Dental Implants Seattle

By Richard Stooker

 Chances are there’re a lot more germs growing in your kitchen and the rest of your house than you think. Your kitchen is a breeding ground for cold, influenza and stomach viruses, as well as the normal microbes that inhabit your skin and digestive tracts.

Even though you think you’re a great housekeeper.

The most dangerous area is the kitchen. Yes, surprising as it seems, your kitchen probably has more germs than your bathroom — where the worst of them are flushed away.

Your kitchen contains a huge number of surfaces. You and your family touch them, and spatter and spill food over counters and the table and onto the floor. You pick up utensils. You cut up and cook food that even if not contaminated also contains nutrition for germ growth.

Yes, you clean your kitchen. But few people practice sanitation as strictly as they could.

One problem is raw meat. Beef can contain E coli 0157 and poultry can contain Salmonella and Campylobacter.

It’s highly unlikely in the U.S. or other developed countries that are watching their poultry flocks very carefully for signs of bird flu, that the chicken you buy in the store has H5N1 virus in it.

But if that should ever happen, these good sanitation habits will help protect you from it.

You should wash your hands WELL at every stage of meal preparation. That means before you start. After you cut up the vegetables. After you put the meat dish into the oven. Before you set the table. And then before you eat.

Every stage of handling and preparing food can possibly spread an infection to your skin. If you wash your hands between the handling of different foods, you reduce the risk that you’ll introduce the new microbes into the next dish you’re cooking.

This washing between foods also applies to utensils and cutting boards.

Never cut up chicken and then use the same surface and knife to cut up vegetables without washing them thoroughly with soap and hot water first.

And don’t wipe food off your hands with your apron or a rag you should throw down, or your apron or rag will have lots of germs from food growing in it and you’ll be transmitting them into what you’re cooking.

And don’t touch your face with your hands until they’re thoroughly washed, or you could be introducing germs from the food into your own body.

Also, all meat and fish should be thoroughly cooked — well done. Never serve any meat with any pink left in it. The heat of cooking kills a lot of microbes and parasites that could otherwise make you ill.

Of course, you need to keep your floor swept and mopped with disinfectant, and all counters and tables cleaned and disinfected. And all dishes and utensils washed well with hot water.

Any throw rugs or curtains in the kitchen should be washed regularly. Any rubber mats should be cleaned with water and bleach. Washclothes and sponges should be kept dry.

c 2006 by Richard Stooker

Richard Stooker is the author of How to Protect Yourself and Your Family From Bird Flu and

Bird Flu Blog

Myths About Oral Health
By Kevin Pederson

 Oral health plays a vital role in the health and well-being of all people and, subsequently, the quality of life. Till recently it was felt that aging had to do with debilitating changes in oral functioning like loss of teeth, less salivary flow, mucosal atrophy and loss of taste. Recent research, however, withdraws many such misconceptions. Oral health myths and their debunking include:

Myth 1: Cavities are for children.

Reality: Wrong. If you have one or more of your natural teeth, you can still develop cavities. Cavities are more common as you grow older as your gums tend to pull away from the base of the teeth, leaving the roots exposed.

Myth 2: Those who have false teeth do not have to see a dentist anymore.

Reality: Wrong again, even if you have one or more false teeth or dentures, you must still clean them and visit your dentist on a regular basis.

Myth 3: Teeth are only for appearances sakes.

Reality: Wrong once more. Definitive studies have revealed the link between poor oral health and diseases like diabetes in people of all ages. In seniors, poor oral health is connected to respiratory diseases. Research has also revealed a possible link between oral health and heart disease.

Myth 4: Overall health does not depend on our oral health.

Reality: Not altogether true. If your gums are unhygienic, dental bacterial byproducts could get into your blood stream and this might result in heart diseases, strokes or under-weight child birth.

Myth 5: When brushing, bleeding is normal.

Reality: Not so. bleeding gums are just a sign of gum disease.

Myth 6: Brushing is done to remove food particles.

Reality: This is only partly right. By brushing and flossing daily it helps keep formation of plaque to the minimum, thus preventing oral diseases.

Myth 7: Bad breath is the result of lack of oral hygiene.

Reality: This again is only partly correct. There are some bacteria on the tongue and throat that produce volatile sulfur compounds. Excessive sulfur compounds result in the bad breath.

Myth 8: Pregnant women do not require dental checkups.

Reality: Unfortunately, no. Dental health has an impact on the health of baby to be born. Dental diseased during pregnancy could raise the chances of having a premature, under-weight baby.

Myth 9: Tooth loss is inevitable the older you grow.

Reality: Sadly it is not so. Around 15 years ago, over 50% Americans above 65 were totally toothless. By the year 1985, the figure had fallen to around 41% overall, ranging from 32% in ages 65-69 and 49% in the over 80 age group.

Herbal Natural Therapies for Oral Hygiene

A number of herbs have antibacterial properties that aid in oral hygiene routine. They also make the breath smell a little sweeter. For instance, as therapies for oral hygiene, essential oils of peppermint, spearmint, and almond can all be rubbed around the base of the gums.

As a therapy for oral hygiene tea tree oil has a lot more bacterial-fighting agents than the above mentioned essential oils. Add a few drops of tea tree oil to your toothbrush during brushing and it will leave your gums feeling clean and invigorated.

For centuries, another of the best natural therapies for oral hygiene is green tea. For long have the Chinese used green tea as an oral rinse for regular mouth care, since it contains powerful antioxidants that besides other things help boost the immune system.

Home Remedies for toothaches

The good old clove is one of the best known home remedies for toothache relief. Clove helps abate the pain with its antiseptic properties. In fact, clove oil, applied on the painful tooth, helps ease toothaches pain fairly quickly. Alternatively, try grinding a clove and applying the powder on the affected area.

Wheat grass juice is widely available nowadays as a fantastic home remedy to help prevent toothaches. Sometimes it can even cure. You may chew on wheat grass for pain relief; it will prevent bacteria from procreating and even draw bacteria out of the painful area.

A piece of raw onion chewed for 3 minutes helps ease toothache pain, or kill oral bacteria. This not only helps relieve the pain, it also helps cure toothaches. If you cannot chew, a small piece of raw onion applied directly to the infected spot will ease the pain almost immediately.

A lukewarm saltwater mouthwash also mildly disinfects the mouth and helps rinse the teeth and gums, thus providing gentle toothache pain relief. This is, perhaps, the easiest toothache home pain remedy, as everyone has some salt in their kitchens.

Finally, for successful toothache relief, a clove of garlic possibly mashed up with some salt and placed on the tooth helps relieve the pain. It even acts as an anesthetic, sometimes even curing mild toothaches. This home remedy could be one of the more successful ones of regularly applied.

Kevin Pederson, a regular writer for Natural Remedies and Home Cures recommends effective, low cost natural cures to recover from common health problems easily. The writer uncovers several misconceptions on oral health, and offers useful tips on dental health.

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Dental Health Flossing - How A Good Floss Technique Is Vital For Your Teeth
By Martin Haworth

 Mouth and dental hygiene are vital for more than just your teeth. Indeed your total health is a reflection of how well you look after yourself orally.

Using a toothbrush frequently and with good technique is a start and one which challenges many people in itself. For those who have accomplished a steady and adequate brushing technique, there is another step.

To get really clean between your teeth - those places where you just know you haven’t cleaned everything properly - you must use a dental floss technique to make sure that you are fully protected.

Dental floss will remove food particles lodged in between your teeth in those areas that, for one reason or another are just inaccessible to your brush. It may not be your fault, more a layout error at design stage in your mouth! Still, it’s no excuse to let your dental health suffer in this way.

After all, you now have a great solution!

Did you know that all the bits of food that get lodged between your teeth, start to rot in only a few hours. This will almost certainly be one of the causes of bad breath, if you suffer from that.

So if you want to enjoy the best of dental health, it’s always best to make sure that you get rid of these food particles as soon as you can after eating. And as we now know, just brushing on it’s own, simply cannot get to all the hard-to-reach (bits of stuck food rich) places, which is precisely where plaque builds up.

And that’s where a good dental floss can help you.

There are quite a lot of different sorts of dental floss now on the market, each of them, according to their manufacturers, providing you with the perfect solution to meet and exceed your dental health needs

“With it’s light wax coating and it’s shred-resistant texture, it slides easily between your teeth and below the gumline”, is one manufacturer’s claim for it’s number one dental floss.

Whatever product, within whatever brand you choose, the technique is the same. Here it is, step by step:-

1) Take a big enough piece of floss to wrap around a finger on each hand, which keeps it tight

2) Manipulate the floss down through the gaps between each pair of teeth and letting one of the fingers slip, pull the floss all the way through

3) Avoid, where possible, pulling the floss back up from between the teeth as this can damage any dental work you may have had done - pull through the gap horizontally, rather than upwards

4) Some teeth gaps, especially at the back of the mouth, might be quite difficult to get at and this is where your dental health can slip. So do your best and if you really can’t reach, there are some specialized products that come with a ready stretched piece of floss on an implement, which will really help you.

5) Deal with every gap, every time you floss if you want the best dental health

6) After you floss, brush your teeth in the way your dentist or oral hygienist has advised

7) Ideally, floss twice a day, when you brush (you do brush twice a day - right?)

What sort of dental floss to buy? Well, to benefit your overall dental health, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you need to buy something that you are comfortable enough with that you will use it regularly.

Some dental floss shreds a bit, so some people prefer a more plastic tape type. For others, they will enjoy using a floss with a flavor, so mint versions are available.

Whichever dental floss type you use, get one you like, even if it is a bit more expensive than the budget brand. Then you will not only enjoy using it regularly, but you will also benefit your own dental health every day.

(c) 2007 Best Dental HealthGuide. If you want to find the best information and product ideas to keep your teeth healthy and bright. You can, right here, on Martin Haworth’s fascinating website at http://www.BestDentalHealthGuide.com

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