Today's Dental News

One dental expert wants to make certain people are aware of the devastating effects from sugary drinks.

A new study indicating sugary drinks raise the risk of tooth decay by 46 percent has caused Dr. Jason Armfield from the University of Adelaide and the Australian Research Center for Population Oral Health to say that soft drinks should come with a warning label.

The new study included nearly 17,000 children in Australia. The results showed that children who consumed more than 3 sugary drinks each day were at an increase of 46 percent to develop tooth decay. The results also discovered that about 56 percent of children ages 5 through 16 consumed at least one sugary drink every day.

Read more: Should Soft Drinks Have Warnings?

A needleless, drill-free method of treating tooth decay may have been created by a New Zealand college.

University of Otago researchers generated this new treatment, called the Hall technique, for the purpose of limiting the anxiety of children when they visit the dentist.

There were around 190 children ages 5 through 8 studied to compile the data. About 100 children were treated by using this new method and the others were treated using conventional methods.

The new process includes the placement of a stainless steel crown over a baby molar to seal the decay instead of using a drill to take out the decay and then add a filling. With the new method, the decay stops or slows down because the tooth is deprived of nutrients. The crown stays in place until it naturally falls out with the tooth.

Read more: New Method of Treating Children’s Tooth Decay Explored

Tooth development and weaning in chimpanzees were thought to have a correlation—until now.

For more than two decades scientists concluded that juvenile primate tooth development had an impact on when the primates started to move on from their mother’s milk. But that isn’t true. The Harvard Department of Human Evolutionary Biology utilized high-resolution digital photographs of the chimpanzees to demonstrate that when the first molar appears, they continue to nurse.

The information appears in a January 28 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more: Study on Chimps Questions Tooth Development Research

Blackberries could be beneficial for one’s oral health.

A new study shows that this type of fruit could lead to healthy gums. The study appeared in the Journal of Periodontal Research. The study states that the antibacterial properties of blackberries lower the risk of gum disease and promote gum health.

There are also prior studies that have indicated the positive aspects of blackberries and claim they prevent cancerous cells from spreading.

Read more: Blackberries May Lead to Healthy Gums