The Highlands County Health Department began offering free dental care to uninsured pregnant women last Wednesday and its offices are already booked for the next two weeks.

“We’ve had a tremendous response from women learning about it through their OBGYN’s,” said Dr. Gerald Pyser, dental executive director for Highlands County Health Department.

Uninsured pregnant women and those receiving Medicaid are now eligible for free dental care at the health department’s dental office in Sebring.

The dental program, New Maty’s Dental Program, is the first to be offered to pregnant women in the county. According to Florida Department of Health’s 2008 statistics the program hopes to reach Highlands County’s 150 pregnant teens and 565 single mothers.

“The county has a high teen pregnancy rate and that’s really what’s driving the wheel,” Pyser said.

The program will offer free preventive and restorative care for pregnant women through out their pregnancy.

The health department’s program also seeks to educate expecting mothers on preventive dental care for their infants.

Pyser said pre-dental care leads to healthier mothers and infants.

“Treatment and prevention of dental and gum disease in pregnancy has a very positive effect on preventing preterm labor and low birth weight infants,” he said.

The department hired Dr. Joel Shapses, a dentist from Collier County, to treat patients for this program once a week on Wednesday by appointment.

Pyser said the program is permanent and based on the needs of the county.

“We hope to expand the program,” he said.

For more information on New Maty’s Dental Program, call 382-7257.

Keeping your teeth brushed and flossed can cut down on gum disease, drastically reducing risk of heart attack and stroke, dentists have warned for years. Now researchers at West Virginia University have found a clean mouth may also help preserve memory (see also Gum Disease).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1.3 million grant over four years to further build on studies linking gum disease and mild to moderate memory loss.

“Older people might want to know there’s more reason to keep their mouths clean — to brush and floss — than ever,” said Richard Crout, D.M.D., Ph.D., an expert on gum disease and associate dean for research in the WVU School of Dentistry. “You’ll not only be more likely to keep your teeth, but you’ll also reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and memory loss.”

Crout will share the grant with gerontologist Bei Wu, Ph.D., formerly of WVU and now a researcher at the University of North Carolina; Brenda L. Plassman, Ph.D., of Duke University, a nationally recognized scientist in the field of memory research; and Jersey Liang, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Michigan. Wu is the principal investigator.

The team will look at health records over many years of several thousand Americans.

“This could have great implications for health of our aging populations,” Crout said. “With rates of Alzheimer’s skyrocketing, imagine the benefits of knowing that keeping the mouth free of infection could cut down on cases of dementia.”

The research builds on an ongoing study of West Virginians aged 70 and older. Working with the WVU School of Medicine, School of Dentistry researchers have given oral exams and memory tests to 270 elderly people in more than a dozen West Virginia counties.

Funded by a $419,000 two-year grant, they’ve discovered that about 23 percent of the group suffers from mild to moderate memory loss.

A blood draw is also part of the study for research subjects who agree.

“If you have a gum infection, you’ll have an increased level of inflammatory byproducts,” Crout explained. “We’re looking for markers in the blood that show inflammation to see if there is a link to memory problems. We’d like to go full circle and do an intervention — to clean up some of the problems in the mouth and then see if the inflammatory markers go down.”

Researchers don’t yet understand whether microorganisms in the mouth create health problems or whether the body’s inflammatory response is to blame. It may be a combination of both. Researchers also don’t know much about mild to moderate memory loss, even though the connection between severe dementia and gum disease is well-known, Crout said.

In the future, dentists may routinely administer memory tests to their older patients, he said.

“A dentist may see a longtime, older patient with an area of the mouth that’s showing signs of inflammation because of not being properly cleaned daily,” Crout said. “Many times we as clinicians, however, don’t think of this as due to a memory problem. The patient may not be flossing or brushing properly as we have instructed they should. But this research indicates that the problem may be due to memory loss as opposed to noncompliance.”

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com/.

Keywords: Aging, Alzheimer Disease, Cardiology, Central Nervous System Disease, Dementia, Dentistry, Gum Disease, Heart Attack, Memory Disorder, West Virginia University Health Sciences Center.

how to brush your teethdental health

Sunstar Americas, an oral care company whose brands include GUM and Butler, has tapped into the probiotic frenzy sweeping through the aisles of the retail space, by developing the new GUM PerioBalance supplement for oral health.

The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations define probiotics as “live microorganisms, which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.” In addition to some dietary supplements, some foods containing probiotics include yogurt and cereal bars (see story, page 130).

Positioned as “one of the first probiotic supplements specifically created for oral health,” the daily supplement comes in a mint-flavored lozenge and is made with a patented key ingrethent called Prodentis. According to the company, clinical tests have shown the supplement to reduce moderate-to-severe plaque and promote healthy teeth and gums in 28 days.

The new GUM PerioBalance is available online at www.drugstore.com or at www.periobalance.com and at Baiteli Drugs stores in the Seattle area. It is expected to be available nationwide in 2010.

healthy gum

discount dental plans