SUGAR AND DENTAL DISEASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2147, 3 July 1920, Page 1

SUGAR AND DENTAL DISEASE.

(Article published under the authority of the Education Department.)

Examination has proved that over 00 per cent, of school children in the Dominion are suffering from dental disease. Experience has proved that this disease is primarily responsible for many others. It is the one disease above all others on which the public should concentrate its attention. It affects almost every member of the community. It begins in childhood.' It lowers the health and resisting power of the child, and consequently predisposes to tuberculosis and disease generally. It is impossible to exaggerate the suffering and economic loss caused to the community by this apparently trivial but really terrible disease.

Research goes to prove Hint the use of free sugar is one of tlie most predominant causes of dental disease. By free sugar is meant that tint included in the na I lira I composition of fruit and other foods. Dental disease will progress in proportion lo the consumption of free sugar. It is the duty of parents, guardians, and all who have the interest of- the health and economic welfare of the* Dominion at heart to realise this fundamental truth. They should realise that in allowing and encouraging their Children to consume large quantities of sugar in the form of chocolate and sweets generally tlie.f are laying in store for them suffering and ill-health, and endangering their future welfare. It must he made clear that the. common craving for sugar is an acquired one, that children in the past: did not: get sugar, and that to allow them to develop the craving is a. positive cruelty. Not only should sugar and distinctly sugary foods he kepi down to a minimum, hut also the eating ol sweet biscuits, chocolate and confectionery should be discouraged. These foods consist almost altogether of liighly relined starch and sugar. which is an ideal combination for lodging aboyl tbeteelh. At the same time it does not stimulate, but weakens the flow of saliva. Hence it is not readily washed out of (he ci’eviees, but remains there to undergo aeiil fermentation and destroy the enamel of the teeth, ft is not necessarily intended to condemn these refined foods absolutely, and banish them entirely from our diet, but rather that their use should be restricted instead of their occupying a prominent place in our diet and being taken at such very Jrequent intervals.

Sugar causes barm in more ways than by its direct' action in the mouth and upon the teeth and How of saliva. When taken in any quantity it causes conges! ion ot the mucous lining of the stomach, and leads to catarrh, disturbed'nutrition, and much vague ill-health. It gives rise in children to that very common a.nd vague ailment, mucous disease, which Ims been aptly termed by an eminent medical authority ‘‘the dyspepsia of sweet-eating children;” Replacing the excess of sugar and refined starchy foods by more coarse-grained and albuminous foods lends, with little other treatment, lo restore the health.

SUGAR. UNNECESSARY AND HARMFUL.

Free sugar is not necessary to human health and nutrition. It has only become a common article of diet during 1 comparatively modern times, and only during the last 50 or 100 years has its consumption increased to the present enormous extent. Three hundred years ago sugar was a very rare luxury, and was unobtainable except in an apothecary’s shop. During the 17 years preceding 1900 the quantity of sugar consumed in America rose from nearly lOlhs. per head to more than five times that amount. Since (hat it has increased enormously. A similar rapid increase has taken place iri England. The consumption of sugar per head in New Zealand, for the year 1878 was Cdilbs.; in 1913 it was 122A1b5., nearly twice the amount. This means an average consumption for each individual of about one-third lb. per day. Dental disease in its present magnitude is also comparatively modern, and its increase has been paraded to that of sugar consumption and other modern dietetic errors.

In the medical-.'inspection, of schools a noticeably smaller amount of decay of the teeth has been found to prevail at the smaller out-of-the-way schools. The factor deciding this difference, appears to he the absence -of sweets, .or confeeti-. oners’, shops. Where no such shops are within reach, of the school the teeth are on the average in better condition. The difference is evident between schools only a few miles apart, where one has, and the other has nod, a sweet shop in the .neighbourhood.

Such shops are frequently situ-

tiled only a few doors from .schools, and trade busily with the children at lunch hour. Apart from their destructive effect upon the teeth, these shops interfere with the children eating proper lunches. So long as these temptations-are there to act upon their childish tastes the inculcation in children of'healthy .dietetic habits appears a forlorn hope. When Europeans first came to New Zealand the Maoris ate coarser and more natural food, and had perfect, teeth. Now the Maori has adopted our dietetic habits, and his teeth have been reduced to almost the same deplorable state as our own. The -Government has inaugurated a- scheme to treat dental disease in school children. This can only be regarded as palliative. No real progress can be made unless fundamental causes are dealt with. .For this reason parents are urged to give their serious consideration to the suggestions given in this and oilier articles of the series. In the next article it is intended to deal furl her with the subject of diet in relation to the teeth.