Health : Taking a Close Look at the Tooth
Some dentists aren’t just telling patients about their cavities and other oral defects. Using a new, high-technology camera, they’re showing them--in living color and at 10-fold magnification.
To operate the system, introduced this year by at least two manufacturers at a cost of $22,000 or more, a dentist aims a hand-held, wand-like camera at the area to be photographed. The image is then transmitted to a nearby monitor where the frame can be frozen or printed for further examination.
Among the defects visible are plaque adhering to surfaces, gum inflammation and cracked fillings.
“I think it’s an aid in diagnosis and it helps the patient understand the problem,” said Dr. Donald Osburn, a Downey dentist who uses DentalVision, manufactured by Dentsply. Another system, DentaCam, is made by Fuji Optical Systems. More than 100 dentists nationwide are using the two systems, company spokesmen estimated.
Exercise and Menstruation
Excessive exercise is likely to upset the menstrual cycle, according to a Canadian report that echoes the conclusions of several previous studies.
Seven of nine body builders stopped menstruating and had severely reduced levels of the hormone progesterone, said Gordon Kinson, a professor of physiology at the University of Ottawa, and Marc Regimbal, Kinson’s co-researcher and now a medical student at the University of Montreal.
The weight lifters exercised an average of 1 1/2 to 2 hours a day, five or six days a week, for a year or more, doing some aerobic exercise as well, Regimbal said. They had half as much progesterone as 10 female students who trained with weights for an hour a day, four times a week for a two-month period, said Kinson.
Low levels of progesterone can disturb the estrogen balance, Kinson explained, which can lead to abnormal cell growth in the uterine lining. Women with this condition may have difficulty conceiving, Regimbal said.
Progesterone supplements are sometimes prescribed to counteract the effects of intense exercise, Kinson said. Other experts recommend scaling back workouts.
It’s difficult to determine when a woman is exercising too much because thresholds vary and appear to depend on such factors as body weight and fat, Regimbal said.
“If a woman skips a month here or there, I don’t think it’s particularly unhealthy,” he said. “But if menstruation stops for three months or more, women should let their physicians know.”
Listeriosis Risk
Eating raw hot dogs and undercooked chicken seems to increase the risk of contracting the bacterial disease listeriosis, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control report. They recommend that high-risk groups be particularly careful of dietary habits.
Most susceptible to listeriosis are the elderly, pregnant women, those with compromised immune systems or underlying problems such as diabetes, said Dr. Robert Pinner, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch of the Division of Bacterial Diseases.
The CDC study, reported recently in the journal Lancet, found that 20% of the overall risk of listeriosis was attributable to consumption of uncooked hot dogs or undercooked chicken.
Several listeriosis outbreaks have occurred in recent years, including one in California in 1985 that was linked to soft Mexican-style cheese.
A Name Game
A woman who takes her husband’s last name tends to view her spouse as the head of household and to put family concerns before career, a study by two California professors suggests, while women who keep their birth names seem more self- and career-oriented.
Hyphenated names, on the other hand, often represent a compromise between career-oriented women and husbands with more traditional family views, found Karen Foss, a professor of speech communication at Humboldt State University in Arcata and Belle Edson, an assistant professor of communication at Cal State San Bernardino.
In questioning nearly 100 women, all college-educated and all employed outside the home, about their name choices, the researchers found hyphenated names appear the most difficult option.
“People tend to drop off one of their names or drop the hyphen,” Foss said. And few husbands opted to hyphenate. But many of these women became crusaders, “committed to educating society about this option,” she added.
