Month: February 2019

As a dentist, what is one thing you think all people should know about dental hygiene that they might not know already?

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I’m not a dentist but I am a bacteriologist and the main thing that few medical professionals recognize is that our microbiome (the bacteria in our bodies) evolved right along side with us. Most of our bacteria are either beneficial or innocuous – that includes our oral bacteria. A small number are harmful and these include the Strep mutans which cause cavities. However among the beneficial functions of the good bacteria is that they inhibit the bad. This happens throughout the body – in the gut (well established), on the skin (less understood) and the mouth and nasal cavities (understood by microbiologists but not by the dental profession).

Humans are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution alongside our … More