Fun Floss Facts, Part 4.

The WaterPik Power Flosser FLA-220 uses a mint-coated tip that is of adequate length, to place between teeth, and oscillates 10,000 times per minute to clean and whiten areas between the teeth and gums.

The Bryton Pick, available at brytonpick.com, is a super thin, flexible, germ-resistant, stainless steel insert that is vertically placed between the teeth to remove dental plaque. It can be reused for up to thirty days.

Floss threaders are large, soft plastic needles through which floss can be strung and the used to clean under fixed bridges, fixed retainers, and between braces.

Dessert Essence coats its floss with extracts from the same tree, the Melaleuca alternifolia tree (over 200 species),that some Australian Aborigines used for centuries. It contains dozens of beneficial compounds, and is the source of tea tree oil, which is revered by many people around the world. The oils are said to have anti-fungal, antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties.

In 1994, enough floss, almost three million miles of it, was purchased by the public, which is more than enough to encircle the Earth at the equator more than one hundred times!

Battery-operated power flossers can help clean the teeth and can be useful to people with limited manual dexterity skills (children and the elderly).

Teflon is added to floss to help make it pass easily through the contacts between teeth.

Dental floss should not to be reused because the bacteria removed from the mouth can remain on the floss and reinfect the mouth.

A controversial chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, is employed in the process of making Teflon.

Your dentist and hygienist can show you the best way to clean between your teeth according to the specific conditions and architecture of your mouth.

U-shaped and F-shaped dental wands, and ergonomic flossers, some with swiveling heads, are available to floss easier. Some of these have floss dispensers built into them.

May you have many…I’m all tied up like a gift, surfing on a strand, no flosswhipping … smiles!

Scientific Proof: Smiling And Feeling Great Improves Your Health!

The smile, which is the world's most famous nonverbal facial expression, usually is a sign that a person is feeling good or happy.  It is very valuable in interpersonal communications. It can show that you are approaching your immediate interaction peacefully with other people.

Dr. Guillaume Duchenne, a French neurologist who lived in the 1800s, found that the extreme enjoyment smile, which uses more of the face than just a simple smile, is really a happiness reflex. There is a distinct neural pathway (pyramidal) that carries those impulses to the brain. So joyful smiling, which is linked to happiness, can produce positive physiological effects.

If two people both smile at each other, there is a double positive effect for each person. The person smiling directly experiences the release of pleasure-related neurotransmitters that are made by the body. Also when a person receives a smile from another, especially with eye contact, there are additional signals sent to the brain that end up cascading more pleasure-related neurotransmitters.

The neurotransmitters involved may include members of the endorphin group (including enkephlins), acetylcholine, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate. These neurotransmitters may be released in varying amounts by the neurons associated with the duty of initiating joyful psychoactivation in the cerebrum. Also, different areas of the cortical and subcortical parts of the brain are involved, not just one fixed area. Use Bing or Google to learn more about the brain’s pleasure centers.

The raphe nucleus and the nucleus accumbens are two regions of the brain that have been implicated as being associated with causing the brain to undergo mood changes.

So, it seems that if a person learns how to develop a disposition to being happy, with the addition of the qualities of optimism, hopefulness, cheerfulness and feelings of blessedness, then, one can turn heavy burdens of stress into enjoyable eustress.

The organ systems of our bodies function better when we are not under debilitating emotional distress, and can function more optimally when we approach our daily lives with a great mindset. Having a positive point of view, mental peaking, self-actualizing, engaging in rewarding activities, like helping your fellow man, and being happy for no reason at all, will benefit us in the long and short runs. And the Duchenne smile we show across our faces is just a sign that we’ve arrived!

May you have many…high powered, neurotransmitter saturated, sweetness delivered to you… smiles!

Caveman Teeth vs The Teeth Of Modern Man…Who Wins?

Even though I’ve never seen a caveman or cavewoman smile, I feel that the human teeth of today are more pleasing to look at and they incorporate many “golden proportion” interrelationships than the more "T-Rexy" dentitions of our early ancestors. Modern Man has even written several memorable songs about nice smiles, as witnessed by “Your Smile” by Angela Winbush,  “I Love Your Smile” by Shanice, and “Your Smile” by Bobby Valentino.

Early Man ate almost exclusively animal meat, with very little grain and plant material included.

Our teeth and bodies have evolved over many thousands of years because of the things we ate and the way we prepared food. About 2.5 million years ago, we, in the form of Homo habilis, started using stone tools, according to fossil records. About 1.9 million years ago, Homo erectis (Upright Man) and Homo ergaster, supposedly exploited fire. And with the invention and the use of pottery, our prepared foods were softer and easier to chew and digest. These advancements, along with other evolutionary pressures, probably helped to reduce the selective advantages of having a super-long, sharp canine teeth (to tear meat in the field) and big jaw bones, with their accompanying muscles, to help masticate tough grains, stems, and leaves.

Since prehistoric times, our teeth and jaws have gotten smaller. We, as a species, mostly don’t have room for our wisdom teeth now. Will third molars cease to exist entirely in our species in the next 200,000 years or so?

So cultural, environmental, behavioral, and technological factors all weighed in on the evolution of the teeth and jaws of Homo sapiens sapiens. As our jaw size decreased over time, our brain case size has increased, along with the calorie-hungry neural matter inside (encephalization), undoubtedly to anatomically and physiologically pave the way to help us enhance our thinking powers for survival purposes.  We have sophisticated our technological-knowhow to harness the elements of the environment to increase our qualities of life. We have figured out how to keep the teeth we have in better health, and how to effectively replace missing teeth, among many other things, through developing the art and science of modern Dentistry and Dental Materials.

A major downside to the foods that we eat as members of our modern civilization, is that much of our consumables contain processed sugars and meats, and other staples that have substances added to them that do not promote the best of health, like chemical additives, preservatives, and sweeteners, like high-fructose corn syrup. Because of this diet difference, Modern Man has had a greater experience of dental cavities, gum problems, obesity, and other problems, it would seem. Early Man had no dietary processed sugar, so they had less or no Strep. Mutans in their mouths. Our cave ancestors win in that regard!


The human mouth, as it turns out, is probably the most important multitasker of the body. It has essentially affected our own evolution, and, by proxy, that of the Earth. I'm happy that all of this took place, because today's human dentition, around which so much of our lives revolve, seems more graceful, esthetic, and poetry-worthy. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes me smile!

May you have many…evolution proven, freshly hatched, kiss without being cut… smiles!

No Front Teeth Because Of “Gum Problems?” Say It Ain't So!

To make a long story short, periodontal disease, also known as gum disease, is characterized by advancing bone loss around the roots of the teeth accompanied by unhealthy gums. It is the major cause of tooth loss in adults.

The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) estimates that approximately three out of four Americans have some form of oral gum disease-that's at least 225 million people in the U.S. - but only three percent seek treatment for their condition. And, according to the World Health Organization, 85% of the world's adult populations, about 5 billion people, suffer from some form of periodontal problems.  Periodontal disease is more prevalent in older-aged groups than in younger-aged groups, which may be the result of cumulative tissue destruction throughout a lifetime. Wikipedia.org testifies that periodontitis is caused over a period of time by masses of anaerobic bacteria under the gums, along with the overly aggressive immune response from the body against these microorganisms. Gum disease should be taken seriously. It has been linked to heart attacks, strokes, erectile issues, diabetes, and other maladies, because bacteria in the area of severely infected and ulcerated gums find an opening and can enter the bloodstream and travel to other parts of the body.

Uncontrolled stress, poor oral hygiene practices, poor diet, the use of certain medications that restrict the flow of protective saliva, illnesses like cancer and AIDS and the medicines used to treat them, genetic factors, alcohol abuse, and smoking are all contributory factors that have been shown to greatly increase one's chances of developing periodontal disease.

Symptoms of gum disease include, but are not limited to, bad breath that won't go away, bleeding gums, red, swollen, and tender gums, sensitive teeth, loose teeth, and receding gums. Pathognomonic clinical signs of gum disease are 1) bone loss that can be visualized by an x-ray and 2) pocket depths around the teeth of 4 or more millimeters.

The main goal in treating gum disease is controlling the chronic infection. The type of treatment needed will depend on how pervasive the gum problem is in the mouth. Simple cleanings with minimal scaling and fluoride treatments will do the job in patients with minimal problems. Deep-cleaning treatments called scaling and root planning, along with flap surgeries, and laser procedures may be indicated in more severe cases. Oral and topical antibiotics may also be employed to fight the infection.

But, watch this: effective daily flossing frequently rids the disease-causing bacteria present, of an available food source. Masticatory food flow patterns act to press masticated food under the gums and between the teeth, and for that matter, all over the oral landscape. Don’t let small pools of left food stay in the mouth long.

See your family dentist regularly whether you have gum problems or not. He or she can help you to achieve better oral and physical health and stay that way.

May you have many…give me my teeth back, prevention is better than cure, unswollenly sweet… smiles!