If you see a dentist or dental hygienist on a routine basis, they no doubt give you an oral cancer check. This is commonplace now since over 40,000 Americans are diagnosed with oral and throat cancers yearly. Sadly, the five-year survival rate of those diagnosed is only slightly more than 64 percent. By being proactive, you and your dentist can detect cancer and treat it so that major health problems are alleviated later. So thank your dentist next time when the oral cancer test is complete as he or she might just save your life!
Halloween can be pretty scary, and not just for its ghosts, witches, and goblins. Halloween has been known to frighten more than just a few parents for what all that gooey, sugary candy can do to their kids’ teeth. Thankfully, as a parent, you don’t have to make your kids opt out of all the Halloween fun just because you don’t want their teeth to end up looking like that candy corn they’ve been scarfing by the boatload. In fact, it likely will surprise you to learn that some of the candy they get for for trick or treat may even be good for their teeth. For instance, sugarless candies can actually benefit teeth. But what about the rest of them? Is one sugary candy just as bad as another? Or are all Halloween candies that contain sugar as ghastly as those costumes they picked out? Here are some dental health tips for parents at Halloween about the best and worst Halloween candy for teeth.