DIET

In preventative dentistry we are in the business of educating our patients to value what it is they have.

For Example: 'If some patients are prepared to pay £3,000 having an absent tooth replaced with an implant, post and crown, this HYPOTHETICALLY, puts a value of £3,000 for each of the twenty eight teeth all young adults aged eighteen generally have, in a complete natural set of teeth.'

We then explain to patients that if they spent £84,000 on a new sports car, they would look after and maintain it extremely well.

In westernised countries, when we wake up in the morning, the first thing most of us reach for is a glass of orange juice. This is the equivalent to throwing a bucket of acid over your sports car! If you did by accident throw acid over your new car, you would probably want to rinse it off quickly.

We encourage our patients to use bendy drinking straws, pulled out to their full length, placing the straw to the back of the mouth so it is possible to sip the juice straight into the tummy, by-passing the teeth.

We encourage rinsing with water that doesn't contain lemon during and after meals. After each ingestion of food and drink we recommend that patients rinse their teeth and twenty minutes later to brush their teeth with toothpaste that contains fluoride, to protect their teeth and strengthen the enamel.

One of the difficulties we have practising this way is that some multinational fast food and fizzy drinks companies dress up their product as 'Diet' or 'Healthy'. These companies are forever moving the goal posts. Apart from being acidic, 'Regular' colas and lemonades contain up to ten spoonfuls of sugar. This means the problem is compounded. We are in fact dissolving of the tooth enamel by the acid, whilst promoting tooth rotting and gum disease.

Hidden sugars in the diet include white bread. As it is chewed the starch converts to sugar by the enzymes in the saliva. There are very high levels of hidden sugars in burger buns, pizza bases and sauces. Brown sauce and ketchup are over 90% sugar.

We suggest our patients avoid hard things:
Hard nuts, seeds, pork crackling and even some muselis can cause damage. The most common cause for an incomplete fracture is masticatory or accidental trauma. For instance, unintentional biting with physilogic force on a small hard object such as a seed may suddenly generate an excessive load due to a very small contact area. As a consequence, the loaded tooth may split or fracture.

Modern Ethical Preventative Dentistry is most successfully practiced when a team effort exists between the patient and the professionals. This allows us to achieve our goal for Healthy Natural Teeth for Life.

Tooth erosion is the 'wearing away' of the teeth by the acids in the mouth which primarily come from acidic food and drinks like soft drinks, fruit juices and pickles. The result is 'thin' teeth that are sensitive to, for example, hot and cold food and drink. The consequences, if left unchecked, are chipping and the eventual wearing away of teeth.

Preliminary findings of a pilot study conducted in Co Cork, in Ireland on tooth erosion, have indicated that 45% of Irish 5 year-old children studied, suffer from tooth erosion and in 19% of children, erosion has progressed to at least the dentine (the layer of dental tissues which lie under the tooth enamel). The results of the study, which was undertaken by the Oral Health Services Research Centre, University College Cork were presented recently at the International Association for Dental Research conference, San Diego, California.

These new preliminary results indicate that tooth erosion is a matter of some concern in Ireland. The research suggests that children who consume carbonated drinks once a day or more, were twice as likely to suffer from tooth erosion than children who consumed carbonated drinks less than once a day and that children who consume fruit squashes once a day or more, were three and a half times more likely to suffer from tooth erosion than children who did not.

Prevention: