Your Dental Health ...
Whether you call it bad breath or halitosis, it’s an unpleasant condition that’s cause for embarrassment.
What you eat affects the air you exhale. Certain foods, such as garlic and onions, contribute to objectionable breath odor. Once the food is absorbed into the bloodstream, it is transferred to the lungs, where it is expelled.
Bad breath can also be caused by dry mouth
which occurs when the flow of saliva decreases. Saliva is necessary to cleanse the mouth and remove particles that may cause odor.
Tobacco products
cause bad breath. If you use tobacco, ask your dentist for tips on kicking the habit.
Maintaining good oral health is essential to reducing bad breath. Schedule regular dental visits for a professional cleaning and checkup. If you think you have constant bad breath, talk to your dentist.
Dental Tip ...

Dietary habits of school children encourage an increase in sugar intake leading to a greater risk of cavities, reports the Academy of General Dentistry.
Over a 15-month period, researchers tracked the dietary habits and monitored
the teeth of preschool children before and after the start of school. Results show that decayed, missing or filled teeth and initial cavities of the children jumped from 9.7 (at age five) to 15.3 cavities (at age six), an increase of 5.6 cavities within one year.
Over the length of the study, the percentage of cavity-free school children dropped from 23 to 19 percent.
The easiest way parents can help children prevent tooth decay and cavities at school, is to monitor their eating habits. Parents can offer their children healthy snack alternatives such as apples,
bite-size carrots or other foods that are naturally sweet and avoid foods that contain refined sugar. If children do
happen to eat sugary snacks at lunch, they should brush and rinse with water or eat a piece of fruit to help clean teeth surfaces and gums.
Parents should consider professionally-applied sealants as another way to protect children’s teeth from cavities. Sealants are a thin coating of bonding material applied over a tooth and act as a barrier to cavity causing bacteria. They can be put on as soon as the child's first permanent molars (back teeth) appear.
Winter News
Happy 2008 to all of our patient's, families, friends and neighbors. We wish you all a prosperous and healthy year!
We are implementing some changes in the office to provide you with even better care this coming year. You can read about these changes in our newsletter.
We also will be offering NO COST care to children without dental insurance in observance of "National Children's Dental Health Month". Read more about this in our newsletter.
Don't forget that with the new year comes the renewal of your insurance benefits, so if you have been putting off taking care of needed dental work, now is the time to schedule those appointments.
We're looking forward to another year of providing you and your family with excellent care!