In the US dental disease is still among the most common reasons that children miss school, it is also the most common medical reason why some soldiers can not be deploy. Add to the fact that dental health issues are a leading cause of emergency-room visits in several states, continues to show just how much dental care is lacking.

Proper preventive dental care can help to address these issues and it is important that people know how to properly take care of their dental health.  Many larger dental issues such as tooth decay and gum disease could be prevent just by having proper dental habits at home and by seeing a dentist for routine dental check ups.

Margot Sanger-Katz in the National Journal states according to the Pew Children’s Dental Campaign, dental disease is the largest unmet health need in the US among both children and adults. The poor, the young, the old, and those in rural America are the worst off.

In a world of medical priorities and health care, dentistry takes can normally take a back seat, and in rural America sometimes appears to not even be on the bus. Writer Margot Sanger-Katz states that the US faces a shortage of dentists that is particularly acute in poor, rural regions. “Huge pockets of the country have few (or no) providers. The federal government counts 4,503 mostly rural regions where more than 3,000 people share one dentist,” she notes, “making it tough for many residents to find someone to fix their teeth.”

It is safe to say that most parents do not want their kids to have dental cavities, and that preventive dental care is still the number one way to avoid cavities and dental filling from being needed.

Yet more than half of US children, have cavities by the age of seven, and more than 80 percent have them by adolescence. It is important to keep in mind that in recent decades, composite materials have greatly improved in durability, lasting on average five to 10 years in a cavity space.

However the best way to avoid this filling debate is to not get cavities in the first places.  Make sure your kids brush and floss their teeth regularly and see a dentist as often as needed in order to assure good dental and oral health.

Many parents may be interested to know that one of ingredients in composite filling’s is, bisphenol A. Bisphenol A (known as BPA) has drawn scrutiny in recent years because of its ability to act as an estrogen in animal lab studies.

Thanks to BPA presence in canned foods, sodas, and common plastics, the chemical courses through the bloodstreams of 93 percent of Americans tested. In 2010, the FDA declared the substance safe at low levels, though even the agency noted “some concern” due to possible effects of BPA on the brain and behavior of fetuses, infants, and children.

BPA remains a common additive in both dental fillings and dental sealants, according to the ADA (American Dental Association). ADA through a statement on their website, maintains that BPA used in dentistry is safe, and that a child is exposed to it on a limited basis during the filling procedure itself. “The estimated one time exposure (upon sealant placement) for a male child of median body weight (51 to 112 pounds) is approximately 5.5 micrograms, which is two to five times lower than the estimated daily exposure from food and environmental sources,” said the statement. Few studies have examined how much BPA may be breaking down from the filling material over time.

Today there are more than 10 million American children receive fillings every year. However, according to the new study in the journal Pediatrics, a common composite formula may be placing kids at slightly higher risk for anxiety and depression.

Composite fillings are typically made of glass or quartz mixed with resins and adhesives. But these materials, while approved by the FDA, have not been studied for long-term health effects.

The study which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, stated children with a popular composite filling known as bisphenol-A-glycidyl-methacrylate (Bis-GMA) displayed worse scores on scales of “psychosocial” well-being up to five years after treatment, compared to kids who received silver amalgam fillings or a composite made with different materials. Children exposed to the most Bis-GMA fillings for the longest periods of time were two to four times more likely to report “at risk” psychological problems requiring medical help. The association was strongest for kids with cavities filled in the back molars, where the composite can break down and possibly enter the bloodstream.

The British Dental Health Foundation is looking to educate the public on good oral health after scientists discovered severe gum disease could be linked to an increased risk of head and neck cancer cases caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).    The study 1 found patients with HPV-positive tumours had significantly higher bone loss, a key factor in the development of severe gum disease, compared with patients with HPV-negative tumours.

Latest figures suggest more than 6,000 people in the UK suffer from oral cancer2, while almost 2,000 lives are lost to the disease. HPV is a growing cause of the disease, with experts suggesting it may rival tobacco use as the main cause of oral cancer within 10 years. Other risk factors for developing the disease include tobacco use, drinking to excess and poor diet.   The significance of the research is compounded by the fact more teeth are lost through periodontal (gum) disease than through tooth decay.

Here are some useful tips to brushing children teeth and oral health care.

1) Use children toothpaste that has fluoride in it.  The use of fluoride in toothpaste as been proven to prevent dental tooth decay.  Use only a small pea size amount of toothpaste.

2) Make sure to teach your child in the proper use of toothpaste. Monitor them carefully while they are bushing their teeth. DO NOT assume that your child can use toothpaste without supervision.

3) A child can start brushing their teeth between 3 – 6 years old but make sure that you thoroughly brush their teeth afterward to make sure the teeth get brush correctly.  At 3 – 6 years of age is a good age to start getting use to brushing but they are normally not old enough to have the proper coordination to brush their teeth on their own yet.

4) Generally speaking a child should be able to brush responsibly by the age of seven and should be able to do so without supervision.  However all children are different so if the child as not shown that they can brush and use toothpaste properly, then they should be supervised until they are older.

5) Keep toothpaste out of the reach of children until they have shown that they are responsible and know how to use is property.  Many children toothpaste are made to taste good can child can treat it like candy. NO toothpaste should be eaten contact poison control if your see your child has consumed toothpaste.

The American Dental Association put out a new survey which shows that Americans seriously need to clean up their act when it comes to oral health.    The ADA’s newly launched website, MouthHealth.org  which aims to improve oral health reveals that Americans’ average score was a ‘D’ in the survey’s range of ‘true or false’ questions, which included questions like how often should teeth be cleaned, what causes cavities and the age of a child’s first dentist visit.

In the UK over 2 million people stated they had to take time off of work due to poor oral health. The UK’s economy is being damaged unnecessarily with an estimated two million workers taking sick time off work due to poor oral health over the past five years.

Most problems with teeth and gums are preventable with a good oral health routine, but around seven per cent of the UK’s 29 million workforce have called in sick with teeth problems at least once in the past five years. The sickness figure is likely to be even higher as many people are still unaware that poor oral health can put them at greater risk of acute health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and strokes.

There are many tasty toothpaste that are available to kids in order to make brushing fun and easier for the child.  Kids really like toothpaste that taste like bubble gum, grape or other such flavors,  and therefore brush their teeth without complaint.   To a parent this is can be a helpful tool to make sure their child developing good dental habits.

However,  there is a  risk that kids toothpaste may taste too good. Therefore a child may start to eat or use too much toothpaste. Check your child toothpaste you will see that most children toothpaste will have the warning about using only a pea size amount of toothpaste and that young children should have adult supervision. This is because of the fluoride in the toothpaste.

Fluoride is good for teeth and it can strengthen teeth as well as prevent dental cavities. That’s why there is fluoride in toothpaste.  But it is not good to have too much fluoride. It can cause dental fluorosis (white or brown spots on the teeth.) Preventing fluorosis is the main reason that you need to supervise brushing for young children. Also too much fluoride at once can become toxic.  Many parents are surprised to learn that children’s toothpaste contains the same amount of fluoride as adult toothpaste.

An observational study featured in the online journal BMJ Open reveals that persistent dental plaque can potentially raise the risk of dying early from cancer.   Researchers decided to establish whether dental plaque may influence the risk of early death from cancer due to infection and inflammation, as both factors are believed to play a role in up to one in five different types of cancer.

At the end of the study in 2009, the team registered 58 deaths of which about a third (35.6%) were women and 35 of these deaths were due to cancer. The average age of the deceased was 61 year for women and 60 years for the men. The women’s life expectancy would have been about 13 years longer, whilst that of the men would have been 8.5 years longer, which places them into the ‘premature deaths’ category. 
Whilst the women predominantly died from breast cancer, the men’s deaths were caused by a various different cancers.

The researchers observed that the deceased had a higher dental plaque index, compared with the survivors. Their values ranged from 0.84 to 0.91, which suggests the gums of their teeth were covered with plaque, whilst that of the survivors was consistently lower, i.e. 0.66 to 0.67, suggesting a partial cover with dental plaque. After accounting for all risk factors the team discovered that the risk of dying from cancer was almost two-fold with age, and that male gender had a 90% increased risk.

According to independent research published in Circulation, an American Heart Association journal, The incidence of infective endocarditis among dental patients in Olmsted County, Minn. did not increase after new guidelines called for giving preventive antibiotics before dental procedures only to those at greatest risk of complications.

In 2007, the American Heart Association changed its guidelines, recommending patients take antibiotics before invasive dental procedures only if they are at risk of complications from infective endocarditis. This includes patients with artificial heart valves, transplanted hearts with abnormal heart valve function, previous infective endocarditis and people born with specific heart defects.

According to the June issue of The Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice (JEBDP), The dental profession needs to build a stronger connection between oral health and general health – not only for individual patients, but also at the community level.

In most drug or food stores you have a large selection of toothbrushes from the standard manual brush to electric/battery-powered toothbrushes. Many of the toothbrush siting their own reason why they are the best due to their bend and flex head to varying lengths of bristles. Certainly some of the toothbrushes available look very high tech but are they better then the more basic brushes?    The fact is not necessarily.  Toothbrushes are usually not subjected to rigorous clinical trials. So there is no actual proof that one is better than next.

So how do you pick out a toothbrush that best for you and your family?   Consider things like comfort and how well the tooth brush reaches your back teeth. Toothbrushes come in different shapes so you are trying to find a toothbrush that fits your mouth and brush your teeth.  The brush should allow for you to to reach even the teeth at the very back of your mouth.

Try to stay with toothbrush that have “soft” or “extra soft” bristles — Hard bristles increase the risk of harming gums when you brush.   Buy a toothbrush that has the seal of acceptance from the American Dental Association.  The ADA seal shows that the dental product as been tested by the ADA and has met their standards.  Consider buying a powered toothbrush if you are less then diligent about brushing your teeth since powered toothbrushes tend to make brushing your teeth easier.

According to researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg,  25% of Sweden teens do not brush their teeth regularly and only 10% of Swedes know how to use toothpaste effectively.

According to the researchers, Swedes could significantly improve their oral health by learning how to effectively use fluoride toothpaste. In addition, knowledge about brushing teeth effectively must be improved and easy to understand.

The researchers highlight that individuals should: Brush their teeth at least twice a day with toothpaste (after breakfast and before bedtime)  Use toothpaste with more fluoride if cavities occur often and avoid rinsing with water after brushing.

According to two separate studies done by Pia Gabre and her colleagues at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, only one in ten brush their teeth in a way that effectively prevents tooth decay.

They studied the tooth brushing habits of 2013 Swedes aged 15-16, 31-35, 60-65 and 76-80 – how often and for how long, how often fluoride toothpaste is used, how much toothpaste is put on the toothbrush and how much water is used during and after the tooth brushing.  The results show that only ten percent of the population use toothpaste in the most effective way.

According to Pia Gabre,  most of the interviewed subjects learned to brush their teeth as children, by their parents, even if they have been informed about more effective techniques later in life, they continue to brush their teeth like they always have.

It is important to understand that regardless of your dental insurance plan it is up to you to know your coverages and what is and what is not covered.   Many people just assume that the dentist is only providing dental services based on what their plan offers.  This is not always true.  In fact many dentist do not even know what their patients have for dental insurance.  The dentist job is not to worry about your insurance but to provide the best dental care to their patients.

With that said it is up to you to let the front staffing know you wish to stay within your plan coverages.  If dental services are being suggested that is not part of your plan. you will want a good reason why.  Believe it or not most dentist are not trying to charge you for higher cost dental services just to get more money from you.  Ask your dentist why he/she is suggesting that course of treatment. If it not within your budget or you want to stay with in your plan coverage go over your options with your dentist at that time.  Dentist are not mind readers. Most are more the happy to work with your plan limitations as much as possible as long as they are aware of them.

If you have a dental insurance plan where claims need to be filed, then find out ahead of time how the dental office processes those types of claim made services. With the down turn in the economy many dentist are requiring payment to be paid in full at the time services are render. Knowing how the dental office handles claims will prevent you from having any unhappy surprises.  Dental offices that do file claims and wait for payment do so on your behalf, it is not a requirement.

Unless you have a dental HMO plan where most dental services are based on a fee schedule that lays out your cost for the different dental services, (therefore avoiding the claims filling process) you are having to fill out claims forms.  Knowing your cost for dental services can be difficult since most PPO and Indemnity plans pay claims based on a percentage up to UCR (Usual, Customary & Reasonable) rates.

Your dentist may provide you an estimate based on your plan stated coverages but there is no guarantees that will be your total cost.  In order to make sure you know what your cost is going to be have your dentist submit the treatment plan to your insurance company as a quote only before dental services are started.  That way the dental insurance company can be able to state what is covered and for what amount. Stopping the guessing game before it starts.

It is important to understand your dental insurance plan and to know what is covered and what may not be. There are dental insurance plans that have limitations such as yearly max dollar limits and deductibles. If it a new plan you may also have plan waiting periods.  Other plans that do not have these types of limitations may have provider limitations making you stay within the plan network of dental providers.  Many plans may also limit the amount of one type of dental service you can  have with in the year. Common examples of this would be one set of X-rays per year, 2 cleaning 1 every 6 months.  However many times plans will limit the number of crown you may be able to have such a 5 crowns per year.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for the most part dentist do not basing their decisions for treatment on what is or is not covered by your dental insurance plan.  A dentist may advise dental services that are not covered or that is limited in coverage.

If you want to say within your plan coverages, then you need to advise your dentist ahead of time.  They may still suggest services not covered by your plan but at that point you can address the reasons why. The dentist job is to be committed to taking care of your child’s teeth, not to worry about your dental insurance. So before dental services are render you should make sure what is covered by your plan and what your cost are. That way you avoid any surprises along the way.