Let's All Take PhysEd: The Power of Exercise on Oral Health

We've talked a lot in the past about the importance of nutrition on oral health, and just a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that getting enough sleep has a profound effect on your body's ability to keep its mouth healthy. Today, we're breaking out the third leg of the 'tripod' of general health: exercise.

According to studies published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Dentistry, exercise and dental health are closely linked. One study divided up people into three groups: inactive, partially active, and extremely active. They discovered that the partially active people had 33% less periodontal disease than the inactive group, and the extremely active group had 52% less than the inactive group.

Another study showed that vitamin D, which is most commonly obtained from exposure to sunlight (which means being outside, which generally means being active), also helps suppress gum disease -- people with the highest levels of vitamin D had 20% less than people with the lowest amounts.

The reasons why this might be are somewhat complex, but they're thought to relate to the body's ability to process blood sugar. Science has proven that gum disease and blood sugar are closely related in ways we haven't discovered -- people who get gum disease also suffer from reduced ability to process blood sugar and people who lose the ability to control their blood sugar (due to pre-diabetes, hormonal imbalance, or other issues) also become more prone to gum disease.

Because getting exercise and getting vitamin D both help the body control its own blood sugar levels, they seem to, through that same undiscovered mechanism, do an excellent job of helping your body fight off periodontal disease.

So in short, get your kids into P.E., after-school sports, or whatever it takes to keep them moving! Along with a good diet and plenty of rest, it's an essential part of keeping up their oral (and their general) health.

Roughhousing at School: What to Do about Injured Teeth

Depending on your child and your school, there may or may not be a bit of roughhousing that goes on during the day. While most such play, as long as it doesn't devolve into bullying, is looked upon as a normal part of growing up, it does carry with it the chance of injury. If something happens to your kids at school and one of their teeth is chipped, cracked, broken, or worst of all, comes out, you need to know what to do.

Let's go from worst to least:

Tooth Comes Out

If a kid's first tooth comes out, it's just a matter of waiting until the adult tooth comes in. If an adult tooth comes out of your kid's mouth, it's panic time. They've got less than an hour before the tooth and the socket die and the tooth cannot be reattached.

Here’s what to do:

• Put the tooth in a glass of milk, or, if milk isn't available, in a glass of salty water.
• Take the tooth and the child directly to a dentist who does surgery; preferably a reconstructive dentist.
• Have the tooth put back immediately.
• Expect the child to take the next day or two off of school while they recover -- oral surgery isn't easy.

Broken Tooth

If a tooth actually breaks off -- not just a chip, but a substantial break -- you need to hurry to the dentist. Depending on the break itself, it may be more effective for the dentist to glue the broken piece back on, or it may be better for him to make a porcelain cap to go over the butt of the tooth.

Cracked Tooth

When a tooth is cracked -- as in, the enamel has a visible, jagged opening in it -- it's still immediately dentist time. The child still shouldn't attempt to eat anything even if they feel OK. The dentist will almost certainly fill in the crack with some sort of enamel-like substance, and your kid should be ready for school the next day.

Chipped Tooth

It's not often that you can find the chip when a tooth gets chipped. If you can, you should head straight to the dentist to get it reattached. If you can't, you could way for a day or three, or not, it's up to you, because whether you do or not, the dentist is going to do the same thing -- fill in the chip with a tiny bit of porcelain and seal it in place.

Back to School Tips: Better Sleeping for Better Teeth -- And Grades

This one is for all the kids, but will help teenagers more than the rest. Did you know that according to one study, kids today get an hour less sleep, on average, than we did when we were young? It's not hard to see why -- it's perfectly normal for a kid these days to have school until 3pm, sports until 5, dinner, prime time TV (aka "family time") until 8 or 9, and then 3 hours of homework on top of that.

Add to that the fact that, around 14 or 15, a teen's internal clock changes to allow (and to a degree require) them to stay up later than they did before. But the times they are required to wake up in the morning don't budge -- and you can see the problem. If kids could sleep in an hour later in the morning, they'd be fine -- but they can't, and over the months and months of school, all those lost hours of sleep add up. So a good night's sleep is good for your kid's health.

So how can you help your child get to sleep a little earlier? Here are a few things you can do:

• Turn off all electronic screens at least an hour before bedtime. No TV, computer, iPod, tablet, smart phone -- nothing with an electronic screen.
• Have a story ready. It doesn't have to be in a book. A recording or someone to tell you a story will work, too, but having something for the brain to focus on that isn't the stress of the next day helps your brain relax and fall asleep.

Keep a regular schedule. Dinner at 6, shower at 9, in bed by 10, every night (assuming they have to be up at 6). Falling asleep should be as regular as waking up in the morning.

Naturally, you should schedule at least 8 hours for them to sleep each night.

Oral Hygiene at School: The Importance of Having Floss on You At All Times

There are some things that are just so useful that once you have them on you for a while, you start to wonder how you ever got by without them. Simple, waxed dental floss is one of those things. Just look at what you can do with dental floss:

• Tie up a shoe whose lace has broken.
• Create a makeshift tourniquet to get a cut finger to stop bleeding so much.
• Cut cheese, modeling clay, or other soft things.
• Put a tripwire up across a bathroom stall.
• Combine it with a paper clip and a pencil to create an in-class zipline.
• Use it to tie your hair back should your scrunchie stop scrunching.

Of course, you can -- and should -- also use it to floss your teeth. Why would you want to do something that lame in the middle of the school day?

There are a couple of good reasons:

Something Hurts

It's not all that often that we can identify exactly why something in our mouth hurts, but when it does, it's more often than not in a place that we can't quite get to. It's a bit vulgar to walk around school trying to get between your teeth with a fingernail -- but floss is completely socially acceptable.

Something is Stuck

Along those same lines, there's very little more distracting than having something annoying stuck between your teeth. Also, as it happens, those bits of food stuck between your teeth are quite bad for your oral hygiene -- each of those bits is a source of food for the bacteria that cause plaque, gingivitis, and other diseases of the teeth and gums. Flossing is the best way to get them out efficiently and without causing a fuss during the school day.