New Invisalign material promises better tracking

By Rob Goszkowski, Assistant Editor

Align Technology is working to improve orthodontic outcomes and patient compliance with its newest clear aligner material, SmartTrack.

The new material also yields better rotations and better extrusions with attachments when compared with the G3 and G4 versions of Invisalign, according to John Morton, director of research and technology at Align.

An in-house study of more than 1,000 patients treated with Invisalign aligners made with SmartTrack showed statistically significant improvement in control of tooth movements such as rotations and extrusions (p < 0.001), compared with patients treated with aligners made with the current Invisalign material, according to the company.

SmartTrack is a new flexible clear aligner material designed specifically for Invisalign. Image courtesy of Align Technology.

SmartTrack was officially introduced January 21 and is currently available in all international Align markets except for China. Prior to its release, the company surveyed doctors for initial responses after it was tested on some 3,400 patients. The response from practitioners who received early access to the product has been positive, Morton noted.

"I've treated 15 to 16 patients with it, and I'm starting to complete them," said Clark Colville, DDS, MS, a private practitioner in Seguin, TX, and a member of Align's clinical advisory board. "The big thing we saw was that the teeth track better, so the patients who were compliant with wearing their aligners are having much less to do in case refinement. The teeth seem to be following the proposed plan with better detail."

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Dental Oncology: Caring For Individuals Battling Cancer

Dennis M. Abbott, DDS

Inside Dentistry

Abstract

A diagnosis of cancer comes with many emotions and questions. The patient and his or her family may feel overwhelmed with new information and treatment options, but having a knowledgeable and caring team of doctors and support personnel can reduce the emotional toll and contribute to comfort and well-being before, during, and after cancer therapy. The dentist who understands the systemic impact of cancer care and knows how to manage the direct and indirect oral effects of the disease is poised to be an important member of that oncology team.

5 tips for decoding food labels

When it comes to eating healthfully, fresh fruits and vegetables are pretty much a slam dunk. Including packaged foods in a healthful diet is trickier. But it isn’t impossible if you learn how to use the Nutrition Facts on the package to judge the quality of the food inside. The vitamin or mineral content is less important as a basis for buying a product unless everything else adds up to a healthy choice.

Here are 5 ways to make food labels work for you:

1. Size matters. Serving size is always the first item on the label. All other information is based on that serving size. The servings per container tell you know how many portions are in the whole box, package, or can. Beware: many packages contain more than one serving. Look at your orange juice for example. If the label says 125 calories per 8 ounce serving and your breakfast includes a 16 ounce glass of OJ, then you’ve taken in 250 calories from the juice alone. (About as many calories as you’d find in many chocolate bars.)
2. Look for fat: the good, the bad, and the really bad. Check the saturated fat and trans fat content of the food. For a general healthful diet, keep saturated fat and cholesterol low and avoid trans fats altogether. Look for foods that have 0 grams (g) of trans fat and are lowest in saturated fat and cholesterol. Try to stay away from foods that have the words “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” in the ingredients list. Foods made with healthy unsaturated oils (olive, canola, safflower, etc.) are better bets.
3. Is it worth its salt? Compare the sodium content to the calories per serving. To keep your salt intake in check, consider products in which the sodium content is less than or equal to the calories per serving. For a food with 250 calories per serving, ideally the sodium content should be no more than 250 mg. If you need to seriously restrict your salt intake consider the low-sodium, low-salt, or unsalted versions.
4. Figure out the fiber. Aim for foods that have 5 g of fiber per serving, or at least one gram of fiber for every 10 grams of carbohydrate
5. Stay away from added sugars: Sugar, no matter what it’s called, contains almost no nutrients other than pure carbohydrate. A heavy sugar intake fills you up with empty calories, keeps you from eating healthy foods, and stresses your body’s ability to maintain a healthy blood sugar level. Steer clear of foods that have sugar, honey, molasses, corn syrup, corn sugar, fructose, or high-fructose corn syrup among the first three ingredients. Other names for sugar include agave nectar, brown sugar, cane sugar, corn sweetener, dextrose, maltose, fruit juice concentrate, and glucose.

Link

Go Viral to Improve Health

The 2013 IOM-NAE Health Data Collegiate Challenge

  Register your team here

Using social networking, mobile apps, and other new technologies, how can the power of health data be unleashed to increase awareness of health problems and inspire positive action at the community level? For the past two years, the IOM and NAE have challenged college and university students to use health data to develop effective, innovative apps that take on the nation’s pressing health issues. To learn more about the 2011 and 2012 Challenges, go to our Past Challenges page.

The 2013 Challenge

With an abundance of health data available as part of the Health Data Initiative (HDI), students have an unprecedented opportunity to create interactive apps and other tools that engage and empower people in ways that lead to better health. Working in teams that meld technological skills with health knowledge, the IOM and NAE believe that college students can generate exciting and powerful new products – the next “viral” apps - to improve health for communities and individuals.

To “Go Viral To Improve Health”:

• Identify a health problem.
• Assemble a team of between two and five students.
• Develop an app using publicly available, de-identified health data.
• Demonstrate how your solution will engage people in your community to promote action that will improve their health.

Promote the challenge. Download and print the flyer. 

Web version

U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health

Link

Released:

January 9, 2013

Type:

Consensus Report

Topics:

Public Health, Aging

Activity:

Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries

Boards:

Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other high-income countries. This health disadvantage prevails even though the U.S. spends far more per person on health care than any other nation. To gain a better understanding of this problem, the NIH asked the National Research Council and the IOM to investigate potential reasons for the U.S. health disadvantage and to assess its larger implications.

No single factor can fully explain the U.S. health disadvantage. It likely has multiple causes and involves some combination of inadequate health care, unhealthy behaviors, adverse economic and social conditions, and environmental factors, as well as public policies and social values that shape those conditions. Without action to reverse current trends, the health of Americans will probably continue to fall behind that of people in other high-income countries. The tragedy is not that the U.S. is losing a contest with other countries, but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.

Waist size trumps BMI as Barrett's esophagus risk factor

Source

• Springer Healthcare
• Jan 31, 2013
• 4 views
• No rating

medwireNews: Researchers have found that waist circumference independently predicts the risk for Barrett's esophagus, leading them to dismiss a previously reported association between body mass index (BMI) and the disease.

"Previous studies that reported associations between BMI alone and Barrett's oesophagus were likely to have been confounded by unmeasured abdominal obesity," say Ai Kubo (Northern California Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, USA) and colleagues.

The findings, published in Gut, suggest physicians should target at-risk patients with weight-loss interventions, and may also help explain why men, who carry more abdominal fat than women, experience twice the rate of the disease.

The analysis comprised results from four cohort studies in the USA, Ireland, and Australia, all of which followed the same protocol. In all, there were 1102 Barrett's esophagus patients and 1400 population-based control participants, of whom 70% were men.

Contrary to previous reports, the authors found no consistent association between BMI and risk for Barrett's esophagus. Furthermore, when they adjusted for waist circumference, there was no association among any BMI category and Barrett's esophagus in men, women, or the entire study population.

Conversely, when the authors adjusted the association between Barrett's esophagus and waist circumference to account for BMI, there was a significant relationship such that for each 5-cm increase in waist circumference, there was a 14% increase in risk for the disease.

This association was true for both men and women, with men in the upper quartile having a 2.2-fold increase in the odds of Barrett's esophagus compared with men in the lower quartile, with the comparable value for women being a 3.8-fold increased risk.

Importantly, these associations remained when the authors adjusted for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a known risk factor for Barrett's. Although abdominal obesity may contribute to GERD, the authors say this finding suggests that the relationship between waist circumference and the disease must be mediated by other factors too and may be complex.

"Further studies examining the biological mechanisms of this association will extend our knowledge regarding the pathogenesis of Barrett's oesophagus," Kubo and colleagues conclude.

By Kirsty Oswald, medwireNews Reporter

FDA considers reclassifing blade implants

FDA Link

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a proposal to reclassify blade-form endosseous dental implants, opening the door for a possible resurgence of this implant technology.

The benefits of blade-form implants "outweigh the risks enough to justify reclassifying the implants from class III, requiring premarket approval, to class II, requiring premarket notification with special controls," the FDA noted in a press release.
Class II medical devices are of "medium risk," while class III is a "high risk" medical device that is also highly regulated. The FDA previously considered reclassifying blade implants in the 1990s but opted not to, stating that "sufficient evidence had not yet been presented to reclassify blade-form endosseous dental implants to class II." As more information has become available, the FDA has modified its position.

The agency plans to apply special controls, including design requirements, mechanical performance testing, corrosion testing under simulated physiological conditions, biocompatibility requirements, sterility testing, testing to ensure device compatibility with magnetic resonance environments, both clinical and patient labeling requirements, and documented clinical experience, including data on adverse events.

A comment period deadline of April 15 is set.

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