The Dark Side of Green Bulbs

Sometimes, “green” products are only environmentally friendly when used as they are designed to be, but when it’s time to discard them they often present tricky problems. An article in the Jan. 24 Wall Street Journal, by Sara Schaefer Muñoz, addressed how many people are coping with the need to throw away many products, including supposedly “green” products like fluorescent light bulbs, that may pose potential problems in the landfill. According to Muñoz, many retailers, including Best Buy, Home Depot and Ace Hardware, are embracing a new role as recycling facilitators.

The article highlights the problem of mercury in fluorescent light bulbs. Individually, the bulbs pose little potential hazard, but one environmental expert was quoted in the article saying that the concern is over the impact millions of these bulbs dumped in landfills or incinerated might have.

The article included web site address for people interested in finding ways to recycle old bulbs, including www.earth911.org and www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling.

How Coffee Helped Win the Civil War

There are many arguments for how the North won the civil war—industrial strength, greater manpower, better transportation infrastructure. But according to an article by David Norris in the Winter 2008 issue of American Heritage, there was one more powerful reason the Union armies eventually prevailed: coffee.

The Union blockade of the Confederacy drastically reduced the availability of a number of staples—including coffee—in the South. According to Norris, the price of coffee in the Confederate states soared during the war to as much as $70 a pound, far exceeding the average soldier’s monthly pay of $11. While desperate rebel soldiers resorted to roasting dandelion and okra seeds, coffee rations on the Union side were a generous six cups a day, fueling the Yanks much like it does students and workers today.

While coffee indisputably gave the fighting men of the North a boost at crucial times, there may have been another, more important benefit, and that was its contribution to the health of the army. At a time when the nature of water-borne disease was unknown, soldiers may have been unwittingly fighting cholera and dysentery by boiling the water for their morning (or afternoon) cup of joe.

The health implications of oral piercing

Oral piercing involving the lips, cheeks, tongue and uvula is as old as civilization, but its increasing prevalence today means that dentists must be aware of the risks, complications and dental implications associated with such procedures, write Drs. Jennifer Choe, Khalid Almas and Robert Schoor in a report published in the August/September 2005 issue of The New York State Dental Journal.

The report recounts a treatment plan, using a case study involving a 26-year-old male patient with localized gingival recession and inflammation associated with tooth No. 25, directly opposite a tongue stud. The authors believe their findings “strongly implicate the piercing as the primary factor in this localized traumatic periodontitis.”

“The patient in this case report represents a situation that will occur more frequently as the popularity of tongue piercing increases,” the authors write.

They present a long list of common complications and possible adverse consequences of oral piercing, including oral pain, edema, infection, disease transmission, airway obstruction secondary to swelling, prolonged bleeding, chipped or fractured teeth, mucosal or gingival trauma, interference with mastication and swallowing, speech impediment, hyypersalivation, hyperplastic or scar tissue formation, nerve damage and paraesthesia, aspiration of specific piercing jewelry, and foreign body incorporation .

Study shows greater caries prevalence in ADHD-diagnosed children.

Children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a significantly higher prevalence of caries(cavities) compared to non-diagnosed children used as controls, report researchers in the fall 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry.

In conducting their study, Drs. Michael Todd Grooms, Martha Ann Keels, Michael Roberts and F. Thomas McIver examined pediatric patients a Duke University Medical Center Pediatrics and Pediatric Dentistry clinics. Subjects were divided into ADHD and non-ADHD groups, with participants distributed by socioeconomic status as well.

The parents/guardians of all children completed a questionnaire concerning their child’s oral health including diet, oral hygiene, fluoride, etc.

The study was not able to identify the exact contributing factors that led to an increase in caries in ADHD children. In fact, there were no detected differences between ADHD and non-ADHD children in key preventive practices such as brushing teeth with fluoridated toothpaste, systemic fluoride exposure and flossing. There was also no noticeable difference in diet.

The authors stress that dentists, knowing that ADHD children are prone to more caries incidences, might wish to undertake more aggressive preventive programs for those patients.

Mom at chair side is not always in the best interest of the child patient

Whether or not it is advisable to have parents in the operatory depends as much on the particular parents as it does on the particular child, according to Dr. Carilynne Yarascavitch, writing in the September 2006 issue of Ontario Dentist. Although many dentists will rely on their own personal experiences when making such decisions, in her article Dr. Yarascavitch examines the extent to which scientific data exists to show a positive or negative influence on parental presence.

According to her review, randomized studies fail to show that a parent in the room significantly reduces a child's anxiety. Parental presence can reduce anxiety, but only in children who are less than four years old, have only mild anxiety, or are considered mild in temperament.

Studies also show that parents who exhibit high levels of anxiety can have a negative impact on their children's anxiety, transferring to the children tension, apprehensiveness, nervousness and worry. Those parents should be discouraged from attending the child in the operatory.