When the most recent round of California wildfires began earlier this fall, little did anyone know how devastating the disaster would be - or how hard it would be to identify the dozens of victims of the wild blaze. But a grim form of dentistry - forensic dentistry - is coming to the rescue in a big way.
It may not seem like it’s time to start thinking 2019 just yet, but when it comes to your oral health, it is. Now is the time to start thinking about what you have left on your 2018 oral health benefits, and what you should add in 2019.
You know that old saying, truth is stranger than fiction? Well it's not always true, but in the case of these five tooth-related stories it sure is. If you like "news of the weird," check out these five oral health stories that prove sometimes fact really is stranger than fiction.
With a staggering 75 million Americans estimated to have high blood pressure, a new study in the publication Hypertension is calling on doctors and dentists to pay close attention to patients with high blood pressure and periodontitis. The study found that of 3,600 patients with high blood pressure, those who had healthier gums also had lower blood pressure numbers than their counterparts with periodontal disease.
According to research from the University of Central Lancashire School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, patients with periodontal disease could be at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers analyzed brain tissue samples from 10 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and 10 without. Of the samples of those who did have Alzheimer’s, four of the 10 showed signs of lipopolysaccharides associated with periodontal disease in their brain tissue.
Has your temporomandibular joint disorder ever hurt so badly that you just wished you could throw out your old temporomandibular joint and get a whole new one? Well, the good news is that in the future you may be able to do just that. For now, however, that procedure is reserved for very rare cases, such as the recent case of a man in Cyprus who received a new temporomandibular joint following cancer treatment.
