A lot can happen to your mouth in eight hours — especially when you’re sleeping and bacteria are gathering on your teeth. But don’t let the thought of nasty plaque, cavities, tartar, or gingivitis stop you from getting a good night’s rest. There are many ways to maintain your oral health and oral hygiene while you sleep. Here are eight tips to get you — and your mouth — through the night.

1. Brush before bed. Brushing your teeth before you go to sleep at night helps protect against plaque buildup, tooth decay, and gum disease. If you are particularly susceptible to cavities and gum disease, dentists recommend that you brush immediately after dinner for good oral hygiene, then again right before bedtime.

2. Use good form. According to dentists, the best way to clean your teeth is to brush back and forth gently in short strokes. Brush the outer tooth surfaces first, then the inner tooth surfaces, followed by the chewing surfaces. To clean the backs of your front teeth, use the tip of the brush and stroke gently up and down.

3. Switch to an electric toothbrush. The rotating and oscillating movement of the electric toothbrush head removes plaque from your teeth more efficiently than a regular toothbrush. Be sure to choose an electric toothbrush that’s comfortable to hold, easy to use, and has the rotating-oscillating head.

4. Don’t just brush — floss! Flossing removes food particles and plaque buildup while it’s still soft. If this debris stays on the teeth, bacteria will increase throughout the night and feed off them while you’re sleeping. Furthermore, if the plaque is allowed to harden, it will turn into tartar, and tartar can only be removed by a hygienist or dentist during a professional cleaning. Flossing only at night is fine for most people, but if you’re prone to gum disease or tartar buildup, dentists recommend that you floss in the morning as well.

5. Rinse with mouthwash. Mouthwash isn’t just for fresh breath — therapeutic mouth rinses contain special ingredients that strengthen teeth and help treat certain oral hygiene conditions. Rinsing with a therapeutic mouthwash before bed will help keep your teeth free of plaque and cavities and your gums safe from gingivitis. On the contrary, most commercial, over-the-counter mouthwashes — known as cosmetic mouthwashes — are designed to mask bad breath and they won’t do much to contribute to your oral health. Talk to your dentist about which mouthwash is right for you.

6. Be aware of teeth grinding. If you experience worn tooth enamel, increased tooth sensitivity, or torn cheek tissue, you may be grinding your teeth in your sleep. Though dentists can’t stop you from doing it, they can make you a mouthguard that you can wear at night to protect your teeth from the effects of grinding.

7. See your dentist regularly. Be sure to schedule regular dental checkups and cleanings. Your dentist and hygienist will help you keep your teeth clean and your gums healthy over the long run. Remember, preventive care and maintenance are just as important for a healthy mouth as good daytime and nighttime oral hygiene.

This section created and produced exclusively by the editorial staff of EverydayHealth.com. © 2008 EverydayHealth.com; all rights reserved.

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Men in their thirties with inflamed gums caused by severe periodontal disease are three times more likelyto suffer from erection problems, according to a study
published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
1
Turkish researchers compared 80 men aged 30 to 40
with erectile dysfunction with a control group of 82
men without erection problems. This showed that 53%
of the men with erectile dysfunction had inflamed
gums compared with 23% in the control group.

When the results were adjusted
for other factors such as age and
BMI, the men with severe periodontal disease were 3.29 times more
likely to suffer from erection problems than men with healthy gums.
Lead author Dr Faith Oğuz said:
‘Many studies have reported that
chronic periodontitis (CP) may
induce systemic vascular diseases
which have been linked with erection problems. To our knowledge,
erectile dysfunction and CP are
caused by similar risk factors, such
as ageing, smoking, diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease.’ 

See 7 nighttime hints for oral hygiene

for  a relationship of prostatitis and psa levels that are high and periodontal disease, look here 
1.  Oğuz F, Eltas A, Beytur A, Akdemier E,
Özay Uslu M, Güneş A. Is there a relationship between chronic periodontitis
and erectile dysfunction? J Sex Med 2012;
DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02974.x

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Gum Disease

An oral history

Teeth bacteria are the latest organisms to be studied through “ancient DNA” technology, which allows scientists to extract and amplify tiny traces of genetic material from specimens thousands of years old. The conclusions are bad news for modern oral health.

An international team led by Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide extracted DNA from tartar (calcified dental plaque) from 34 north European skeletons, spread over 7,500 years, from the last hunter-gatherers, through the first farmers, to Bronze Age, medieval and modern times.

“Oral bacteria in modern man are markedly less diverse than historic populations, and this is thought to contribute to chronic gum disease, oral and other disease in post-industrial lifestyles,” says Cooper, in the journal Nature Genetics.

“The composition of oral bacteria changed markedly with the introduction of farming and again around 150 years ago,” he adds. “With the introduction of processed sugar and flour in the Industrial Revolution, we can see a dramatically decreased diversity in our oral bacteria, allowing domination by caries-causing strains and gum disease. The modern mouth basically exists in a permanent disease state.”

From the Financial Times April  5 ,2013

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Generalized inflammatory processes affect the body and mouth. Erectile dysfunction has a relationship to gum disease. Benign Prostatic hypertrophy an PSA levels that are elevated , are common as men age. They can be benign or could be an indication of prostatic cancer,

Recently, a correlation has been found between, prostatitis and psa levels and  gum disease.

see this recent article on the correlation.

Periodontal disease and high PSA levels

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We all know flossing is important to keep your mouth healthy. However, recent studies have found a much greater link between oral hygiene and general health. The debris and bacteria that lurk in between the teeth, an area that brushing does not reach, can have a great impact on your general health.

Pancreatic cancer

Studies have shown that the inflamed and infected gums cause the bodies inflammatory system to kick in, causing a host of different actions and flooding the blood system with inflammatory hormones. We have seen how there is a relationship between periodontitis and heart disease, erectile dysfunction, prostatitis and other medical problems. Now the scientists see a connection between gum disease and pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a very severe one. Almost 1/4 of the deaths from cancer in the US are from pancreatic cancer. It also  has a very poor prognosis. Even being discovered at stage 1, there is only a 25% 5 years success rate. while definitive causes for this cancer have not been clearly defined, smoking seems to be a major factor accounting for 30% of these tumors.

Flossing Benefits

Flossing has many benefits. Besides making your gums healthy it also plays a role in preventing bad breath. The American Diabetes association says that gums disease is a causative factor in diabetes and can certainly make the diabetic worse. Bacteria in the

Benefits Of Flossing

mouth also can affect the respiratory system.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston surveyed more than 50,000 male health professionals (about half of them dentists) to determine who had periodontal disease, then followed them for 16 years; 216 eventually developed pancreatic cancer. After controlling for known risk factors like smoking, alcohol intake, and body weight, the researchers found that those with gum disease were 64 percent more likely to develop the cancer than those with healthy gums; those who had lost teeth because of severe gum disease had 2.7 times the risk. “Since the cancer is so highly fatal, it’s interesting to have a new risk factor to help us understand the disease better,” says study leader Dominique Michaud.

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Wisdom teeth are the 3rd molars that erupt into our mouths from about age 18. These are the back teeth in each quadrant of the mouth. Often times, there is  not enough room in the mouth for the wisdom teeth, and a host of problems can occur.

Pericoronits

When the wisdom teeth erupt, there is usually a little flap of gums that covers the back of the tooth. This little pocket of tissue  makes it very easy for food and debris to get caught underneath it and this can create an infection. Initially, it is tender and may bleed when brushed. People will nit clean it since it hurts. However, that only makes the problem worse, by allowing the bacteria to flourish. This causes a swelling of the gums over the wisdom teeth that can be very painful. Sometimes, patients complain of earache, neck ache, and even fever as a result of a pericoronitis.

The treatment for most of these painful wisdom teeth problems is conservative. Cleaning the soft food debris away from around the wisdom teeth will minimize the inflammation. So every time you eat, while you have the pain, you must brush the area gently to make sure it is clean. This minimizes the bacterial load. We also suggest a mouth rinse of salt water or a chlorohexadine mouthwash like Tarodent or Corsodyl. If the area is cleaned like suggested it can begin to improve in 12-24 hours.

Impacted Wisdom Teeth

Since many times there is not sufficient room in the mouth for these teeth, they erupt in all sorts of angles and locations.  There is a need for extraction many times. We often will refer them to an oral surgeon for the surgery, as it can be quite extensive. Post operative sweeping and infection is often a concern and the area must be kept clean for optimum healing. We often find a large defect in the bone after extracting wisdom teeth. We sometime will place a bone graft in the socket to ensure optimum healing.

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healthy gums

Benefits Of Flossing

Periodontal Care Cuts Admissions, Costs for Diabetes and CVD

Laird Harrison

March 21, 2014

Patients who get care for their periodontitis and have

healthy gums

 are less likely to require treatment for diabetes and cardiovascular disease or to have a preterm delivery, a new analysis of insurance company records shows.

The study supports the theory that treating periodontitis can improve other chronic diseases, lead author Marjorie Jeffcoat, DMD, toldMedscape Medical News. “The results are big,” said Dr. Jeffcoat, a professor of periodontics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, who presented the findings on March 21 at the American Academy of Dental Research meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Researchers have long suspected a relationship between oral diseases and those in the rest of the body, but studies looking for an effect of periodontal treatments on systemic diseases have produced mixed results, she noted.

Reduced Costs for Chronic Disease With Periodontal Care and 

healthy gums

To shed more light on the question, Dr. Jeffcoat and colleagues looked at the records of Highmark Health, which offers medical insurance in its own name and dental insurance through its subsidiary, United Concordia.

They used 2005-2009 claims data to identify 338,891 people with evidence of periodontal disease, of whom 91,242 also had type 2 diabetes, 81,439 had rheumatoid arthritis, 13,007 had cerebral vascular disease, 8458 had coronary artery disease, and 8342 of whom were pregnant with their first child. They compared those who had periodontal treatment with those who did not.

They found that those who chose the care were less likely to be hospitalized for illness associated with type 2 diabetes, cerebral vascular disease, coronary artery disease, and complications associated with the preterm birth of their children.

Overall, the patients who received periodontal treatment cost the insurer significantly less in claims associated with their systemic conditions, the researchers found.

Those who got periodontal care were also less likely to make claims or be hospitalized for reasons associated with their rheumatoid arthritis, but the difference was not statistically significant for this outcome.

Mean Reductions in Costs and Hospitalizations With Periodontal Therapy

Systemic condition	Mean cost savings per subject/y ($)	Mean reduction in costs per subject/y (%)	P for cost reduction	Mean reduction in hospital admissions per 1000 subjects/y (%)	P for hospital-admission reduction
Type 2 diabetes	2840	40.2	< .04	39.4	< .05
CVD	5681	40.9	< .04	21.2	< .002
CAD	1090	10.7	< .04	28.6	< .01
RA	581	6.3	NS	4.5	NS
First pregnancy in period 2005-2009	2433	73.7	< .001	NA	NA
CVD = cardiovascular disease CAD = coronary artery disease RA = rheumatoid arthritis NS = not signification NA = not applicable

“Cost is a good surrogate for whether or not the patient was sick,” said Dr. Jeffcoat. Periodontal treatments might ameliorate many systemic diseases because inflammation plays a secondary role in them, she suggested.

On the other hand, the treatment might not have a significant effect on rheumatoid arthritis because it’s primarily an inflammatory disease.

“Personally I feel – and I don’t have data to show it – that if you have an inflammatory disease you have so many inflammatory mediators going around that upping them or lowering them a little bit you’re not making a big effect in the outcome, whereas in a disease like diabetes, you are making a difference,” she said.

“And you are making a difference in cardiovascular diseases because they are not [primary] inflammatory diseases.”

No Proof of Cause and Effect but Good Dental Care Advised

But the study falls short of proving that periodontal treatment can improve systemic conditions, Elizabeth Seaquist, MD, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association, toldMedscape Medical News.

“All we can tell from this abstract is that it’s an interesting association,” said Dr. Seaquist. “I don’t think we can say that there is necessarily a cause and effect.”

For example, people who get treatment for periodontal disease might be more likely to take care of their health in general, which could explain why they need less care for other conditions, she said.

But Dr. Jeffcoat stressed that she and her colleagues did their best to control for this. “Whatever you measure, if you measure visits to the doctor, hospitalizations, they are all virtually identical at baseline, between the groups that chose to be treated once they had a diagnosis of periodontal disease and those that didn’t,” she said. “So that would militate against a role of these as people who just aren’t taking care of themselves.”

Both researchers have previously undertaken randomized controlled trials in search of more incontrovertible evidence.

In a study published last year (JAMA.2013;310:2523-2532), Dr. Seaquist and colleagues from multiple centers randomly assigned 519 people with both type 2 diabetes and untreated chronic periodontitis to either receive periodontal treatment or not.

They found no difference between the groups in HbA_1c, a key marker of glycemic control in diabetes.

On the other hand, in a previous study (BJOG. 2011;118: 250-256), Dr. Jeffcoat and colleagues randomly assigned 322 pregnant women with periodontal disease to either receive periodontal care or not. Those who were successfully treated for periodontitis had a much lower rate of preterm birth than the others.

Regardless of these discrepancies, Drs. Jeffcoat and Seaquist both agree that physicians treating patients with systemic conditions like diabetes should make sure those patients are getting good dental care.

Dr. Seaquist is a member of advisory committees/review panels for and has received research grants from United Concordia Companies. Dr. Jeffcoat has reported no relevant financial relationships.

American Association for Dental Research. Abstract 690, presented March 21, 2014.

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One of the components of red wine protects against tooth decay
May 31st 2014 | From the print edition
Timekeeper

jerusalem dentist

WITHOUT regular brushing and flossing, teeth accumulate bacterial films that secrete acid and cause cavities (see article). But sometimes even these good habits are insufficient to shift such films, and a chemical called chlorhexidine has to be deployed as well, in the form of a mouthwash. Chlorhexidine, however, stains teeth and affects people’s sense of taste, so an alternative would be welcome. And Victoria Moreno-Arribas of the Institute of Food Science Research in Madrid believes she may have one: a derivative of red wine. jerusalem dentist

Dr Moreno-Arribas knew from previous work that red wine has antimicrobial properties, but she could find few studies which looked at whether it attacks dental biofilms specifically. To rectify that, she and her colleagues grew five troublesome oral bacteria, Actinomyces oris, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus oralis and Veillonella dispar, on discs of hydroxyapatite, the main component of dental enamel. They fed the bugs by dipping the discs into solutions of sugar mixed with saliva collected from volunteers, who spent several hours spitting into jars. The results have just been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In this section
Muscled out
Power down
Daisy, daisy, give me an answer do
Wine gums
An enlightened approach
Reprints
Related topics
Beverages
Wine
Culture and lifestyle
Food and cooking
Health and fitness

jerusalem dentist
As expected, the bacteria grew to form films on the discs, just as they do on teeth. After a week of such growth the researchers exposed each disc to one of five treatments every day for a further seven days. Some were swished around in red wine (a pinot noir, vintage 2010) for two minutes. Some were swished in a de-alcoholised version of this wine. Some were swished in chlorhexidine, some in a 12% solution of ethanol (ie, of the same alcoholic strength as the wine) and some in plain water. This combination of experiments let Dr Moreno-Arribas determine whether wine has antibiofilm properties beyond those bestowed by its alcohol content, and also how well it compares with chlorhexidine.

Sadly for oenophiles, chlorhexidine still came out on top. But wine did well against two of the five species, F. nucleatum and S. oralis. Intriguingly, in the case of S. oralis the de-alcoholised version was even more effective than the full-strength stuff.

To find out which chemicals within the wine were having the desired effect, Dr Moreno-Arribas and her team added wine extracts such as flavanols and yeast polysaccharides to the mix and repeated their experiments. The magic turned out to be provided by a group of chemicals called flavan-3-ols.

Regrettably, this work does not suggest that a nightly glass of wine is a sensible substitute for a thorough dental brushing before you go to bed. But it might, if pursued, allow an alternative to chlorhexidine mouthwash to be developed—perhaps one that does not have such a horrible effect on taste buds.

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Many people drink sugar free sodas hoping that the are healthier than regular soda. Regular soda is definitely not good for your teeth. As a boy I once did a science project and put extracted teeth into different liquids for varying amounts of time to see what would happen. The teeth that were put into a sugary soda like Coke, had large cavities within 2 weeks. Regular sodas have a lot of sugar. A single can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar.  But sugar is not the main problem. The main issue is the acidity of sodas. sugar free sodas are as acidic as sugar full soft drinks.

Sugar free sodas and how they hurt teeth

The enamel of a tooth is made up of an inorganic matrix. The inner section of the tooth is organic as well and it is when the bacteria penetrate the inorganic outer layer that we have problems and a cavity begins that will continue to grow and damage the tooth. Anything that weakens that outer layer will make it easy for a cavity to begin. Acid is what will weaken this enamel layer and it is actually how the bacteria make their cavity.

The sugar in food is the energy for bacteria but it is the acid that does the damage. So when we drink sugar free sodas, we actually are taking in as much acid as a regular soda. In fact people tend to drink much more sugar free soda thinking that it is healthier. We all know that feeling of grittiness when we drink a soda that the teeth seem not to slide so smoothly across each other. That is the  acid removing a micro layer of tooth structure.

Conclusion

Tray and avoid drink any soda because the extreme acidity of the citric acid component will be very aggressive to your teeth.

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