorations to low-income children between the ages of 2 and 18, who have been referred to the College of Dental Medicine from Boys & Girls clubs in South Florida. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the university’s Health Care Centers’ dental clinic, located at the corner of 30th Street and University Drive in Davie.
Give Kids a Smile is an annual national event sponsored by the American Dental Association.
Dental Complications Of Diabetes
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Diabetes can have various adverse effects on sufferers’ health and one of those ill-effects is dental quality. Diabetics have a problem processing sugars, which often leads to a condition called hyperglycemia, which means that there is too much sugar in the blood. The opposite of having too much sugar in your blood is having too little and that is called hypoglycemia.
Both circumstances are governed in healthy people by insulin and herein lies the diabetic’s problem - the body’s automatic production of insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. Both conditions can have serious consequences. Too much sugar in the blood can lead to issues with the kidneys, the heart, the eyes and others, while too little sugar in the blood can cause fits and black-outs.
Tooth and gum disease is normal as are any other health problems. Factors that play a role in tooth and gum disease are age, heredity, smoking and oral hygiene, but the diabetic who is often hyperglycemic has a higher probability of developing dental sickness.
How to Get Rid Of Bad Breath
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If you notice people generally avoiding you whenever you are around, then it is high time that you assess yourself and find out what is wrong about you? Have you been aware about your breath? Maybe you got bad breath that’s why they never get physically close when people talk with you. Bad breath, medically called as halitosis, can significantly affect your social life, so don’t allow it to become a hindrance to you.
If your bad breath is causing you embarrassment already, it is not going to do you good in any aspect. Psychologically and emotionally, it’s bound to disturb you until you lose your confidence. That is going to be very bad since a person with less confidence seldom succeeds and gets happy in life. So before all these terrible things happen to you, be sure to check on some of the ways on how to get rid of bad breath:
Type 1 diabetic youth often overweight: study
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Children and youth with type 1 diabetes are more likely to be overweight than their counterparts without type 1 diabetes, researchers have found.
Ties between type 2 diabetes and excess weight are well documented, but are less clear in type 1 diabetes, which affects less than 10% of people with diabetes but is more common in children and young people, the researchers explain.
“Traditional teaching in the past has been that youth with type 1 diabetes often present at diagnosis having lost weight or underweight,” Dr. Lenna L. Liu, from Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute told Reuters Health. “However, with the rise in childhood obesity, even some youth with type 1 diabetes may be overweight at diagnosis and/or afterwards.”
School of Dentistry Studies Link Between Oral Health and Memory
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Keeping your teeth brushed and flossed can cut down on gum disease, drastically reducing risk of heart attack and stroke, dentists have warned for years. Now researchers at West Virginia University have found a clean mouth may also help preserve memory.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1.3 million grant over four years to further build on studies linking gum disease and mild to moderate memory loss.
“Older people might want to know there’s more reason to keep their mouths clean – to brush and floss – than ever,” said Richard Crout, D.M.D., Ph.D., an expert on gum disease and associate dean for research in the WVU School of Dentistry. “You’ll not only be more likely to keep your teeth, but you’ll also reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and memory loss.”
Does the stress of being a parent lead to decay in children’s teeth?
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A team of scientists from The Ohio State University has examined the stress levels of parents whose young children either had no cavities or so many cavities that the children had receive anesthesia before undergoing dental treatment.
The investigators presented their findings today during the 87th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research.
The team also looked at the parents’ education levels and income, and noted if they were single parents. Finally, they measured the parents’ stress levels again after the children had received dental treatment.
Germy mouths linked to heart attacks, study finds
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People with the germiest mouths are the most likely to have heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
A study that compared heart attack victims to healthy volunteers found the heart patients had higher numbers of bacteria in their mouths, the researchers said.
Their findings add to a growing body of evidence linking oral hygiene with overall health.
Durability of dental fillings improves if the enzyme activity of teeth is inhibited
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Composite dental fillings have one problematic feature, in that the bond between the filling and the dental tissue deteriorates over time – in fact, sometimes by as much as 50 per cent in one year. As the bond deteriorates, it may allow bacteria to enter and this brings a high risk of further tooth decay.
Professor Tjäderhane has researched the occurrence of certain enzymes, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), in the dental tissue and their role in dental conditions. The MMPs break down the extracellular matrix, including collagen, which is a major component of dentin. As a result of international research collaboration, Professor Tjäderhane’s research team has shown that human dentin contains the key MMP for breaking down collagen.
The bonding of composite resins with dental tissue is based on the use of collagen bonds, and the tooth’s own MMPs are responsible in part for the deterioration of the bond over time. By inhibiting the activity of these enzymes, the research team has succeeded in significantly slowing down the deterioration of the bond between dental tissue and a composite filling, and in some cases to prevent deterioration completely.
Periodontal disease linked to metabolic syndrome
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In middle-aged adults, gum disease goes hand in hand with the metabolic syndrome, UK researchers report.
“Further studies are required to test whether improvements in oral health could affect the onset/progression of the metabolic syndrome or vice-versa,” Dr. Francesco D’Aiuto of the UCL Eastman Dental Institute in London, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes—including high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides (another type of blood fat). The syndrome is usually diagnosed when a person has three or more of these traits.
Bleeding gums linked to heart disease
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Bad teeth, bleeding gums and poor dental hygiene can end up causing heart disease, scientists heard today (Thursday 11 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology’s Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.
People with poor dental hygiene and those who don’t brush their teeth regularly end up with bleeding gums, which provide an entry to the bloodstream for up to 700 different types of bacteria found in our mouths. This increases the risk of having a heart attack, according to microbiologists from the University of Bristol and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
“The mouth is probably the dirtiest place in the human body,” said Dr Steve Kerrigan from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland. “If you have an open blood vessel from bleeding gums, bacteria will gain entry to your bloodstream. When bacteria get into the bloodstream they encounter tiny fragments called platelets that clot blood when you get a cut. By sticking to the platelets bacteria cause them to clot inside the blood vessel, partially blocking it. This prevents the blood flow back to the heart and we run the risk of suffering a heart attack.”
Gum disease tied to diabetes risk
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People with moderate to severe gum disease may have an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the results of a new study suggests.
Researchers found that among nearly 9,300 U.S. adults who were followed for 17 years, those who began the study with gum disease were more likely to develop diabetes later on. Men and women with moderate gum disease had twice the risk of diabetes as those with healthy gums, while substantial tooth loss was linked to a 70 percent higher risk.
The findings, published in the journal Diabetes Care, do not prove that gum disease causes diabetes in some people. But the study is the first to show such a temporal association between the two conditions; the relationship between diabetes and gum disease is well-known, but it has traditionally been assumed that gum disease is solely a consequence of diabetes.
Mother’s vitamin D status during pregnancy will affect her baby’s dental health
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Low maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy may affect primary tooth calcification, leading to enamel defects, which are a risk factor for early-childhood tooth decay. Today, during the 86th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research, investigators from the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg and Victoria) present the results of a study they conducted to determine the vitamin D status of pregnant women, the incidence of enamel defects and early-childhood tooth decay among their infants, and the relationship with pre-natal vitamin D levels.
Two hundred six pregnant women in their second trimester participated in the study. Only 21 women (10.5%) were found to have adequate vitamin D levels. Vitamin D concentrations were related to the frequency of milk consumption and pre-natal vitamin use. The investigators examined 135 infants (55.6% male) at 16.1 ± 7.4 months of age, and found that 21.6% of them had enamel defects, while 33.6% had early-childhood tooth decay. Mothers of children with enamel defects had lower, but not significantly different, mean vitamin D concentrations during pregnancy than those of children without defects.
However, mothers of children with early-childhood tooth decay had significantly lower vitamin D levels than those whose children were cavity-free. Infants with enamel defects were significantly more likely to have early-childhood tooth decay.
Saving teeth by using periodontal ligament regeneration
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Teeth may fall out as a result of inflammation and subsequent destruction of the tissues supporting the teeth. Dutch researcher Agnes Berendsen has investigated a possible solution to this problem. At the Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), she has studied the regeneration of the periodontal ligament by use of tissue engineering. The 3D in vitro model she has developed appears to be promising for regenerating periodontal ligament and may also prove valuable for restoring tendons and ligaments elsewhere in the body.
The periodontal ligament forms a flexible connection between the tooth root and the surrounding jaw bone. Trauma or inflammation can cause destruction of the periodontal ligament. Berendsen chose tissue engineering to tackle this problem.
Insuring your smile… the options in the UK
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As more and more dentists go private and the cost of treatment soars, a growing number of consumers are insuring their pearly whites.
A standard filling can cost anything into three figures in many British surgeries and even a routine check-up on the NHS can dent your bank balance.
The mounting costs are leading to a growing number of people to neglect their oral care: almost a third of 1,000 adults surveyed earlier this year say they have not visited the dentist in the past two years.
