With Adults Showing More Cavities Than Ever, How Much Can Fluoride Help?

We associate the dental caries, or cavities, epidemic with children, but recent data shows the problem is just as bad in adults, including 76 million baby boomers, who are retaining more teeth than ever, racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, and people with less education.

Researchers at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Oral Health Quality Group are looking at how well fluoride can fight tooth decay in high risk adults using five years of data on approximately 1.7 million patients in the VA system.

The research is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality and has three goals:

• Study the effectiveness of prescription-strength fluoride, both self- and professionally-applied, in the prevention of new restorations in veterans at high risk. Researchers think veterans who receive fluoride treatments will have fewer new restorations and fewer surfaces restored than veterans without fluoride treatments.
• Look at whether multiple exposures to fluoride are more effective than single exposures.
• Find out if the VA’s quarterly report on the number of at-risk veterans who received recommended fluoride treatments resulted in fewer restorations.

PI and Chair of General Dentistry at GSDM Dr. Judith Jones calls the research rewarding.

“Our previous research significantly changed VA policy by increasing the availability of prescription-strength fluorides for our nation’s veterans,” Dr. Jones says. “This new grant will show us how increased fluoride use affects dental caries in adults.”

Other GSDM faculty involved in the project are Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Marianne Jurasic and Assistant Professor and Clinical Trials Manager at the VA Medical Center Ms Carolyn Wehler.