Athletic Mouthguards

If you participate in sports, it is likely you should be wearing a mouthguard. Trauma resulting from orofacial sports injuries can range from the considerable amount of pain and expense to replace lost teeth to the more serious injury and cost from a concussion that can end a sports career or cause long term health problems. Mouthguards should be custom made. They can be custom fabricated , depending on the sport, to ensure proper fit, retention, thickness and protection. Stock mouthguards do not provide the same degree of function and are often inadequate in providing proper protection and comfort.

Not only do mouthguards protect teeth, they also protect the head from blows to the jaw that can result in concussions.

Cheese Makes a Great Desert

As little as five grams of cheese at the end of a meal not only protects against the formation of cavities, but appears to reverse early signs of tooth decay.

Cheese promotes the incorporation of high levels of calcium and phosphate into human dental plaque. When eaten, minerals are retained as a calcium-phosphate-casein reservoir that creates an effective ‘sustained-release’ system for these minerals which inhibit demineralization and enhance remineralization. This action – release of calcium and its diffusion into plaque – may be regarded as cheese’s most anticariogenic effect. In addition, milk protein (casein), and the substances which promote its digestion, appear to protect tooth enamel by buffering the acids derived from the consumption of sugars.*

Toothache is the most common pain affecting the daily lives of Canadians.**

Women with gum disease are twice as likely to deliver a premature low-birth weight baby.**

Dental decay, a disease caused by bacterial infection, is one of the most common disorders of childhood affecting more than half of 5 to 17 year-olds.**

*Jenkins GN. 1989. Cheese as a protection against dental caries. Nutr Quarterly 13(2):33-39.

* Burgess RC and Burgess NE. 1989. Diet and dental caries. NIN Review No. 9, Supplement to Rapport 4(2):1-4.

**Canadian Dental Association

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