In this article, Dr. Nejat provides a brief of the history of how computed tomography is used in dentistry, discusses how CT technology is employed to build surgical templates, and how these templates are used to achieve the utmost precision in computer guided dental implant placement.  A case example is also presented, illustrating the benefits of CAD/CAM computer-generated surgical guides.

Read the whole article at DentistryIQ.com »

So, it’s incredibly important for people to maintain their oral health.

Unfortunately, people neglect their oral health for a variety of reasons: anxiety, fear, embarrassment. Another reason is that problems like gum disease don’t necessarily cause pain – and patients assume that their oral health is in good standing as long as they’re pain-free, so they don’t see twice-yearly dental exams as a priority.

Aspen Dental’s approach focuses on providing comprehensive care, which means addressing any immediate problems that may be causing pain, but also recommending treatment for long-lasting good health.

Back to Basics
Dr. Arnow explained that good oral hygiene at home is essential to help keep periodontal disease from becoming more serious or recurring. Even with the great new technologies that dentists have available, Dr. Arnow urged patients to remember the basics:

• Brush your teeth at least twice a day to help remove food and plaque on both natural teeth and dentures and floss at least once daily to remove plaque between teeth and below the gum line.
• Limit your intake of sweets, especially sugared, carbonated beverages.
• Eat more fruits and vegetables.
• Drink more water.
• And of course, have your mouth examined regularly by your dentist for signs of gum disease or infection.
• A Necessity for Denture Wearers, too

Dr. Arnow pointed out that good oral hygiene is equally as important for individuals with dentures, who should brush and rinse their dentures daily and clean with denture cleanser.

Denture-wearers should clean their gums to avoid plaque build-up that can irritate the tissue under dentures. Thoroughly clean dentures at night to avoid bacteria growth.

Another important tip for denture-wearers – pay attention to how much denture adhesive you use. If you’re going through more than one tube of denture cream every three weeks, your dentures may not fit properly and need replacement.

The American Dental Association recommends that dentures be replaced every 5 to 7 years, but in Dr. Arnow’s experience, many patients wait much longer than that, which can cause irritation or sores in the mouth over time.

Source:  ABC.com

Source: ABC7

Products like Poligrip and Fixodent have become widely used to help denture wearers with loose dentures or those that do not fit properly. Unfortunately, in recent years it has been shown that those people who use such products tend to use more than what is generally considered safe, and because of this, many persons are finding themselves in danger of zinc poisoning or experiencing the signs of neuropathy.

Zinc is safe in the human body if it is ingested in small doses. Unfortunately, many denture wearers have such problems with the way their dentures fit, that they have to use larger quantities of denture adhesives to keep from having loose dentures. Thus, they overuse products like Poligrip and Fixodent and the result has been a rise in zinc poisoning in denture wearers. Many times those who have such poisoning may often develop a serious neurological side effect such as neuropathy, which is a nerve disorder that is characterized by pain and numbness to the feet and hands. As this threat has come widespread, many denture wearers are looking at other options for their dentures.

One of the best options for a denture alternative can be dental implants. Implants can be more natural looking and feel better than most types of dentures. Although it may be very costly to have all of one’s teeth replaced with implants, for some it may be more affordable to have a few implants done to act as stabilizers for one’s dentures. In this way, there is no worry with loose dentures and that eliminates the need for Fixodent or Poligrip dental adhesives. The use of this type of implant can be a good way to avoid zinc and the zinc poisoning affects that can lead to conditions such as neuropathy. There are many advantages to having dental implants over dentures. They fit better, feel better and generally look much better than dentures.

Not only do they look better, but also they are also safer than using dentures with dental adhesives to keep them in place. Dental implants can be an ideal way to avoid the zinc and zinc poisoning, that many products like Poligrip and Fixodent can create.

Dr. Wayne Aldredge talks Dental Implant Technologies on the Wellness Hour

Periodontal Disease and Smokers - Webinar by Dr. Richard Nejat

Periodontal disease is more prevalent and more severe in smokers than in nonsmokers. The host response in smokers is altered by a number of factors including increased gingival crevicular fluid, adhesion molecules and genetics. In addition, smokers are poor healers compared to nonsmokers and their response to periodontal therapy can be compromised which can result in continued progression of periodontal disease, or the need for more treatment.

Acute deprivation of sleep, in fact, might lead to increased production of inflammatory hormones and changes in the functioning of blood vessels. Researchers observed acutely sleep deprived participants for over 24 hours among a group of 525 middle aged people.

“Most of the studies looking at the body’s response to lack of sleep have looked at subjects who have been acutely sleep deprived for more than 24 hours in experimental sleep laboratories,” study author Alanna Morris, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University School of Medicine said. “Nothing of this sort has been investigated in epidemiologic studies.”

Researchers weighed the quality of sleep among the participants using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index survey, where a score over six is considered poor. The participants’ hours of sleep were also taken into consideration for analysis.

Those who slept for six or fewer hours often had higher levels of three inflammatory markers: fibrinogen, IL-6 and C-reactive protein. In particular, average C-reactive protein levels were about 25 percent higher (2 milligrams per liter compared to 1.6) among those who slept for less than six hours as compared to those who got adequate sleep between six and nine hours.

“For people who got little sleep, the C-reactive protein levels were increased, but still in the range of what health authorities would consider low to intermediate risk,” Morris said. “It remains uncertain whether short sleep duration contributes directly to cardiovascular mortality or whether it is a mediating or moderating factor”.

Source:  Medical Daily

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that causes pain, stiffness, swelling, and limitation in the motion and function of multiple joints. Though joints are the principal body parts affected by RA, inflammation can develop in other organs as well. An estimated 1.3 million Americans have RA, and the disease typically affects women twice as often as men.

Researchers have long associated periodontal disease, or gum inflammation, and bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract with RA, although no specific bacteria have ever been identified by researchers as the bacteria to target as possible therapy. Nevertheless, studies have suggested that bacteria or bacterial products contribute to RA and other autoimmune diseases.

Led by co-principle investigators Steven Abramson, MD, and Dan Littman, MD, PhD, researchers from New York University’s Langone Medical Center, aimed to determine whether bacteria in the human mouth and intestines can trigger RA. They used DNA amplification technology to identify what type of bacteria exist in the mouths and intestines of study participants, which included eight people with newly developed RA, three people with psoriatic arthritis, and nine people without these diseases – who were considered healthy.

Previous studies have relied on traditional bacteria cultures, which are only able to identify 20 percent of bacterial species in the human body because of the inability to find the right nutrients to grow the culture, which highlights the uniqueness of this study. “By sending our samples for a deep DNA sequencing, we’re able to identify 100 percent of the bacteria that are present,” says Jose U. Scher, MD, director of New York University’s new Microbiome Center for Rheumatology and Autoimmunity and one of the lead investigators in the study. “So we’re taking a huge step forward by not missing 80 percent of the bacteria. Taking that step will allow us to identify bacteria that are related to rheumatoid arthritis.”

Although it’s too early for this to be applied in the diagnosis of rheumatic diseases in a clinical health care setting, the research is already yielding results that distinguish people with RA from those without. Through this study, researchers were able to identify an over-abundance of the prevotellaceae family of bacteria in the intestinal fecal samples of participants who were newly diagnosed with RA—and had not been treated with drugs for the disease—when compared to those participants in the study who were identified as healthy.

Additionally, researchers found that mouth samples of participants with RA exhibited an overabundance of the porphyromonas genus compared to healthy controls. To examine bacteria in the mouth, researchers studied the gums of participants with RA or psoriatic arthritis, and healthy individuals. When examining the gums of these participants, researchers noted that 78 percent of the examined sites bled during examination in participants with RA, which was a significantly higher percentage than those with psoriatic arthritis (38 percent) and those participants identified as healthy (12 percent). Overall, 66 percent of participants with RA had moderate gum disease – compared to 25 percent of the participants with psoriatic arthritis and 12 percent of the participants in the healthy group.

Additional studies by the group have demonstrated that specific microbes induce the differentiation of Th17 cells in the intestine. There is already strong genetic and therapy-based evidence that pro-inflammatory Th17 cells and anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells (Treg) have critical roles in autoimmune diseases, including RA, psoriatic arthritis, and Crohn’s disease.

“The basic premise is that there are different oral and gut bacteria that activate Th17 cells to promote inflammation,” Dr. Scher explains. “Our hypotheses are that characterization of Th17-inducing microbes in the human intestine will provide insight into disease pathogenesis, and that directed manipulation of the gut microbiota will result in the alteration of arthritis biomarkers, including Th17/Treg balance.”

The next step for the team is a study in which 90 participants with RA will be subdivided into three arms. The first two arms will be given antibiotics for a two-month period, and the third arm will be given placebo. The researchers believe that by modifying the microbial flora with antibiotics, they can identify molecular mechanisms by which RA-associated bacteria affect Th17 and Treg homeostasis and thereby develop new strategies to diminish or even prevent the inflammatory process that leads to chronic destructive arthritis.

The American College of Rheumatology is an international professional medical society that represents more than 8,000 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals around the world. Its mission is to advance rheumatology. The ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting is the premier meeting in rheumatology. For more information about the meeting, visit www.rheumatology.org/education. Follow the meeting on twitter by using the official hashtag: #ACR2010.

Source:  American College of Rheumatology