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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2014)
Service Awards 10 Years Five Years Bonnie Crawford Alfred Lane III Alissa Lane Bonnie McAlpine Willard Metcalf Robert Smith Cathern Tufts Sherry Addis Frank Aspria Cherity Bloom-Miller Jamie Bokuro Randy Christensen Bobbi Foley Tracy Lancaster Jeremy Mason Marlene Owen John Pfleiger Debra Taylor 15 Years Kelley Ellis Valerie Hibdon Pamela Lane Chuvonne Metcalf 20 Years Five years: Cherity Bloom-Miller, Frank Aspria, Marlene Owen, Randy Christensen, Tracy Lancaster, John Pfleiger, Bobbi Foley, Jeremy Mason, Jamie Bokuro and Sherry Addis. Brenda Bremner DeAnn Brown 25 Years Selene Rilatos 30 Years Cheryl Lane 35 Years Karen Bell 35 years: Karen Bell (above) 30 years: Cheryl Lane (below) Photos by Diane Rodriquez 15 years: Kelley Ellis and 25 years: Selene Rilatos (right) 10 years: Robert Smith, Bonnie McAlpine, Cathern Tufts and Alfred Lane III (above) 15 years: Valerie Hibdon, Chuvonne Metcalf and Pamela Lane (below) Tooth Talk: New Year’s resolutions and probiotics to help care for teeth By Mary Ellen Volansky, EPDH, MS Might your 2014 New Year’s reso- lution be to increase your level of oral health? Are you going to floss more days of the week? Or brush more thoroughly, stretching to reach all the surfaces of all your teeth and do it twice a day? One aspect of good oral health and good body health is common to both, the presence of inflammation. Inflammation in our blood vessels is where clots form, where fat/plaque builds up. This build-up causes narrowing that can lead to block- age of a blood vessel in anyone’s heart or brain. Gum disease, also called periodontal disease or pyorea, has inflammation with it too. Inflammation of our gums is vis- ible when gums are puffy, sore and red. This inflammation makes our gums bleed, makes them swell and become tender to brushing, flossing or eating. 4 • Siletz News • Inflammation also causes bone loss, which makes teeth movable. Enough bone lost around a tooth and that tooth comes out. Up to 47 percent of adults age 30 and older have either mild, moderate or severe periodontitis, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of periodontal disease increases to 64 percent for those over age 65. Men have periodontitis more than women (56 percent vs. 38 percent for women). Minorities, those with less than a high school education and those below 100 percent of the poverty level experi- ence even greater rates of periodontal dis- ease (65, 67 and 67 percent, respectively). And according to the American Den- tal Association, periodontal disease can be treated and managed, which we do at the Siletz Dental Clinic for all our patients. January 2014 Now we’re back to that New Year’s resolution, the means to prevent periodontal disease, bone loss and tooth loss common with this disease. You say you are not all that into brushing and flossing, especially flossing daily? I’ve never heard of such ... Early last December while checking for school closings on my iPhone, I saw an article from National Public Radio. (I can’t believe I just told you I have an iPhone.) Anyway, this article was titled Microbiome Candy: Could a Probiotic Mint Help Prevent Cavities? Yes, there seriously are others who try to help us home care-challenged individuals avoid oral disease. Good news for all of us – it seems that scientists are busy looking for ways to make home care easy and helpful. OK, home care that people are more likely to do than flossing. One such new effort by the science community is a probiotic candy. Probiotics sound manageable when I consider that most of us eat yogurt. This sugarless candy has a mint flavor and is made with “dead bacteria.” After screening nearly 800 types of bacteria, researchers found one that might help prevent cavities. This one bacterium, lac- tobacilla paracasei, either dead (in yogurt and kefir) or alive (inside our mouths) might be helpful. Lactobacilla paracasei prevents strep- toccocus mutans from collecting or living on our teeth. Since streptoccocus mutans is the major cause of tooth decay, this appears to be a good thing. There might be a catch – we don’t know if preventing streptoccocus mutans from living on our teeth actually prevents decay. So give the researchers more time to test this idea out. While I wait, I’ll toast some kefir to a healthful New Year for us all.
