Posted on 05/31/2022 7:37:05 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
People with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are prone to tooth decay, and a new study from Rutgers may explain why: Reduced strength and durability of enamel and dentin, the hard substance under enamel that gives structure to teeth.
Researchers induced type 1 diabetes in 35 mice and used a Vickers microhardness tester to compare their teeth with those of 35 healthy controls over 28 weeks. Although the two groups started with comparable teeth, enamel grew significantly softer in the diabetic mice after 12 weeks, and the gap continued to widen throughout the study. Significant differences in dentin microhardness arose by week 28.
"We've long seen elevated rates of cavity formation and tooth loss in patients with diabetes, and we've long known that treatments such as fillings do not last as long in such patients, but we did not know exactly why," said Mohammad Ali Saghiri, an assistant professor of restorative dentistry at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine.
The study, now published in Archives of Oral Biology, advances a multiyear effort by Saghiri and other researchers to understand how diabetes affects dental health and to develop treatments that counter its negative impact. Previous studies have established that people with both types of diabetes have significantly elevated rates of most oral health issues, both in the teeth and the soft tissues that surround them. Saghiri and other researchers also have demonstrated that diabetes can interfere with the ongoing process of adding minerals to teeth as they wear away from normal usage.
"This is a particular focus of mine because the population of people with diabetes continues to grow rapidly," Saghiri said. "There is a great need for treatments that will allow patients to keep their teeth healthy, but it has not been a major area for research."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Most of the conditions around diabetes are caused by blood sugar, which is acidic. It’s why cuts have a harder time healing in a diabetic patient than not.
Going for a half-hour walk every day, if you have a good diet, is often a good way to get the excess blood sugar to be metabolized in the muscles.
Not new. Medicine has known about this for a long time.
Diabetes can affect your mouth by changing your saliva—the fluid that keeps your mouth wet. Saliva helps prevent tooth decay by washing away pieces of food, preventing bacteria from growing, and fighting the acids produced by bacteria. Saliva also has minerals that help protect tissues in your mouth and fight tooth decay.
Diabetes and some medicines used to treat diabetes can cause the salivary glands in your mouth to make less saliva. When less saliva flows, the risk for dental cavities, gum disease, and other mouth problems increases.
Diabetes can also increase the amount of glucose in your saliva. Diabetes occurs when your blood glucose level, also called blood sugar, is too high. High levels of glucose in your blood can also cause glucose to build up in your saliva. This glucose can feed harmful bacteria that combine with food to form a soft, sticky film called plaque, which causes cavities. If you don’t remove plaque, it can also build up on your teeth near your gum line and harden into a deposit called tartar, which can cause gum disease.
Untreated, these mouth problems can lead to tooth loss. Almost 25% of U.S. adults with diabetes ages 50 and older have severe tooth loss, compared with about 16% of those without diabetes.
wy69
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There are two prescribed medications when combined cause diabetes. Medical community would rather treat the resultant diabetes than find a different treatment. Could this be similar?
Crappy food that you repeatedly eat to give you diabetes is pretty bad for your teeth too.
To-may-to, to-mah-to.
CC
Worst thing alive for teeth is a cpap machine
The dryness
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