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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1972)
Fighting the toothy decay battle It’s not how much sugar you eat, but how often WASHINGTON — If you have ever suffered the piercing pain of a toothache, you can understand why in some primitive societies the only known cause of suicide was a toothache. That would be a little drastic today, since a dentist can fill a tooth or pull it with just a little more pain. But it is even less painful—downright pleasant just to prevent tooth decay in the first place. How? Control sugar intake, counsels Judy Shuiman, a young nutritionist living in Bethesda, Md Researchers have discovered that in causing tooth decay, it’s not how much sugar you eat, but how often and in what form. For instance, it would be better to eat a package or roll of sweets all at one time, than over a period of time. This will produce 20 minutes of the acid reaction that is the start of tooth decay. On the other hand, if the sweets are eaten one at a time, say a half-hour apart, each piece will result in 20 minutes of the decay producing acid, and the total time the teeth are ex posed to the acid could add up to hours. Sticky candy like taffy is even worse, Ms Shuiman says, because it takes so long to dissolve. Itcan’t even be washed away. Washing away the sugar is a big help— so sweets eaten with meals tend to be less harmful. It is more hazardous to eat sweets at the end of the meal, unless you brush your teeth immediately. Worst of all are between meal sweets. Sugar in solution is not as bad for your teeth (for example, in gelatin desserts, chocolate milk, tea or coffee, or car bonated beverages).Remember though, if sweet beverage such as cola is dripped on a tooth, steadily, over a period of time, the tooth will dissolve, Ms. Shulman warns. Instead of nibbling candy, she suggests drinking a glass of orange juice or eating a piece of fruit. The natural sugar in fruit (fructose) gives the same amount of food energy as the candy’s sugar (sucrose), without the destructive effect on the teeth. From a dental standpoint, though, dried fruit and honey should be avoided. They are sticky and contain the sucrose that bacteria seem to prefer. Energy-producing sugar is found in other forms of carbohydrates, such as com, potatoes, breads and cereals. The sugar from these food doesn’t present such a dental probelm. Children should not be rewarded with candy, Ms. Shulman advises parents. This implies candy is good for them. Remind grandmother, too, that candy is not a treat; it can lead to painful treatment later. As for fluoridated water (natural or otherwise), a person drinking it all his life can probably expect to develop half as many cavities as one who drinks water containing little or no fluoride. There are a variety of bacterial diseases attacking the teeth, and so far no one way to prevent all of them has been found. These are some of the facts Ms. Shulman stresses in the classes she teaches as nutrition consultant in the dental therapist training program at Howard University. A graduate of Simons College in Dietetics, she was an instructor in dental nutrition at Tufts University in 1968-69, and worked under the supervision of Dr. Abraham Nizel, an associate professor of nutrition in Tufts’ dental school, who has done pioneering work in nutrition coun seling. Patients with rampant cavities were referred to her from the school’s dental clinic. She counseled some of them during her classes, demonstrating interviewing procedures so that her students could learn counseling techniques. “It’s easy, as a nutritionist, to give advice about eating and hand out a diet sheet—which people usually throw away,” she says. “If, instead of that, you can somehow encourage a person to adjust his diet to fit his individual lifestyle, you will be more likely to change that person’s food habits. “I try to get a patient started talking, to give me clues as to what is important in his life. He has been asked to bring in a five day food diary. I ask him to circle everything he has eaten with regular table sugar (sucrose), and we calculate the total number of minutes his teeth have been exposed to sweets. “Next we evaluate the food, to see how much he has eaten from each of the four basic food groups—milk, meat, fruit vegetables and bread-cereals.” Ms. Shulamn then makes a diagnosis and helps the patient work out a personal diet prescription. To make it livable, they change only a few things in the diet and these changes are usually in the quality, not the quantity, of the food. She keeps data sheets on patients she has counseled, and has found that three fourths of them were able to make a significant change in their food habits. Mostof them, she found, are motivated by the desire to save money and avoid pain. Teen-agers often want to lose weight, too. The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post IRS improvements make filing easier for taxpayers this year With the Internal Revenue Service busy policing Phase II, its regular customers might have hoped for a little breather this year. But, no, just days after the holiday season slipped out, federal income tax forms slipped in Right on time, and, of course, with improvements. The Internal Revenue Service is always on the lookout for improvements, officials of the tax collection agency say. Take 1968, a vintage year. That was the year that saw the end of the short form 1040 A The short and relatively simple form was buried for your benefit Naturally. Randolph W Thrower, a former IRS com missioner, said at the time, "We have done away with the card, form 1040 A, because many taxpayers in choosing this short form denied themselves tax advantages to which they were en tit It'd. Another mark of progress announced that year was an advance into color, a switch from blah gray on some pages to patriotic red, white and blue. Generally the improvements announced by the Internal Revenue Service are designed to make the awesome job of filing your tax return simpler. Johnnie M Walters, current IRS commissioner, has a message on the front page of the federal income tux forms that opens with this mollifying note: "We know that filling out a tax return is not fun -even if you get u refund, which most taxpayers do Yet, we believe most American taxpayers can make their own return for 1871." Many o! you woulu disagree Hut to prove its cast', the IKS forms this year include a bold new feature— an example An IKS spokesman sakl inclusion of the example represents a first for the tax agency. An example seems the kind of improvement that someone wouk) have brainstormed even before the IKS moved to make tax filing a more colorful ex perience Hut asking why an example wasn’t included liefore this is like asking why computers weren’t invented years before they first started digesting data, an IKS official said "It’s just part of the evolving process of making forms clearer," he said. He added a more concrete explanation: the emergence of the example stems from the disap pearance of the short form with ‘‘explicit" in structions The step by step move to simplicity is coupled this year with encouragement from Walters in his suggestion that you try to apply the do-it-yourself drive to tax returns In his front page message, Walters said, ’’Turn this page and you will find an example showing how almost 30.000.000 of you can prepare your tax return There is no reason for anyone in this large group to pay to have his return prepared by someone else unless he has some complicated personal situation " This year, an estimated 75.000.000 individual federal income tax returns will be filed, representing about 100,000.000 taxpayers, a spokesman sax) *1 think that the average taxpayer can prepare hss own return and be assured that he can get all the Page • refund due him, or that the tax he has to pay is the minimum,” the spokesman said. For those who refuse to go it alone, however, there is another first from the IRS—a warning about the person you pay to prepare your tax. In his message Walters said, “If nevertheless you need to employ someone to help you because of personal complications, you should remember that you still are responsible for everything on your return. Therefore, be careful and satisfy yourself that you employ someone who is competent and trustworthy, and who will not misuse the confidential in formation you furnish for use in making your return.” Disclosure of any information given by you to a commercial tax preparer would be technically illegal now under the Revenue Act of 1971. The law includes a clause stipulating that the Office of the U S. Treasury Secretary shall issue regulations providing guides on the disclosure provision. What those regulations will say is only a matter of speculation now An IRS spokesman said, ‘‘In general, the regulations will have to follow the law. If the law says no disclosure, the regulations can’t provide for disclosure when that was not the intent of congress " This question of disclosure ot intormauon cameio public attention last June when the Federal Trade Commission charged Beneficial Corp., and H and R Block Inc., with improper use of information ob tained in tax preparation. Negotiations between the FTC and Block recently resulted in a proposed consent order. One provision of that proposal would require Block to gain a taxpayer’s approval before disclosing any information obtained in preparing tax returns. The proposal is subject to public comment until Jan 27. Sometime after that deadline, the five-member commission of the FTC could rule on the proposed order, making sure it did not conflict with the disclosure provision of the Revenue Act of 1971 The case involving Beneficial Corp is still pending. A general study on the tax preparation business has been under way at IRS since mid-1971. A spokesman for the IRS said that this study did not come as a result of the FTC actions. “The tax preparation business is growing rapidly, and there's almost no regulation,” he said. “We are concern'd a Unit the great number of people who are turning to tax preparers.” Last year. 52.6 per cent of the federal income tax returns included signatures of tax preparers as well as those of the taxpayers An IRS breakdown by income shows that while the percentage of taxpayers using preparation firms increases with income, still almost half the taxpayers earning less than $5,000 a year use tax preparers For taxpayers earning less than $5,000 a year, the percentage of those turning to tax preparers is 47 4 per cent; for taxpayers earning $5,000 to $10,000, it is 59 6 per cent; $10,000 to $20,000, 55 per cent $20,000 and more. 63 per cent. I-Os Angeles Times \\ ashington Host News Service Q SAFEWAY /rvmrMrX WStOUNI Smoked Shank Half 48 c lb US No. 2 Russets vj IT Potato os59c 99° 36'/2-oz$ 1 cans | 10' Blitz Beer Bumble Bee Tuna Scotch Treat 6 pk. 11-oz. recyclable bottles Light Meat Chunk Style Peas ioozpk9 Belmonte s-oz. can ffiTomatoSauce 10' Morton’s Sh":ke" ■ ■ Turkey - Salisbury Steak 11-oz. 33 iS> Sll,dl argarine - 69 2 lb. can HNestle’sQuick 68e ^CottageCh eese 25' Prices effective: 20, 21. 22. Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat. — Jan., 19, At Safeway Stores in Eugene, Springfield, Junction City and Cottage Grove.
