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Less plaque, fewer cavities and healthier gums may be the more obvious benefits of flossing your teeth — but did you know it could also lower your risk of heart disease?

"There are a lot of studies that have talked about — at least for periodontal disease — the connection between gum disease and heart health," said Sasha Ross, DMD, a periodontist for Cleveland Clinic. 

Gum disease can cause high blood pressure and lead to inflammation and bacteria in the heart, research has shown, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

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"There’s really a very strong association between the two, where patients who have periodontal disease are at a much greater risk for having heart disease, stroke or other issues like that," Dr. Ross also told Fox News Digital.

Some 43% of adults 30 and older have some type of gum disease, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For adults 65 and older, that number rises to 70%.

Some people are more susceptible to complications even if they brush and floss every day, while others can do the bare minimum but have no issues at all, Dr. Ross pointed out. 

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Those who have heart valve disease are at a higher risk, according to Dr. Marietta Ambrose, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

"The bacteria that live in your mouth when you have gum disease can cross into your bloodstream, enter the heart and directly infect the vulnerable heart valves," she said in a 2022 article on Penn Medicine’s website. 

"That’s especially concerning in our patients who have artificial heart valves."

People should brush their teeth at least twice a day and floss once a day, either before or after brushing, says the American Dental Association (ADA).

Some signs of flossing negligence include bleeding or swollen gums, plaque buildup, cavities, loose teeth, bad breath and gum recession, Dr. Ross said.

"I think a lot of people are never taught how to properly floss and what kind of floss to use, so at one of these visits we can work with you and show you how to do it," she said. 

"Then just make it part of your daily routine. I say it’s really good to floss once a day, ideally at night before you go to bed."

For those who are unsure about the proper way to floss, Dr. Ross recommends using a water pick or special brushes designed to clean between the teeth.

For best results, Dr. Ross recommends flossing between each set of teeth 10 to 15 times in an up-and-down motion. You can start from anywhere in the mouth. For each tooth, use a new, clean section of floss.

Waxed and unwaxed floss are both effective for plaque removal, but waxed floss might be easier for those whose teeth are spaced tightly together, Dr. Ross told Fox News Digital.

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It likely doesn't matter whether you brush or floss first, but Dr. Ross said that one study suggests flossing first may achieve better plaque removal.

"Most people have never been shown how to floss," she said. "Make sure to ask your dentist, periodontist or hygienist to demonstrate and watch you floss."

In addition to regular brushing and flossing, visit a dentist regularly and limit sugary foods and drinks to protect dental health, the ADA recommends.

To read more pieces in Fox News Digital's "Be Well" series, click here.

The hospital building has an area of 748 square meters and has an imaging center, sonography, physiotherapy, laboratory, gynecology, internal medicine, dentistry, pediatrics and pharmacy, 6 general specialty clinics, among other services.

The president was accompanied by the vice-minister of construction of Mived Danny Santos and other representatives of the entity. Santos explained that the health care center had an investment of 121 million pesos in construction and equipment.

He highlighted that the construction of this project was stopped since 2018 (with only 20% of execution) and was resumed in this management to finish its materialization.

Aerial view of the Diagnostic Center in Ciudad Juan BoschMIVED.

He added that the residents of this housing complex “will no longer have to move to another place to receive a quality hospital service” and that “the Dominican government is committed to health, because you, our people, come first.”

On his departure, the first head of state was seen off by community members carrying banners with the phrase “four more.”

The sectors that will mainly benefit from the opening of this Health Center are Las Aguas, La Ureña, Jerusalén, Nuevo Amanecer, Residencial Las Américas, Ciudad Satélite II, Los Paredones, and Paraíso III.

The head of state, together with Mived, delivered around 7 kilometers of asphalted streets and 3.5 kilometers of sidewalks and curbs.

Other activities

Abinader also presided over the inauguration of the new emergency room of the Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital, where he gave instructions for the remodeling of the burn unit of the hospital and the intensive care and pediatric area.

The burn unit will be put out to tender and would be ready between April and May 2024, said the director of the National Health Service (SNS), Mario Lama, who added that the areas currently being refurbished had been abandoned for a decade.

He detailed that the expansion and refurbishment carried out in the Emergency Room is valued at RD$76,523,581.80, which was completely equipped with an amount of RD$13,280,590.29.

In addition, he indicated that the readjustment of the spaces comprising the areas of the emergency office, suit with two cubicles, cure, plaster, nebulization with six stations, pharmacy, observation with 23 compartments (two isolated), waiting room, emergency area with 12 pieces, trauma shock with four cubicles and doctors and nurses station.

Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital Emergency Department

The Robert Reid Cabral emergency room also saw the construction of a front gate, a new ambulance canopy, a perimeter sidewalk, asphalt tarpaulin, exterior painting, and the construction of a gas control booth.

He also inaugurated in Brisas del Este, Los Frailes, 7 kilometers of asphalted streets and 3.5 kilometers of sidewalks and sidewalk repair, construction of scuppers and speed bumps, and painting of streets in this community for a value of RD$220 million.

Luis Abinader greets the students during the event.

The last activity in this area was the delivery of the Basic School Tomas Taveras Educational Center (Mandinga) with a capacity of 980 students and built with an investment of more than RD03 million.

The Minister of Education, Angel Hernandez, spoke of the importance of artificial intelligence in education today and explained that the Ministry of Education would soon launch the Decennial Education Plan which should take into account the changes in technology.

Clad in blue t-shirts bearing the words ‘Accept’, ‘Understand’, ‘Love’, the Autism Association of Barbados took to the streets this morning to help build awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Dozens of people participated in the Autism Awareness Heroes Walk, which is part of a series of events to mark Autism Awareness Month. A workshop on the tested tools for ASD and an awareness drive were among the other events held throughout April.

President of the association, Frank Johnson, said the annual walk is a means of educating the public on many traits and forms of the disorder.

“Being a spectrum disorder, of course, it affects people profoundly as well as lightly, but we are here to cover all of the bases today,” he told Barbados TODAY.

Under the watchful eye of the Barbados Police Service, participants walked from the headquarters of the  Barbados Council for the Disabled located at Garrison, St Michael, to Hastings Road, through Dayrells Road and back. (JB)

The post Dozens participate in Autism Awareness Heroes Walk appeared first on Barbados Today.

Rodriguez Monegro stated that the problem is not limited to the public sector but also affects the private sector, with high maternal and infant mortality rates indicating the need for improvements. He cited the low level of investment in the health sector as a significant issue, calling for increased funding to be made available for the provision of neonatal care, which he believes is a priority in the country.

Rodriguez Monegro stated that the issue of prenatal care is essential and that the health of the mother is closely linked to healthy, full-term children. He also highlighted that investment in health should be increased so that it can become a government priority, with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommending an investment between 6 and 8% of GDP, which contrasts with the 2% currently allocated in the country. The former director further noted that 98% of pregnant women have at least four prenatal check-ups and give birth in institutions with the assistance of health professionals.

However, problems still arise due to the poor quality of care provided, which often leads to infectious problems not being detected in time, causing an increase in premature births.

“St George’s University has been a wonderful partner to Grenada Lifeguards, insuring and maintaining an AED at the lifeguard tower on Grand Anse Beach”

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While kidney transplants are approved and about 100 are performed each year, other organs such as the heart, liver, lungs, intestines, pancreas, and tissues are not covered. This means that low-income individuals are unable to afford these procedures due to the lack of comprehensive financing.

There are approximately 250 patients with terminal renal failure, 800 requiring liver transplants, 500 requiring heart transplants, and over 100 in need of bone marrow transplants annually in the country. The director of the National Institute for the Coordination of Transplants (Incort), Fernando Morales Billini, believes that a law providing full coverage by Health Risk Administrators (ARS) for all organs except for the kidney would be beneficial for these individuals. However, Sisalril, the Superintendence of Health and Occupational Risks, claims that establishing financial coverage requires the presence of care networks, protocols, and cost information for effective coverage.

Although there are 13 hospitals in the country equipped to perform transplants, there are still obstacles preventing potential donors from contributing. These include family refusal, inadequate maintenance, and medical contraindications. Despite the challenges, the director of Incort believes that up to 500 potential donors could be produced in the country each year.

The agreement was signed by the Dominican Minister of Public Health, Daniel Rivera, and the UASD rector, Editrudis Beltrán, alongside the executive director of the Montefiore Hospital, Dr. Phillip Ozuah, in a ceremony led by President Luis Abinader at the National Palace’s Green Room.

The agreement aims to enable Dominicans living in the United States to access healthcare with Medicare insurance and to facilitate collaboration in research and project activities. The partnership seeks to enhance academic and technological aspects to enable health professionals to acquire new experiences and improve healthcare delivery.

During the ceremony, President Abinader highlighted the importance of working without political or ideological differences in the healthcare sector, saying that the agreement would help to improve the quality of life and save lives. He also noted that the Dominican government seeks to purchase ambulances, masks, and other healthcare items at better prices through Montefiore.

The Dominican Minister of Public Health, Daniel Rivera, described the alliance with Montefiore Hospital as transcendent, particularly because of the institution’s demonstrated solidarity with the Dominican community. The alliance will also support the professional development of human resources in health.

The agreement received support from Congressman Adriano Espaillat, U.S. Representative for New York’s 13th congressional district.

After a two-year decline, U.S. suicide rates spiked again in 2021, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Suicide is now the 11th leading cause of death in the country — and the second among people between 10 and 35 years of age and fifth among those aged 35 to 54, per the report. 

As the need for mental health care escalates, the U.S. is struggling with a shortage of providers. To help fill this gap, some medical technology companies have turned to artificial intelligence as a means of possibly making providers’ jobs easier and patient care more accessible. 

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Yet there are caveats connected to this. Read on. 

Over 160 million people currently live in "mental health professional shortage areas," according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

By 2024, it is expected that the total number of psychiatrists will reach a new low, with a projected shortage of between 14,280 and 31,091 individuals. 

"Lack of funding from the government, a shortage of providers, and ongoing stigma regarding mental health treatment are some of the biggest barriers," Dr. Meghan Marcum, chief psychologist at AMFM Healthcare in Orange County, California, told Fox News Digital. 

"Wait lists for therapy can be long, and some individuals need specialized services like addiction or eating disorder treatment, making it hard to know where to start when it comes to finding the right provider," Marcum also said. 

A Boston, Massachusetts medical data company called OM1 recently built an AI-based platform, called PHenOM, for physicians. 

The tool pulls data from over 9,000 clinicians working in 2,500 locations across all 50 states, according to Dr. Carl Marci, chief psychiatrist and managing director of mental health and neuroscience at OM1.

Physicians can use that data to track trends in depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies and other mental health disorders, the doctor said.

"Part of the reason we're having this mental health crisis is that we haven't been able to bring new tools, technologies and treatments to the bedside as quickly as we’d like," said Dr. Marci, who has also been running a small clinical practice through Mass General Brigham in Boston for 20 years.

Eventually, artificial intelligence could help patients get the care they need faster and more efficiently, he said.

OM1’s AI model analyzes thousands of patient records and uses "sophisticated medical language models" to identify which individuals have expressed suicidal tendencies or actually attempted suicide, Dr. Marci said. 

"We can look at all of our data and begin to build models to predict who is at risk for suicidal ideation," he said. "One approach would be to look for particular outcomes — in this case, suicide — and see if we can use AI to do a better job of identifying patients at risk and then directing care to them."

In the traditional mental health care model, a patient sees a psychiatrist for depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia or another disorder. 

The doctor then makes a treatment recommendation based only on his or her own experience and what the patient says, Dr. Marci said. 

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"Soon, I'll be able to put some information from the chart into a dashboard, which will then generate three ideas that are more likely to be more successful for depression, anxiety or insomnia than my best guess," he told Fox News Digital.

"The computer will be able to compare those parameters that I put into the system for the patient … against 100,000 similar patients."

In seconds, the doctor would be able to access information to use as a decision-making tool to improve patient outcomes, he said. 

When patients are in the mental health system for many months or years, it’s important for doctors to be able to track how their disease is progressing — which the real world doesn’t always capture, Dr. Marci noted.

"The ability to use computers, AI and data science to do a clinical assessment of the chart without the patient answering any questions or the clinician being burdened fills in a lot of gaps," he told Fox News Digital.

"We can then begin to apply other models to look and see who's responding to treatment, what types of treatment they're responding to and whether they’re getting the care they need," he added.

With the increasing mental health challenges and the widespread shortage of mental health providers, Dr. Marci said he believes that doctors will start using ChatGPT — the AI-based large language model that OpenAI released in 2022 — as a "large language model therapist," allowing doctors to interact with patients in a "clinically meaningful way."

Potentially, models such as ChatGPT could serve as an "off-hours" resource for those who need help in the middle of the night or on a weekend when they can’t get to the doctor’s office — "because mental health doesn't take a break," Dr. Marci said.

"The opportunity to have continuous care where the patient lives, rather than having to come into an office or get on a Zoom, that is supported by sophisticated models that actually have proven therapeutic value … [is] important," he also said. 

But these models, which are built on both good information and misinformation, are not without risks, the doctor admitted.

"The most obvious risk is for [these models] to give literally deadly advice … and that would be disastrous," he said.

To minimize these risks, the models would need to filter out misinformation or add some checks on the data to remove any potentially bad advice, said Dr. Marci.

Dr. Cameron Caswell, an adolescent psychologist in Washington, D.C., has seen firsthand the struggle providers face in keeping up with the growing need for mental health care.

"I’ve talked to people who have been wait-listed for months, can’t find anyone that accepts their insurance or aren’t able to connect with a professional that meets their specific needs," she told Fox News Digital. 

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"They want help, but can’t seem to get it. This only adds to their feelings of hopelessness and despair."

Even so, Dr. Caswell is skeptical that AI is the answer.

"Programs like ChatGPT are phenomenal at providing information, research, strategies and tools, which can be useful in a pinch," she said. 

"However, technology doesn’t provide what people need the most: empathy and human connection."

"While AI can provide positive reminders and prompt calming techniques, I worry that if it’s used to self-diagnose, it will lead to misdiagnosing, mislabeling and mistreating behaviors," she continued. 

"This is likely to exacerbate problems, not remediate them."

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Dr. Marcum of Orange County, California, said he sees AI as being a helpful tool between sessions — or as a way to offer education about a diagnosis.

"It may also help clinicians with documentation or report writing, which can potentially help free up time to serve more clients throughout the week," she told Fox News Digital.

There are ongoing ethical concerns, however — including privacy, security of data and accountability, which still need to be developed further, she said. 

"I think we will definitely see a trend toward the use of AI in treating mental health," said Dr. Marcum.

"But the exact landscape for how it will shape the field has yet to be determined."