TeethRemoval.com

I wanted to write briefly about the California Dental Association and applaud them for their current stance on wisdom teeth and their removal.

It is available to the public at http://www.cda.org/popup/Wisdom_Teeth

Here is an excerpt from the site.

“In addition to problematic impacted wisdom teeth, partially erupted wisdom teeth (poking through the gums a little bit) should also be removed. Bits of food and bacteria get trapped in the pockets between the partially erupted tooth and gum, and cause infections and gum disease, not to mention pain. But according to Dr. Robert Boyd, Orthodontist, Periodontist, and Chairman of the Orthodontics Department at University of the Pacific School of Dentistry, the trend today is to leave healthy, stable, wisdom teeth alone, monitoring them over the years to make sure they stay healthy and stable. Dr. Alex McDonald, Oral Surgeon and Director of the Implant Clinic at UOP agrees, pointing out that the risks involved when using anesthesia and the risk of nerve damage to the lower jaw when removing the lower wisdom teeth should be considered when recommending removal of impacted wisdom teeth.”

From looking around the internet this is the only current dental association in the United States that recommends watchful monitoring of healthy impacted wisdom teeth. The American Dental Association (ADA) offers no such information on their website. The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) is using outdated information on their website and states that 85% of all wisdom teeth will need to be removed.

I applaud the California Dental Association for providing the public with up to date information and to keep them informed. I only hope that the ADA and AAOMS can soon follow.

For those of you guys who do not know, JamLegend is a brand new website online that is similar to guitar hero and rock band. Except everything is free and you play online using your keyboard. The site is currently in private beta and it took me well over a week to get an invite.

However, I was also lucky enough to get an invite and am willing to share it with one of you.

Here is a screen shot of me playing a song on Jam Legend.

So how do you get an invite? I only have 1 invite to give but the first person to complete the following offer and sign up with their information will receive one. Simply let me know you signed up by showing me a screen shot or leaving a comment here.  You are signing up for a website to get paid for taking surveys.

Mercury is a large component of dental fillings, but it is not believed to pose immediate health risks in that form. When exposed to sulfate-reducing bacteria, however, mercury undergoes a chemical change and becomes methylated, making it a potent, ingestible neurotoxin.

While the major source of neurotoxic mercury comes from coal-fired electric power plants, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Urbana-Champaign say mercury entering drain water from dental clinics and offices is also a source.

“We found the highest levels of methyl mercury ever reported in any environmental water sample,” said Karl Rockne, associate professor of environmental engineering at UIC and corresponding author of the study that appeared online March 12 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Working with James Drummond, UIC professor of restorative dentistry, Rockne gathered waste water samples in collection tanks generated from both a single-chair dentist’s office and a 12-chair dental clinic to check for methyl mercury.

Water collected was allowed to settle. Clear layers above the settled particles were then analyzed for presence of methyl mercury. Fine, slow-settling particles of mercury get into the waste water mostly after dentists use high-speed drills to remove old amalgam fillings. The numerous fine particles the drilling produces provide an ample source of exposed mercury surfaces, making them prime targets for sulfur-reducing bacteria that commonly live in anaerobic conditions and are known to methylate mercury.

“It appears to be produced partially, if not fully in the waste water, and it’s being produced very rapidly,” said Rockne, adding that it was significant this was happening before the particles were getting into sewers, where sulfur-reducing bacteria thrive.

The finding raised the question whether the culprit bacteria were living in the mouths of dental patients. “We don’t have the answer,” Rockne said.

Based on their sample studies, the researchers estimate that 2-5 kilograms, or up to 11 pounds, of methyl mercury could be entering the public water supply of the United States each year from dental waste water. While this may not seem like much, methyl mercury is highly toxic in minute amounts.

When in waterways, methyl mercury tends to get biomagnified up the food chain, moving from algae and phytoplankton to fish and, ultimately, to humans.

While surprised by the level of contaminants found in the study, Rockne says follow-up research is necessary — then, possibly, some basic engineering.

“Amalgam separators are a good first step, but maybe something else is necessary downstream to prevent further methylation and prevent further soluble mercury from getting through the system,” he said.

Adapted from Materials at the University of Illinois

As mentioned in a previous post, it has been revealed that scientists in Japan were able to successfully harvest stem cells from wisdom teeth. This has several implications for patients.

The first one being that if you have your wisdom teeth removed, it might be wise to save them, or have someone save them for you. This is because in your lifetime it is possible that the stem cells harvested from the wisdom teeth could be of great importance to you. They could possibly cure diseases and other health problems you may have in the future.

What needs to be determined now is the best way to isolate and save the cells. It is not clear from the research from the scientists in Japan whether or not removing the wisdom teeth in certain ways can make it more difficult to harvest potential stem cells. This also should be determined.

It is unlikely that oral surgeons have large storage facilities where they can save all of these cells. Further, it is possible the cells could get mixed up. Saving them in your own home might not be the best idea either. Therefore I wonder what the best way to save these cells would be. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

I wanted to update you guys on two quick things.

The first is that Google just rolled out a new feature to it’s search engine that used to be only available when you used Google Labs Beta. Now when you search, the engine will have other common searches with those keywords appear along with the number of results for that keyword.

I think it is an excellent feature.

The second piece of news of wisdom teeth stem cells.

“Japanese scientists say they have created human stem cells from tissue taken from the discarded wisdom teeth of a 10-year-old girl.”

However, the research suggests that it will be at least 5 years before any practical medical applications. Even so dentists are no starting to hold on to stem cells from wisdom teeth. In fact, I have known about this for nearly a year now, but the issue of harvesting stem cells from wisdom teeth has really generated a lot of buzz in the past few days.

Storing your stem cells from your wisdom teeth is probably the smart choice, so if you do have any extractions you might want to talk to the oral surgeon about this. One day stem cells could help find treatments for many incurable diseases of today.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7576131.stm