Periodontitis and Systemic Diseases: A Review

Periodontitis is one of the inflammatory-infectious diseases of the oral cavity, which results in an alteration in the production of host inflammatory mediators. Oral cavity has plentiful diverse bacteria that can spread different sites of the body particularly in immune compromised individuals and results in various systemic diseases. As the oral cavity is the mirror image of our systemic health, hence maintenance of oral health is equally important. This paper reviews the etiology of periodontitis and systemic relation

Green dentistry: a systematic review for objective and subjective research

Dentistry's significant environmental impact and resource-intensive nature are concerning issues. Factors such as the environmental effects of biomaterials throughout lifecycle, radiation usage, and hazardous waste generation, including mercury and lead, need careful consideration. To counteract the environmental consequences of global warming, there is a growing global push to incorporate sustainability and green solutions. In response, dentists must transition from conventional practices to sustainable ones, embracing "green dentistry," which integrates sustainable development principles into dental care, underpinned by the 4 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Rethink, and Recycle. To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of dental professionals towards green dentistry, a questionnaire-based study was conducted. The search for relevant literature encompassed terms like "green dentistry," "eco-friendly dentistry," "recycling dental waste," and "sustainability in dentistry" through PubMed from 2001 to 2023, including English-language scientific and grey literature. Analysis of dental professionals' responses revealed notable disparities in eco-friendly dentistry knowledge between postgraduates (97.1%) and undergraduates (84.7%). Postgraduates exhibited better awareness of sterilization pouch disposal (68.1% vs. 49.2%) and mercury waste (85.5% vs. 61.9%). A substantial 82.9% recognized the potential for equipment recycling. While 16 articles were found from the PubMed database, spanning 2001 to 2023, originating from various sources, a broader exploration of quantitative and qualitative data on extraction was limited. There's a dearth of national research trends in this field. The study participants displayed satisfactory awareness of eco-dentistry, along with reasonable attitudes and adoption rates. However, continuous high-quality research is essential to comprehensively understand the impacts of environmentally friendly dental practices

Maternal Periodontitis and Low Birth Weight Babies

Introduction: Low birth weight in developing countries is primarily because of poor maternal health and nutrition. If maternal health plays such an important role in the child’s development, all the means of preventing problems among the pregnant women is of utmost importance. Aim: This study was conducted to assess the relationship between maternal periodontitis and the weight of the baby after birth. Materials and methods: The subjects in the present longitudinalstudy were chosen from the outpatients of Gynecology Department of the People’s Hospital over a period of 1 month. The periodontal status was assessed based on community periodontal index (CPI) and loss of attachment (LOA). Results: All the participants demonstrated periodontal pockets with more than half the population (56%) presenting shallow pockets (pockets of 4-5 mm). Conclusion: In the present study, periodontal status of the mother was significantly related to delivery of low birth weight babies. Thus it can be concluded that periodontitis may be associated with delivery of low birth weight babies

Pervasiveness of Tobacco associated Oral Lesions among Women residing in Urban Slum of Bhopal

Background: The urban-slum population has emerged as a new section which is known to fare very poorly on issues related to oral health. The proportion of the urban-slum population is also increasing at a rapid rate. The deleterious habits are highly prevalent so is the tobacco, in this population. Hence, the study was steered to evaluate the association of tobacco consumption and oral mucosal lesion (OML) in this population. Aim of the study: To assess the prevalence and patterns of tobacco use and related oral lesions among women residing in urban-slum of Bhopal city (Central India). Materials and methods: The descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire based study was deliberated by a convenience sample technique. A predesigned structured questionnaire was the tool used for data collection. All the female participants available on the day of survey were included. Entailing in the study was 130 participants residing in various slums of Bhopal city. Results: Oral health is an important parameter to extent holistic health. The quantum of tobacco is widely prevalent among under-privileged populations. Ramifications are depleted oral health and gross impact on overall health too. Tobacco affects from mild to major lesions in oral cavity. Most devastating is oral cancer directly related to tobacco consumption. Conclusion: The concludory points derived out of this study are sufficient enough to conclude that women were aware of the trivial general ill effects of tobacco consumption but major harmful effects on oral health is still below the iceberg due tounawareness and low socioeconomic status (SES).&nbsp

Oral Health Acquaintance, Approach and Practices among Schoolteachers in Bhopal, Central India

Background: Education of oral health awareness to schoolchildren is important. School teachers can play a major role in imparting knowledge of the causes and prevention ofcommon oral diseases. A school-based program is most effective because children are approached at a time when their health habits are forming. Aims: This study was aimed to assess the acquaintance, approach and practices of schoolteachers toward oral hygiene and oral health in Bhopal city. Materials and methods: Present study is cross-sectional, questionnaire-based , stratified random sampling technique was smeared to obtain the desired sample size. Three hundred and five teachers were selected from 14 different schools of Bhopalcity. Results: Around 130 (83.9%) of the teachers of private schools alleged oral health plays an imperative role in general health but 82 (54.7%) of government schoolteachers only agree to foresaid fact regarding oral health and overall health (χ2 = 40.294, df = 3, p < 0.001). A total of 96 (61.9%) of the teachers in private and 44 (29.3%) of teachers in government schools used fluoridated toothpaste and 31 (20%) and 40 (26.7%) of the teachers used nonfluoridated toothpaste and the remaining were not concerned about the status of toothpaste, whether fluoridated or nonfluoridated (χ2 = 40.722, df = 5, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Teachers essentially need to be invigorated to improve their responsiveness on sound oral health information, approaches and behaviors. This will facilitate their role as school oral health education providers

Oral Health Promotion by Peer Group Model approach among Orphanages in Bhopal City, Central India

Aim: To assess the effectiveness of peer group model among orphanages for oral health education and promotion. Methodology: A study was carried out among orphans residing in Bhopal city in the age group of 11 to 17 years. The study was carried out in two phases. In the 1st phase, data regarding knowledge, attitude related to oral hygiene, and oral hygiene practices of the orphans were collected and certified gingival index and plaque index were examined. In phase 2, oral health education was given to all the caregivers and attenders and particular emphasis was given to oral hygiene procedure. Then after 3 months, the respective indices and knowledge attitude and practices were reviewed for orphanage children and preand postanalysis was done using statistical analysis. Results: Mean gingival score, which was 1.37 ± 0.41 at baseline, gradually reduced to 1.05 ± 0.43 at 3rd month. The mean plaque score, which was 1.28 ± 0.33 at baseline, alsogradually reduced to 1.04 ± 0.38 at 3rd-month examination. Conclusion: Peer group model is a significant method to enhance the behavior and it promotes a positive attitude toward the habits. There is a frequent need to monitor the oral health behavior of orphanage children and educating the peers to promote oral health among themselves

BLOOM: A 176B-Parameter Open-Access Multilingual Language Model

Large language models (LLMs) have been shown to be able to perform new tasks based on a few demonstrations or natural language instructions. While these capabilities have led to widespread adoption, most LLMs are developed by resource-rich organizations and are frequently kept from the public. As a step towards democratizing this powerful technology, we present BLOOM, a 176B-parameter open-access language model designed and built thanks to a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. BLOOM is a decoder-only Transformer language model that was trained on the ROOTS corpus, a dataset comprising hundreds of sources in 46 natural and 13 programming languages (59 in total). We find that BLOOM achieves competitive performance on a wide variety of benchmarks, with stronger results after undergoing multitask prompted finetuning. To facilitate future research and applications using LLMs, we publicly release our models and code under the Responsible AI License

Acuity of morality in dental practice management

Dentistry is a health-care profession, provides oral care as physician does. Currently, due to transient transformation in dental practice, dentistry reached its zenith level. In this segment, moral and legal aspect is one of the leading concerns in dental practice management. The duties of dentist are allied with many confront along with regulations of moral and legal compliance. The aim of this article is to endow with uncomplicated explanations of dissimilar attitude and knowledge of morality that might affect the dental profession as a whole. The literature on acuity of morality in dental practice management was identified by searching the biomedical databases as a primary research material. The databases were searched for publications from 2001 to 2016, with key articles obtained primarily from Medline, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane. The literature for the present review was obtained from the following sources such as published articles, unpublished literature, internet news clippings, and online manuals and books

A case report of preferential effectiveness of clonazepam over lorazepam in the management of a case of alprazolam withdrawal

Benzodiazepines (BZDs) remain the mainstay in the management of withdrawal arising out of BZD use disorders. The choice of detoxifying agent is determined by the duration of action and also by the metabolic properties of the drug. Very rarely, we consider the chemical properties of the drug that we choose, though occasionally that may have profound clinical impact on the outcome. In this case report, we present the case of alprazolam withdrawal that was ineffectively managed by lorazepam and finally salvaged by the use of clonazepam. The chemical properties of the molecules involved and their clinical importance in the decision-making process have been subsequently reviewed