Got Tooth Decay? Blame Your Mom.

Categories: Health
bad teeth.jpg
'M' is for the million things she gave me...
A U.C. San Francisco study has found one more thing you can blame your mother for -- your Jack O' Lantern smile.

In a paper appearing in the current issue of the Journal of Dental Research -- read, rinse, spit -- UCSF professor Jane Weintraub notes that the rural Hispanic subjects in her study had nearly double the odds of developing tooth decay if their mothers had untreated tooth decay as well.

no-cavities.jpg
...No thanks to you!
While this study focused on Central Valley Hispanics, this is not a Hispanic-only problem. Tooth decay isn't just caused by peanut brittle; it can be passed from person to person. Weintraub notes that a mother could pass decay to her child by simply sharing a utensil.

The doctor's recommendations: The government needs to work harder to get poor people to dentists; dentists need to keep an eye on entire families and not just the patient under the drill; and you -- you need to go to the damn dentist.

Follow us on Twitter: @TheSnitchSF and @SFWeekly


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