Is your child addicted to sugar?

Nearly half of mothers believe their children are addicted to sugar - but most are unaware quite how much they're really consuming

Most mothers questioned were unaware of the high sugar content of everyday foods such as yoghurts and juice Photo: Alamy

Nearly half of mothers (46 per cent) believe their children may be addicted to sugar, according to a new poll conducted by Bupa.

Yet many of them were unaware of the true scale of the problem, with the majority uninformed about the high sugar content of everyday foods such as yoghurts and juice.

Even though 43 per cent of the 2,000 mothers questioned claimed to know how much sugar was in the food their children eat, when asked how much was contained in everyday lunchbox items, most had no real idea.

While 88 per cent of children have at least one yoghurt a day, 93 per cent of the mothers questioned weren't aware that a typical fat-free yoghurt contains five teaspoons of sugar

The research found that 77 per cent of children consumed at least one glass of fruit juice each day - but 94 per cent of mothers didn't know that the average amount of sugar in a typical glass of apple juice is 6.5 teaspoons.

Some 93 per cent of mothers had no idea that a typical glass of apple juice contains 6.5 teaspoons of sugar

According to Mumsnet editor Sarah Crowne, sugar consumption is a continual source of anxiety among parents: "There's a great deal of discussion on Mumsnet about how to feed your kids well - from coping with fussy toddlers to tips for cajoling refusenik teens into managing a sensible breakfast before school.

"Excessive sugar consumption is a perennial concern amongst our users - particularly with 'hidden' sugar popping up in everyday products such as pasta sauce and bread, not to mention the large quantities in some of the most popular children's yoghurts and fruit snacks.

"In an ideal world, obviously, we'd all shun jars and packets and cook perfectly-balanced meals from scratch every day - but the fact is that time and money constraints often make this impossible.

"As with most aspects of child-rearing, parents simply do their best: to be clued-up about nutrition, avoid the obvious sugar-laden pitfalls and try to strike a healthy balance when feeding their kids."

Yet, in spite of these concerns and efforts, 40 per cent of parents questioned in the new poll said they gave their children sweets, fizzy drinks or chocolate at least once a day.

Nearly 25 per cent surveyed said they placed sugary treats in their child’s lunchbox, with the top culprits being cakes, chocolate, crisps and fruit juice. Nearly a third of mothers believed that, as they gave their children healthy food, too much sugar wasn't an issue.

Nicole Mowbray, author of Sweet Nothing, an account of giving up sugar, says: 'While these figures are shocking, they're not surprising."

"Even though parents try their best, sugar lurks in so many of the foods we give our children, from the addition of fruit juice to savoury baby foods to make it more palatable, to the high quantities of sugar lurking in everyday sauces such as tomato ketchup, or this new idea that honey is in some way healthier, when it isn't.

"That's before you've even considered the amount of sugar given to youngsters in the form of 'treats'. Parents should use their pressure power to force manufacturers to start reducing the amount of sugars they add to food and drinks aimed at children.'

Too much sugar in a child’s diet can cause permanent damage to health, including increased risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. as well as severe damage to dental health.

Andrew Wallis, of Cornwall Council, said earlier in the year that tooth decay among children had reached epidemic proportions. In fact, the research was commissioned by Bupa to mark the launch of its Tooth Fairy campaign - parents can create a personalised video for their children at toothfairy.bupa.co.uk.

Bupa's Clinical Director of Dentistry, Dr Steve Preddy commented: “With 26,000 primary school children admitted to hospital for tooth decay in the past year, there is a need now more than ever, for parents to be paying attention to their child’s sugar consumption.

"The recent announcement from NICE has caused much debate amongst health and teaching authorities, however the most important thing to remember is tooth decay is preventable.

Parents need to be regularly looking at the nutritional information of food products; it is often what are thought of as healthy foods or unexpected ones."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11183503/Is-your-child-addicted-to-sugar.html

How to Heal Cavities Naturally

The world is slowly waking up to the fact that, when you give the body what it needs, it can heal things we previously thought were impossible. A fine example of what is often deemed as an incurable health problem is dental cavities, but extensive research is now becoming more public about the true nature of tooth decay and the fact that there are proven remedies that can remedy it.

The lies perpetrated about tooth decay

How to heal Cavities naturally:

According to the American Dental Association, the reason we have tooth decay is as follows:

“[Tooth decay] occurs when foods containing carbohydrates (sugars and starches) such as milk, pop, raisins, cakes or candy are frequently left on the teeth. Bacteria that live in the mouth thrive on these foods, producing acids as a result. Over a period of time, these acids destroy tooth enamel, resulting in tooth decay.”

There are a few problems with this theory, including:

• Groups of indigenous people who had fermentable carbohydrates stuck on their teeth all the time that did not brush or floss were mostly or completely free of tooth decay.
• Bacteria do not consume processed sugar or flour because of the lack of nutrients in them.
• Foods that bacteria like to eat, such as milk, vegetables, meat, fish and fruit, are not commonly implicated in causes of tooth decay.

So if the modern explanation of tooth decay is not accurate, what is actually the cause of tooth decay?

What actually causes tooth decay

Tooth decay, as researched by Dr. Weston Price and other dental pioneers, boiled down to three factors:

• Not enough minerals in the diet.
• Not enough fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) in the diet.
• Nutrients not being readily bioavailable, and your intestinal system not properly absorbing them. The presence of phytic acid largely influences this factor.

Over a period of time, if your diet lacks vitamins and minerals from a poor diet and/or contains high levels of phytates (from grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes), the blood chemistry and the ratio of calcium and phosphorous become out of balance, which results in minerals being pulled from bones, causing tooth and bone loss.

So, the long-standing belief that sugar causes tooth decay is true, but as a result of it depleting nutrients from the body, not because bacteria eat it and produce acid that ruins your teeth.

The food remedies that can heal cavities and tooth decay

In order to restore the ratio of calcium and phosphorus in our blood, and to enable minerals to bond to our teeth, it is not enough to just avoid eating too many sweet or processed foods. We must also eat health-building foods, containing copious amounts of minerals and vitamins that will build a glassy hard tooth structure.

Foods to focus on are:

• Coconut oil, grass-fed organic dairy (especially butter), grass-fed meats, seafood and bone broths.
• Organic cooked vegetables (soups with bone broth are ideal).
• Organ and gland meats, like liver.

Limit foods that are high in phytic acid, like grains, beans, nuts and seeds, as well as limiting processed food intake full of processed flours and sugars that upset blood sugar balance.

Supplements to consider are:

• Fermented cod liver oil – very high in fat soluble vitamins A, D and K.
• Magnesium – required to use calcium and phosphorous effectively.
• Gelatin – if you don’t have time to make bone broth, this is a good alternative and is great for gums and digestion.

Now go get your pearly white smile back.

Cure Tooth Decay: Heal And Prevent Cavities With Nutrition – Limit And Avoid Dental Surgery and Fluoride by Ramiel Nagel is the go to guide for using food to manage your dental hygiene. 

http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/how-to-heal-cavities-naturally.html

New teeth grown from urine - study

By James Gallagher

Scientists have grown rudimentary teeth out of the most unlikely of sources, human urine.

The results, published in Cell Regeneration Journal, showed that urine could be used as a source of stem cells that in turn could be grown into tiny tooth-like structures.

The team from China hopes the technique could be developed into a way of replacing lost teeth.

Other stem cell researchers caution that that goal faces many challenges.

Teams of researchers around the world are looking for ways of growing new teeth to replace those lost with age and poor dental hygiene.

Stem cells - the master cells which can grow into any type of tissue - are a popular area of research.

The group at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health used urine as the starting point.

Cells which are normally passed from the body, such as those from the lining of the body's waterworks, are harvested in the laboratory. These collected cells are then coaxed into becoming stem cells.

A mix of these cells and other material from a mouse was implanted into the animals.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

You just wouldn't do it in this way”

Prof Chris MasonUniversity College London

The researchers said that after three weeks the bundle of cells started to resemble a tooth: "The tooth-like structure contained dental pulp, dentin, enamel space and enamel organ."

However, the "teeth" were not as hard as natural teeth.

This piece of research is not immediately going to lead to new options for the dentist, but the researchers say it could lead to further studies towards "the final dream of total regeneration of human teeth for clinical therapy".

'Worst source'

Prof Chris Mason, a stem cell scientist at University College London, said urine was a poor starting point.

"It is probably one of the worst sources, there are very few cells in the first place and the efficiency of turning them into stem cells is very low.

"You just wouldn't do it in this way."

He also warned that the risk of contamination, such as through bacteria, was much higher than with other sources of cells.

Prof Mason added: "The big challenge here is the teeth have got a pulp with nerve and blood vessels which have to make sure they integrate to get permanent teeth."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23492425


No more fillings as dentists reveal new tooth decay 

treatment

Scientists in London develop pain-free filling that allows teeth to repair themselves without drilling or injections

he new treatment, Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), could be available within three years. Photograph: Hermes Morrison 2/Alamy

Scientists have developed a new pain-free filling that allows cavities to be repaired without drilling or injections.

The tooth-rebuilding technique developed at King's College London does away with fillings and instead encourages teeth to repair themselves.

Tooth decay is normally removed by drilling, after which the cavity is filled with a material such as amalgam or composite resin.

The new treatment, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), accelerates the natural movement of calcium and phosphate minerals into the damaged tooth.

A two-step process first prepares the damaged area of enamel, then uses a tiny electric current to push minerals into the repair site. It could be available within three years.

Professor Nigel Pitts, from King's College London's Dental Institute, said: "The way we treat teeth today is not ideal. When we repair a tooth by putting in a filling, that tooth enters a cycle of drilling and refilling as, ultimately, each 'repair' fails.

"Not only is our device kinder to the patient and better for their teeth, but it's expected to be at least as cost-effective as current dental treatments. Along with fighting tooth decay, our device can also be used to whiten teeth."

A spinout company, Reminova, has been set up to commercialise the research. Based in Perth, Scotland, it is in the process of seeking private investment to develop EAER.

The company is the first to emerge from the King's College London Dental Innovation and Translation Centre, which was set up in January to take novel technologies and turn them into new products and practices.

King's College is a participant in MedCity, a project launched by the London mayor, Boris Johnson, to promote entrepreneurship in the London-Oxford-Cambridge life sciences "golden triangle".

The chairman of MedCity, Kit Malthouse, said: "It's brilliant to see the really creative research taking place at King's making its way out of the lab so quickly and being turned into a new device that has the potential to make a real difference to the dental health and patient experience of people with tooth decay."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/16/fillings-dentists-tooth-decay-treatment

Revealed, the perfect way to brush your teeth: Forget fancy circular motions - a 'simple, gentle scrub is best'

• University College London experts criticised conflicting brushing advice
• Said that people are confused about the best way to brush their teeth
• Dentist advises uses a horizontal gentle scrubbing motion
• Brush should be held like a pencil at a forty-five degree angle, he said
• Said simple technique is as effective as more elaborate methods
• 
  

By SARAH GRIFFITHS

We're constantly being told to floss, rinse and brush our teeth in a certain way.

And even the experts can't decide the best way to clean our gnashers, according to a new report.

Now, however, a professor of dentistry claims to have come up with the definitive answer - and it's a lot easier than you might think.

A simple, gentle scrub was found to be 'perfectly effective' at keeping teeth and gums healthy, rather than any complicated techniques

A simple, gentle scrub was found to be ‘perfectly effective’ at keeping gums healthy, say researchers from University College London.

A horizontal brushing motion, with the brush held like a pencil at a 45 degree angle, is sufficient to access dental plaque, they add.

In fact, there is little point in getting to grips with elaborate brushing techniques - or in cleaning your teeth hours after eating sweets or consuming a sugary drink - because acid is produced within two minutes of the first bite or sip.

The researchers was prompted by the wealth of conflicting advice from dentists, dental associations, toothbrush and toothpaste manufacturers on the ideal way to brush.

HOW SHOULD WE BRUSH OUR TEETH?

Professor Sheiham advises people to: ‘Brush gently with a simple horizontal scrubbing motion, with the brush at a forty-five degree angle to get to the dental plaque.

‘To avoid brushing too hard, hold the brush with a pencil grip rather than a fist. This simple method is perfectly effective at keeping your gums healthy.

Dentist Dr John Wainwright, who carried out the study, said: ‘I advise my patients to focus their brushing on areas where plaque is most likely to collect - the biting surfaces and where the teeth and gums meet - and to use a gentle scrubbing motion.'

Aubrey Sheiham, Emeritus Professor of Dental Public Health, said the advice on how we should brush is ‘unacceptably inconsistent'.

‘The public needs to have sound information on the best method to brush their teeth,' he said.

‘If people hear one thing from a dental association, another from a toothbrush company and something else from their dentist, no wonder they are confused about how to brush.

‘In this study we found an unacceptably inconsistent array of advice from different sources.

‘Dental associations need to be consistent about what method to recommend, based on how effective the method is. 

‘Most worryingly, the methods recommended by dental associations are not the same as the best ones mentioned in dental textbooks. 

‘There is no evidence to suggest that complicated techniques are any better than a simple gentle scrub.’

According to the study, which was published in the British Dental Journal, the most commonly-recommended technique involves gently jiggling the brush back and forth in small motions, with the intention of shaking loose any food particles, plaque and bacteria.

But no study has showed whether this is as effective as basic scrubbing, he said.

Professor Sheiham advised people to: ‘Brush gently with a simple horizontal scrubbing motion, with the brush at a 45 degree angle to get to the dental plaque.

‘To avoid brushing too hard, hold the brush with a pencil grip rather than a fist. This simple method is perfectly effective at keeping your gums healthy.

‘There is little point in brushing after eating sweets or sugary drinks to prevent tooth decay. It takes bacteria from food about two minutes to start producing acid, so if you brush your teeth a few minutes after eating sugary foods, the acid will have damaged the enamel.

Dentist Dr John Wainwright, who carried out the study, said: ‘The wide range of recommendations we found is likely due to the lack of strong evidence suggesting that one method is conclusively better than another.

‘I advise my patients to focus their brushing on areas where plaque is most likely to collect - the biting surfaces and where the teeth and gums meet - and to use a gentle scrubbing motion. 

‘All too frequently I am asked why the method I am describing differs from how previous dentists have taught them in the past.

‘For something most people do twice a day, you would expect dentists to send a clearer, more unified message to their patients on how to brush their teeth.’

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2719838/Revealed-perfect-way-brush-teeth-Forget-fancy-circular-motions-simple-gentle-scrub-best.html

How to Heal Cavities Naturally

The world is slowly waking up to the fact that, when you give the body what it needs, it can heal things we previously thought were impossible. A fine example of what is often deemed as an incurable health problem is dental cavities, but extensive research is now becoming more public about the true nature of tooth decay and the fact that there are proven remedies that can remedy it.

The lies perpetrated about tooth decay. According to the American Dental Association, the reason we have tooth decay is as follows: “[Tooth decay] occurs when foods containing carbohydrates (sugars and starches) such as milk, pop, raisins, cakes or candy are frequently left on the teeth. Bacteria that live in the mouth thrive on these foods, producing acids as a result. Over a period of time, these acids destroy tooth enamel, resulting in tooth decay.” There are a few problems with this theory, including: Groups of indigenous people who had fermentable carbohydrates stuck on their teeth all the timethat did not brush or floss were mostly or completely free of tooth decay. Bacteria do not consume processed sugar or flour because of the lack of nutrients in them. Foods that bacteria like to eat, such as milk, vegetables, meat, fish and fruit, are not commonly implicated in causes of tooth decay. So if the modern explanation of tooth decay is not accurate, what is actually the cause of tooth decay? What actually causes tooth decay Tooth decay, as researched by Dr. Weston Price and other dental pioneers, boiled down to three factors: Not enough minerals in the diet. Not enough fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) in the diet. Nutrients not being readily bioavailable, and your intestinal system not properly absorbing them. 

 The presence of phytic acid largely influences this factor. Over a period of time, if your diet lacks vitamins and minerals from a poor diet and/or contains high levels of phytates (from grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes), the blood chemistry and the ratio of calcium and phosphorous become out of balance, which results in minerals being pulled from bones, causing tooth and bone loss. So, the long-standing belief that sugar causes tooth decay is true, but as a result of it depleting nutrients from the body, not because bacteria eat it and produce acid that ruins your teeth.  
 The food remedies that can heal cavities and tooth decay In order to restore the ratio of calcium and phosphorus in our blood, and to enable minerals to bond to our teeth, it is not enough to just avoid eating too many sweet or processed foods. We must also eat health-building foods, containing copious amounts of minerals and vitamins that will build a glassy hard tooth structure. Foods to focus on are: Coconut oil, grass-fed organic dairy (especially butter), grass-fed meats, seafood and bone broths. Organic cooked vegetables (soups with bone broth are ideal). Organ and gland meats, like liver. Limit foods that are high in phytic acid, like grains, beans, nuts and seeds, as well as limiting processed food intake full of processed flours and sugars that upset blood sugar balance. Supplements to consider are: Fermented cod liver oil – very high in fat soluble vitamins A, D and K. Magnesium – required to use calcium and phosphorous effectively. Gelatin – if you don’t have time to make bone broth, this is a good alternative and is great for gums and digestion. Now go get your pearly white smile back.

 Cure Tooth Decay: Heal And Prevent Cavities With Nutrition – Limit And Avoid Dental Surgery and Fluoride by Ramiel Nagel is the go to guide for using food to manage your dental hygiene. 

Read More: http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2014/02/how-to-heal-cavities-naturally.html?m=1#.U54866gQDfc