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Supertooth and Good Food
Friends
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Chewing
"It is estimated that 84%
of the caries experience in the 5 to 17 year-old population involves tooth
surfaces with pits and fissures. Although fluorides cannot be expected
appreciably to reduce our incidence of caries on these surfaces, sealants
can."
SOURCE: Journal of the American
Dental Association 1984; 108:448.
Only a small fraction of food is trapped inside grooves compared to that trapped between teeth, causing some 80% of cavities occur . Trapped food prevents access of saliva and fluoride to neutralise acid and repair demineralised tooth.
Chewing Barium Sulphate with a suitable fibre like the foam strip teaching aid in the Superooth project shows where food is trapped, in x-rays of back teeth and replicated with the glass model of a fissure experiment. The glass model also shows that chewing a suitable fibre like celery string or the foam strip after eating helps force saliva into difficult to reach surfaces to neutralise acid and repair demineralised tooth.