Dental decay/ flesh eating bacteria?
By John Hackbarth, DDS
I am a member of the Galveston County Health District board. It is a fact that we get many calls asking about the water quality at the beaches. This also one of the most searched areas on our website. There is a good reason for this. One of the things that we test for is the vibrio bacteria. Vibrio is also known as a flesh-eating bacterium. It can eat live flesh. The vibrio bacteria have been around in our coastal bays and in the gulf for ages, but the flesh-eating abilities have only recently come to light. It is scary stuff and certainly worth the news articles you occasionally see.
Tooth decay, while caused by a totally different bacteria, is similar to flesh-eating bacteria, except that the bacteria that cause tooth decay eat teeth, not skin. It has been around for all of recorded history. It causes people to be sick and causes death– the same as vibrio flesh-eating bacteria. It is the number 2 infection in children and the number 1 reason children miss school.
Unfortunately, rotten teeth have been around forever, and it almost makes this normal. BUT can you imagine the uproar if this was just coming to light. How do you think the public and press would react? I can see the headlines, “Man diagnosed with tooth-eating bacteria.” The fear is that it will eat through the tooth and into the bone, even causing death.
Now this analogy is certainly sensational, but I have spent many years repairing and extracting bad teeth, so it makes sense to me. You should know that many more people die from mouth infections than from flesh-eating bacteria. Tooth infection is so common it is not newsworthy.
Prevention of disease is the key to all health. Preventing infection in your mouth takes about 8 minutes each day. Brushing and flossing correctly each day in the morning and evening is the answer. The type of toothpaste and mouthwash you use is not important. All one must do is keep your teeth and gums clean. Clean teeth do not rot. It is a very simple fact.
One should start preventing decay as soon as teeth begin to grow in and continue this for a lifetime. If you keep your teeth clean, bacteria cannot colonize and decay the teeth. Parents need to be sure to keep their children’s teeth clean.
What role do sweets have in tooth decay?
Sugars feed the bacteria that cause the infection. If the teeth are clean and sugar and carbohydrate consumption are kept at a minimum, decay is almost impossible.
An amazing fact is that chocolate doesn’t create as much damage as things like crackers and bread. Chocolate is washed off teeth fairly rapidly by the saliva. Saliva helps to wash off teeth and aid in digestion. When you eat a chocolate bar with and drink some water, it doesn’t stay around in your mouth very long. This is not so with bread or crackers which can stay around on your teeth for a long time. Saliva has a hard time washing them off.
Drinking sugary drinks is not necessarily bad for the teeth, if you just drink it. Sipping on a sugary drink all day or multiple sugary drinks each day are asking for trouble. Sipping keeps the teeth coated with sugar all day. The acids in some drink are also bad for teeth.
People who use drugs, especially meth, also tend to be sipping highly acidic drinks, which are high in sugar, and they develop what is called “meth mouth”. This is a serious problem and is very expensive and difficult to fix.
There is also the fact that tooth decay and gum disease are transmittable infections. The bacteria go from person to person. DNA tests show that children have the same oral bacteria as their parent. Kissing, eating and drinking habits in families spread this around. The takeaway here is to have a decay-free household.
One more interesting fact on the spread of oral disease. I have seen many times children come back from college with dental decay, when they were decay free beforehand. Why? Lifestyle changes, diet, drinking after others, kissing, etc.
Makes one think, doesn’t it?
