ACE™ Dental Blog

The Academy of Comprehensive Esthetics™ (ACE™) is a community of dedicated dental professionals who strive to provide excellent patient care and who, through education, camaraderie, sharing of information & mentoring both in person & online, help each other succeed in the business of dentistry and life. ACE™ strives to educate, mentor and share information to be the recognized leader in comprehensive esthetic dental education for dental professionals and the public.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Dental Sealants Pose No Risk From Leaking Estrogen

Dental Sealants Pose No Risk From Leaking Estrogen
By Suzanne Rostler

NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters Health) -- Dental sealants do not appear to leech
dangerous amounts of an estrogen-like compound, results of a recent study
suggest.

Dental sealants are plastic coatings brushed onto teeth to prevent decay.
Once applied, they harden to form a protective coat. Sealants contain
bisphenol A (BPA) -- a chemical that mimics the effects of estrogen in the
body. BPA may leak into the mouth before the sealants have hardened.

Animal studies showed that pregnant mice who received low doses of BPA were
more likely to give birth to male offspring with larger prostates. However,
the effect of BPA in humans remains unclear.

``Our study showed that the chemical released was not absorbed, so any
possible health effects were not found,'' lead author Dr. Eric Y.K. Fung,
with the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry, said in
an interview.

Fung and colleagues collected saliva and blood samples from 40 people, aged
20 to 55 years, who had not previously used dental sealants. Samples were
taken before the sealants (at a concentration of 8 or 32 milligrams) were
applied, and again 1 hour, 3 hours, 1 day, 3 days and 5 days after
application.

Results in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dental
Association show that BPA was detected in some saliva samples 1 and 3 hours
after sealants had been applied. However, saliva samples did not contain BPA
after 3 hours and none of the blood samples contained BPA.

``This finding implies that when BPA is released orally from sealant, it may
not be absorbed systemically, the quantity absorbed is minute and below our
detection limit, or BPA absorbed... is being metabolized,'' the authors
explain.

Further, ``there is no solid evidence that (BPA) is absorbed or causes
adverse health effects.'' And since the chemical is contained in dozens of
commercial products, including the inside of food cans, exposure from other
sources may be greater than from dental sealants, the researchers note.

``Thus, the recent concern regarding the potential estrogenicity of sealants
may be unfounded,'' Fung and colleagues conclude. SOURCE: Journal of the
American Dental Association 2000;131:51-58.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

ACE 2009 Symposium on NeuroMuscular Dentistry - Jan 23-24, 2009 - Dallas, TX

ACE has brought together some of the pioneers of Neuromuscular dentistry to present various approaches and philosophy's in diagnosing and treating Neuromuscular problems. The event will be held at the Omni Dallas Park West Hotel from Jan 23-24, 2009.

Our keynote speaker, Dr. Clayton Chan, has adopted bits and pieces of various occlusal philosophy's, from Gnathology, to Pankey Centric Relation Dentistry and put it all together into a Neuromuscular treatment concept.

Mr. Todd Shewman, a Kinesiologist, will discuss the anatomy and physiology of the joints and muscles and how we can use instrumentation to measure them.

Dr. Bob Walker, a chiropractor, and founder of chirodontics, will discuss the importance of the cranial base, how to analyze the cranium and cases studies that show how to use using dental techniques to make adjustments, optimize health and dental function. You will discover why a face bow is critical in these cases.

Dr. Tim Adams will discuss and show cases he has treated in a neuromuscular manner. A step-by-step guide.

Dr. Curtis Westersund, a dentist from Calgary, will show us how to market neuromuscular dentistry to the public.

After a final panel discussion, all participants will have an opportunity to TENS and take a TENS bite.

This the first time this great line up of speakers has ever appeared together. Don't miss it!

For complete conference information please visit http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=9f4cad53-8bda-4232-aafe-84c1f63176f2

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Piaggio MP3 250 - Jay Leno's Garage

Nice video review of the Piaggio MP3 250 from Jay Leno as part of his Jay Leno's Garage.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Isn't it funny...

Isn't it funny when you ask a group of dentists for an answer to a question how many different things they can come up with and how many different tangents that the discussion can take off on?

It reminds me of the Saturday Night Live skit where they're playing Jeopardy and Alex asks the contestants a simple question like, "Name the sound a dog makes."

The contestants replies are so off mark and one actually says, "Moo!"

That's kind of like some of the answers that you get from dentists! :D

It really is interesting to me to see how diverse this group is and how people think...and many times OVERTHINK situations.

It's a good reminder for me in my daily practice to just keep it simple.

Anyway...enough rambling for today...just had a few thoughts that I wanted to share.

For those of you who want a few laughs check out Sean Connery's finest on SNL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOqhiZjVp74

Marrow Transplant May Have Cured AIDS

Marrow Transplant May Have Cured AIDS

By PATRICK McGROARTY, AP

BERLIN (Nov. 12) - An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said Wednesday.

While researchers — and the doctors themselves — caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

Dr. Gero Huetter

Dr. Gero Huetter of Berlin's Charite Medical University announced that an American man living in Germany apparently has been cured of AIDS 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant.

Dr. Gero Huetter said his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.

"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.

It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.

However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.

"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.

This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.

Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.

As Huetter — who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist — prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.

"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.

"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.

David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.

"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."

Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.

"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."

Monday, November 10, 2008

Tim Hale busts a move in Florida!

Check out Tim Hale getting his groove on at ACE Bonita Springs 2008. He's still got moves!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Dr. Tom Hedge & Dr. Marvin Berlin CAD/CAM comparison at ACE Bonita Springs 2008

Dr. Tom Hedge & Dr. Marvin Berlin did a great job at the ACE Bonita Springs 2008 event in sharing information on the Cerec 3D and the E4D in a side by side comparison of software programs and milling. Here are some highlights:

Part 1