Can't Afford Braces? Get A Dental Loan

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Your kid's teeth are crooked as a politician in an election year, with a gap between the front ones large enough to drive a Volkswagen through. He/should he clearly needs braces, but your dental insurance doesn't cover the treatment! Before giving up or rushing out to buy supplemental dental coverage, talk to orthodontists about the financing options they have available.

Quality orthodontic care may seem expensive, but it is not nearly as costly as putting it off. Many orthodontists are now accepting payment via CareCredit, which offer no interest plans for the first year and plans up to five years long. Spread over that period of time, taking a loan from those agencies to pay for your kid's braces might actually save you money, compared to a discount dental plan or a supplemental dental insurance policy, both of which have become increasingly popular in recent years as way to lower the cost of orthodontic braces.

Before rushing out to buy additional dental coverage just for braces, consult CareCredit loans dental loans, do the math, and see what makes the most sense for your financial situation.

Economic Fears Affect Dental Care

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Regular checkups and cleaning can save money in the end by heading off problems early. Nevertheless, when times get tough and people start losing their jobs, preventive dental care can be one of the first things to go.

However, the correlation between rising unemployment and a drop in preventive dental care is not necessarily due to people being short of cash, according to a new study appearing in the online edition of Health Services Research.

"We see that high community-level unemployment exacts a psychological toll on individuals," said lead study author Brian Quinn. "Even for people who are working, or who have a working partner or spouse, there might be an impact if they're stressed about themselves or their significant others losing their jobs."

Quinn, a program officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the distraction of worrying about not having a job could make dental care drop off a person's radar. "During stressful periods, those things that don't seem as urgent may be ignored," he said.

The researchers analyzed 10 years of information about visits to dentists' offices in metropolitan Seattle and Spokane from Washington Dental Services, the largest dental insurer in the state, which covers roughly one-third of its residents. They compared this information to unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Washington's Employment Security Department, and ruled out other possible explanations for a correlation.

In the Seattle area, for every 10,000 people who lost their jobs, there was a 1.2 percent decrease in visits to dentists for checkups. The drop was higher in the Spokane area, where the same increase in unemployment was associated with a 5.95 percent decrease in preventive visits. This is notable as the study looked at people who had dental insurance that covered routine care.

Dental care is way down at the bottom of the list of essentials for many people, said Gene Sekiguchi, associate dean of legislative affairs for the University of Southern California School of Dentistry. "When the economy gets tough, you'll start eliminating the last items on the list and work your way up," said Sekiguchi, who had no affiliation with the study.

Sekiguchi said that oral hygiene is important for overall health; for example, gum disease can lead to heart disease and diabetes.

Because preventive care is usually cheaper than tooth repairs, dental plan administrators and public health policy makers might want to promote cleaning and checkups during periods of high unemployment, the study authors say.

Lavender Scent Calms Dental Patients

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Lavender scent could be an effective means of reducing dental anxiety in patients. This is the finding of Metaxia Kritsidima and her colleagues from King's College London who will present their results at The British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology and European Health Psychology Society Conference at the University of Bath on the 12 September 2008.

Metaxia Kritsidima said: 'A substantial number of people avoid going to dental surgeries because they are 'scared of the dentist', which can have a significant impact on their dental health. The anxiety experienced by these patients once they get to the dentist is stressful not only for them, but also for the dental team. Working under a state of increased tension may potentially compromise their performance, as well as lengthening appointment times. This is why finding a way of reducing dental anxiety is really important.'

In this study, researchers investigated the effects of lavender scent on dental anxiety. The dental anxiety levels of 340 adult patients were measured while they waited for a scheduled dental appointment. Some patients were exposed to a lavender scent while the rest were not.

Patients who were exposed to the scent reported feeling less anxious than the control group. This significant effect was present regardless of the type of dental appointment (e.g. routine check up, drilling). However, the exposure to lavender had no effect on the patients' anxiety regarding future dental procedures.

Metaxia Kritsidima concludes: 'Our findings suggest that lavender could certainly be used as an effective 'on-the-spot' dental anxiety in dentists' waiting rooms.'

More than 700 psychologists from the UK, Europe and further are gathering at the University of Bath from 9 - 12 September 2008 for the joint European Health Psychology Society and British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology Conference 2008.

The conference, themed 'Behaviour, Health and Healthcare: From Physiology to Policy', will look at how psychology can be applied at individual and group level to promote health, and even prevent illness, at a national level.

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Are Diabetes and Obesity Linked To Periodontitis?

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The University of Illinois at Chicago has received a two-year federal grant to continue a study on how periodontitis, an inflammatory disease of the tissues surrounding teeth, is linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Dr. Keiko Watanabe of the UIC College of Dentistry has found that periodontitis accelerates the onset of insulin resistance in rats fed a high-fat diet. Her new research will determine how periodontitis affects diabetic complications in the retina, aorta and pancreas.

"The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has risen dramatically as the result of an increase in obesity caused by a high-fat diet, junk food and a sedentary lifestyle," said Watanabe, associate professor of periodontics. Although the association between obesity, type 2 diabetes and periodontitis is recognized, she said, the underlying causes remain poorly understood.

Watanabe said the goal of the new study is to identify the causes by which periodontitis influences insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and organ damage, so clinicians will be able to screen prediabetic individuals at risk of developing the disease. A plan to treat periodontal inflammation will also be developed so that insulin resistance will not accelerate to diabetes.

A key challenge is to determine whether the relationship between diabetes, obesity and periodontitis is causal, Watanabe said. Most of the data linking the conditions are based on epidemiologic or cross-sectional studies, she said.

Watanabe uses female diabetic fatty rats in her research, a model that closely resembles humans who consume a high-fat diet and subsequently develop insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Human subjects, she said, cannot be used to study the direct effect of periodontitis because it is not ethical to induce the disease.

"Several prospective studies using human subjects demonstrated that the treatment of periodontitis led to improvement of glycemic control in subjects with type 2 diabetes," she said. "However, confounding factors, such as medications used to treat type 2 diabetes, body mass index, the stage and duration of diabetes, and the onset and severity of periodontitis are difficult to assess or are broadly controlled in such studies.

"Thus, the causal nature between periodontitis, diabetes and obesity remains unclear."