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Show Utah State Dental Assn. Charts Chi!drens Health Week Feb. 2-8 Americans may be "eating their way toward dentures," but there's hope that they may soon be able to have their cake and keep their teeth. Dr. R. B. Montgomery, Murray, Mur-ray, chairman of the Utah State Dental Association Dental Health Committee, said following a meeting of the Committee in Salt Lake City to prepare for the observance of Children's Dental Health Week Feb. 2-3, that researchers "now foresee the possibility of developing a vaccine which could make tooth decay a thing of the past." "It has been discovered." Dr. Montgomery noted, "through intensive in-tensive research, that, in certain forms of animals, tooth decay is a transmissible disease, that it will not occur in a germ free atmosphere at-mosphere and that in rodents at least it is caused by bacteria of the streptococcus family." "Although this information can't yet be interpreted in relation rela-tion to man, scientists are getting get-ting closer to discovering what causes decay the most common of man's chronic diseases." Dr. Montgomery said, "It is known that, for tooth decay to occur in humans, fermentable carbohydrates, such as sugar, must be present in the diet and the annual per capita consumption consump-tion of sugar in the U.S. has increased in-creased almost ten fold in 100 years." He noted that Americans compound com-pound the problem by elminat-ing elminat-ing all fibrous, coarse foods that give exercise to chewing muscles mus-cles and serve to help cleanse the tooth surfaces from their diet. Soft foods become impacted between teeth and are more difficult dif-ficult to remove by brushing. "More diligent home and pro-fesional pro-fesional care of teeth is necessary neces-sary with our current dietary habits," he said. He cited fluoridation, fluori-dation, brushing teeth or rinsing the mouth with water immediately immedi-ately after eating, early and regular reg-ular dental treatment and a diet low in sweets as measures for improving dental health. |
