DENTAL CARE

Dental diseases may be a warning that the high-glycemic diet that leads to dental problems in the short term may, in the long term, cause harm to the body. Dr. Philippe P. Hujoel, professor of dental public health sciences at the University of Washington School Of Dentistry in Seattle evaluated two contradictory viewpoints on the role of dietary carbohydrates in health and disease. The debate circled around fermentable carbohydrates i.e. foods that turn into simple sugars in the mouth. Fermentable carbohydrates are not just sweets like cookies, doughnuts, cake and candy. They also include bananas and several tropical fruits, sticky fruits like raisins and other dried fruits, and starchy foods like potatoes, refined wheat flour, yams, rice, pasta, pretzels, bread, and corn.

One viewpoint suggested that certain fermentable carbohydrates were beneficial to general health and that the harmful dental consequences of such a diet should be managed by the tools found in the oral hygiene section of drugstores. A contrasting viewpoint highlighted that fermentable carbohydrates were bad for both dental and general health, and that both dental and general health needed to be maintained by restricting fermentable carbohydrates.

Hujoel explains that eating sugar or fermentable carbohydrates drops the acidity levels of dental plaque and is considered an initiating cause of dental decay. According to Dr. Hujoel, there is fascinating evidence that suggests that the higher the glycemic level of a food, the more it will drop the acidity of dental plaque, and the higher it will raise blood sugar. So, possibly, dental decay may really be a marker for the chronic high-glycemic diets that lead to both dental decay and chronic systemic diseases. This puts a whole new light on studies that have linked dental diseases to such diverse illnesses as Alzheimer's disease and pancreatic cancer.