Taking a break from Rush for a moment... WTF is going on with kids' teeth..? [View all]

[Bigmack]

"A report from The New York Times says dentists around the country are seeing an uptick in preschool-age patients with multiple cavities - sometimes more than 10 - that require surgery under anesthia because the decay is so severe.

"The most severe cases have 12 or 16, which is seen several times a week," Dr. Megann Smiley, a dentist-anesthesiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told the Times. For these children with severe cases of tooth decay, dentists turn to general anasthesia since it is unlikely a child will sit through drillings on multiple teeth."

Other contributing to factors to the preschool problem are age-old problems of snacking on sweets and drinking sugar-loaded juice from sippy cups. According to the Times, one surgeon said one 3-year-old boy arrived for his second round of dental surgery while holding a bottle of soda.

Alexander told HealthPop that parents sometimes give their kids a bottle of juice to help them fall asleep, which is especially problematic since children's enamel is thin to begin with, and the mouth's natural cleaning processes are less active when people sleep. He said another cause of cavities people might not think of is when a child falls asleep while breastfeeding. Breast milk contains natural sugars that can erode teeth, he said."

Fucking sugar! My doc says sugar should be a controlled substance like heroin. I quit sugar cold turkey and lost 40 lbs in 8 months... after some serious withdrawal discomfort.

Sugar is in everything... natural and added... cane, beet, and HFCS.

If we try to do anything about this, the rightwingnuts will squeal about "nanny state", but we may have to do something drastic.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57391527-10391704/more-preschoolers-showing-up-to-dentists-with-10-cavities-or-more-says-report/