Gum Disease

Re: "Get Healthy, Then Get Pregnant" [June 5]: I am disappointed that your article never advised women who are planning to get pregnant to get a dental examination to ensure that there is no periodontal [gum] disease. Periodontal disease is caused by a chronic bacterial infection that can increase the risk of preterm birth. Overall, studies have concluded that pregnant women who have moderate to severe periodontal disease may be seven times more likely to deliver a premature child than women with healthy gums.

Of all the things that can go wrong with the human body, gum disease must rank among the least glamorous. One of its symptoms, after all, is bad breath. But this prosaic ailment is beginning to get some respect. Now that fluoride has quelled cavities, gum disease (formally called periodontal disease) is dentistry's biggest challenge. Researchers are attacking it with an armory of ingenious and powerful tools that range from drug-embedded string to nuclear isotopes.

The Food and Drug Administration has warned three companies that market mouth-rinse products to stop making unsupported claims that they remove plaque and promote healthy gums. The claims suggest the products, which are used by millions of Americans every day, are effective in preventing gum disease when no such benefit has been proven, the FDA said Tuesday. The agency said warning letters were sent to Johnson & Johnson, maker of Listerine Total Care Anticavity Mouthwash; and to two drugstore giants ?

After a year of wearing braces, Bill Bates was ready to get those puppies off. He had spent all of 1991 sporting the latest hip-colored elastic ligatures on his braces--red, white and blue in support of U.S. troops in Operation Desert Storm. Now it was time to take off the tinsel--braces that had taken him five years to get after finally convincing Scott Bates that he was dead serious about having his teeth straightened. Why the tough sell? Bill, at the time, was a 75-year-old retiree.

Jack Chang flashes a crooked smile. His discolored teeth crowd together like old tombstones. "I know why you come!" the Taiwanese-born cafe owner exclaims to Donna Cooke, one of his most loyal customers. "You want more peanut milk!" Chang schemed up the unlikely beverage when his teeth, loosened by gum disease, drove him to find a painless way to consume peanuts, a favorite food since childhood. The creation had unexpected benefits, Chang says: It cured his gums and even slowed his baldness.

Worse than cholesterol? Hard to believe, perhaps, but the top health concern of millions of Americans is about to be trumped by what doctors say is an even bigger trigger of heart attacks. The condition is low-grade inflammation, which may originate in a variety of unlikely places throughout the body, including excess fat. New federal recommendations are being written that will urge doctors to test millions of middle-aged Americans for it.

Your first toothbrush probably didn't come with a user's manual. You picked the thing up, put it in your mouth, moved it across your teeth in a vaguely up-and-down fashion, and called it good. Old-school toothbrushes are still the norm in medicine cabinets everywhere. Dentists hand them out for free by the ton, and stores sell them for a few bucks apiece. Rotary brushes powered by AAA batteries that cost $10 are another popular option. But scan those store shelves, and you can find "sonic" toothbrushes that take oral hygiene to a new level of technological sophistication, not to mention a new stratosphere of price.

After five years of toil, a consortium of several hundred U.S. researchers has released a detailed census of the myriad bacteria, yeasts, viruses and amoebas that live, eat, excrete, reproduce and die in or on us. Described in two papers in Nature and a raft of reports in other journals, the data released Wednesday describe microbes of the skin, saliva, nostrils, guts and other areas of 242 adults in tiptop health. The $170-million, federally funded Human Microbiome Project also cataloged the genes contained within this zoo of life.

Makers of toothpastes and mouthwashes who want to claim their products prevent plaque and other dental conditions must show their ingredients are safe and effective, federal health officials said today. The Food and Drug Administration told these manufacturers to submit data supporting their claims within the next six months.

President Reagan signed into law Thursday a bill requiring health warnings on snuff and chewing tobacco packages and banning radio and television advertising of the products. The measure is aimed at curbing the growing popularity of smokeless tobacco among children and teen-agers.