sugar

A Few Tips on Nutrition

Get Your Vitamins! Vitamin C is an extremely important in dentistry (and nutrition in general) because of how it helps control periodontal disease and other problems in the mouth. For one thing, Vitamin C—ascorbic acid—seems to help calcium do its job of halting the loss of bone. Animal studies at [...]

Eating Too Much Sugar…

The diet of today is the result of a 50-year increase in consumption of the rapidly absorbed sugars—specifically, soft drinks, commercial juices, candy, and easily digested sugar foods such as cakes, cookies, etc. This change has generally gone unnoticed by consumers, until very recently it has been unquestionably assumed that [...]

Alcohol and Your Health…

Just the Facts There's so much conflicting information regarding drinking alcohol blasting at us these days. A glass of red wine is good? Is even drinking at all a good idea? It's a matter of proportion. The facts are these. First, alcohol affects women more than men. Because men tend [...]

Fear & The Dentist

Fear is a learned response, and what can be learned can also be unlearned. We still have a lot to learn about fear, but certain things we do know. Dental fear, for example, is often the result of vicarious learning. Take you, for instance. Even though you've never had a [...]

Psssssssst—Secret Sugar

Lurks in Every Pantry Your sugar bowl sits on the table, and you lift its lid only to sweeten your morning coffee. You deserve a medal for exemplary nutritional behavior! Are you sure? Most folks eat more of it than they realize—150 pounds per year average. That's 6 ounces—3/4 of [...]

Can Kissing Cause Cavities?

Sorry to say, it can. In fact, anything involving contact with saliva—a kiss, parents tasting their babies' food, sharing of tableware and toothbrushes—can transmit decay-causing bacteria. Soon after birth, infants start to get those bacteria that inhabit the mouth and cause cavities. These germs are usually transferred by the babies' [...]

Alcohol and Your Teeth

What are the Effects on Teeth? Dentally speaking, is drinking alcohol a good thing or a bad thing for your teeth and gums? As with everything alcohol-related, there are positives and negatives. On the one hand, a mixer-free shot of vodka is probably less hazardous than caramel candies, which coat [...]

Soft Drinks and Your Teeth

Soft Drinks Pack a Hard Punch! Soft drinks are bad for your teeth in more ways than one. There's sugar, and then there's acidity. The sugar provides the necessary food for the harmful bacteria in your mouth—the average American drinks two cans of soft drinks per day. If you're drinking [...]