When a 25-year-old woman showed up in a Rhode Island emergency room reporting that she was fatigued, weak, and short of breath—and that her skin had turned a shade of blue overnight not normally associated with living people—medical personnel on call knew something was very wrong. One quick-witted physician had fortunately seen the condition before, …
Benzocaine Can Give A Whole New Meaning to “Blue Blood” Read More »
A research team in Sweden, looking for a way to test a hypothesis about the effects of chemical exposure on fetal neurological development, recently enlisted an unusual assistant: The Tooth Fairy. Not really, of course. But the team did collect naturally lost baby teeth from sets of twins (and one set of triplets) in order …
What Twins’ Baby Teeth Are Telling Us About ADHD and Autism Read More »
I have been working on this blog for ten days. I haven’t been able to publish it because the news just keeps worse by the day. Which is why I’m just going to push it out and let the numbers continue to take care of themselves. I can’t wait any longer: I have to get …
Young People are Dying and We’re on the Eve of a (Flavored) Vaping Ban Read More »
Bottom line up front: It’s 2019, and we just got word that no mater what kind of soft drink you’re sipping (with or without a straw), you may be affirmatively choosing to shorten your life. Normally I’d caution against taking action based on headlines like that, but the study that announced this result was based …
That Soft Drink May Shorten Your Life, With Or Without Sugar Read More »
One thing keeps me continually energized as I travel the world educating dental professionals is this: We still, all of us, have so much to learn about the human body, physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, development, nutrition, and how the entire system works together to enhance or hamper lifelong systemic health. Take our humble friend, vitamin D. …
Congratulations, You’re Expecting! Take Vitamin D for Baby’s Teeth Read More »
Health care and the science of the human body, in general—I dare say science itself, as an endeavor of human discovery—is a field that is increasingly highly specialized. The more we learn, the more we specialize, following promising new leads, creating small teams to pursue tantalizing clues, inventing novel sub-branches of other branches of clinical …
A Roundup of What We Know About the Oral-Systemic Connection Right Now Read More »
Most people have a healthy respect for the dangers of opioid and narcotic prescription medications and as a result, are careful to take them exactly as prescribed. But the public may not be as aware that even nonnarcotic, nonopioid pharmaceutical drugs can cause serious—even fatal—complications if they are taken in large doses that exceed prescribing …
Nonnarcotic Cough Suppressant Benzonatate Overdose Proves Fatal Read More »
When you hit the physician’s office for your annual check-up and bloodwork, does your doctor test your vitamin D levels? If a “quick check” of vitamin D is a routine part of your health care, you aren’t alone. According to numbers I recently found, in 2016 alone, tests for vitamin D deficiency were ordered for …
What’s Vitamin D Good For? The Evidence vs. The Hype Read More »
When I take a step back and think about what it must be like to work for the American nicotine-delivery industry, it’s actually difficult not to feel at least a tiny pang of something approaching…sympathy. It’s nearly impossible to imagine there’s anybody left in the developed world who isn’t aware that smoking is harmful to …
Is there anything that says “Mom Purse” quite as convincingly as a convenient, pump-top bottle of hand sanitizer? What could be more common, more convenient, more effective? Grab, gel, and go, right? Not so fast. The evidence is clear: If you can find a sink and some soap, you should head there and wash up …
With over 30 years’ experience as a pharmacist, dental educator and author, Tom Viola, R.Ph. has earned his reputation as the go-to specialist for delivering quality dental continuing education content through his informative, fun and engaging dental pharmacology presentations.
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