Expensive Dr. Blonz: Do you have any nutritional guidance for helping another person steer clear of the need for dental get the job done? I get all stressed out just about every time I go to the dentist. — C.F., Phoenix, Arizona
Pricey C.F.: The vitamins essential for wholesome enamel are comparable to these necessary for wholesome bones — and for well being in typical. These incorporate calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, vitamin D and trace things, such as nominal amounts of fluoride.
A good diet program of vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy and other protein resources can easily supply these things. If dairy isn’t on the menu, then mineral-rich leafy greens and other foods will require to be there. A multivitamin or multimineral can also enable as a nutritional supplement, but there is no magic there added levels of a nutrient really do not make it “work” superior, and dietary supplements should by no means be considered of as a substitute for a healthful diet regime. Apparently, our enamel start out to sort all through the 2nd thirty day period of our mothers’ pregnancies — one more reason to ensure that maternal diet plans have a prosperous offer of important nutrients.
Relating to your remark about preventing the require for dental operate, I remember a scene from the 1992 motion picture “Prelude to a Kiss,” starring Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin. On the way to the altar to marry Baldwin’s character, Ryan’s character kisses an elderly gentleman, triggering their spirits to change bodies. All the things gets sorted out close to the end, when their spirits return to their right places. All through the remaining scene, the elderly gentleman is questioned, in light-weight of his brief re-flavor of youth, what he would do if he could reside his daily life in excess of all over again. He claims he would not change a factor, except that he would floss a bit much more.