Millennials are now the largest generation, so you’d think that there would be a lot of dental patients to take care of. But experts are finding that the opposite is true.

Are you a millennial who has been putting off seeing your dentist? Well, you certainly aren’t alone.

Keep reading to learn more about millennials and dental care, including why they need it and how they can take the first steps towards a cleaner, healthier, and more beautiful smile.

Are milk, cheese, and other dental products good for your teeth?

Milk contains a sugar called lactose which is fortunately pretty benign as far as tooth decay is concerned. Even with the presence of lactose milk does not promote tooth decay because of the presence of high amounts of calcium, phosphate, and casein which is a milk protein that helps strengthen teeth.

Eating cheese can actually help protect teeth from developing cavities because eating cheese helps increase the flow of saliva which helps neutralize acids in the mouth. Cheese also increases calcium concentration which helps stop the demineralization of tooth enamel. The fat that is abundant in cheese also helps reduce bacteria in the mouth.

A lump of cheese is often eaten in Europe after a meal as a desert. European cultures have known for centuries that cheese helps protect the tooth enamel after a meal by neutralizing bacteria in the mouth. So next time you have a sugary meal have a piece of cheese when you finish to help neutralize the effects of the sugars in your mouth.

One of the greatest health care challenges in Alaska is oral health disease among Alaskan Native populations. Children in particular are suffering from oral diseases at epidemic proportions. The saddest part of this story is that most of the disease and suffering can be easily prevented with access to basic dental care. A major roadblock to preventing that suffering is finding dentist's who practice in or are even travel willing to remote area's on America's last frontier.

The leaders of Alaska's Native Villages have partnered with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to help deal with oral health issues within their population. The training of local mid-level dental practitioners to help take care of basic dental treatments is a possible solution. Dental Therapists as they are called work under the supervision of dentists and currently provide access to approximately 35,000 Alaskan Natives scattered across remote area's of the frontier.

Prevention through education, diet, and technology are also area's that are under renewed scrutiny by local health authorities. Most of the villages lack access to a fluoridated water supply. That combined with a diet high in soda pop and sugar are major contributors to a high rate of tooth decay. Dental education programs have been put in place at the tribal level to educate children and parents about how they can prevent tooth decay and gum disease through diet, habits, and modified behavior in the home.

Access to needed dental services and Alaska Dental Insurance is not unique to just the frontier area's of the state of Alaska. An estimated ten thousand new dentists are needed nationally of help fill the current access gap that exists in dental care. Over 130 million American's nationwide are without any form of dental insurance and that number continues to rise on a daily basis.

Fluoridated drinking water and fluoride in over-the-counter and prescription toothpastes are widely credited with the large reduction in dental cavities seen since these products were made available beginning in the early 1950s.

Fluoride is the 13th most common element in Earth's crust, and it is naturally present in high concentrations throughout the United States and elsewhere. Fluoride bonds with the enamel of our teeth which hardens them against the acids produced by bacteria in our mouths that can cause tooth decay.

Studies have confirmed the most effective source of fluoride to be water fluoridation.
Its use in toothpaste and its addition to city water supplies across the United States sparked a controversy 60 years ago, and the dispute continues to this day. In the United Kingdom, and in other European Union countries, fluoride is used to a much lesser extent due to fierce public opposition.

More than 144 million United States residents in more than 10,000 communities drink fluoridated tap water, providing an automatic defense against the harmful ingredients that cause such a preventable oral health disease.

Children drinking water with added fluoride helps dental health in adulthood decades later. Your fluoridation exposure at birth is affecting your tooth loss in your 40s and 50s, regardless of what your fluoridation exposure was like when you were 20 and 30 years old.

For children whose adult teeth haven't shown yet, fluoride still improves tooth enamel, the highly mineralized tissue on teeth's surface. Fluoride also helps teeth damaged from the decay process and breaks down bacteria on teeth.

Fluoride varnishes are typically used for patients who don't receive enough fluoride from other sources. Keeping fluoride in the mouth enhances its ability to arrest de-mineralization and promote re-mineralization, and varnishes are better for this purpose than fluoridated drinking water or toothpaste.

Varnish, applied quickly and easily by a dentist, is one of the most concentrated products available commercially. Varnishes that contain sodium fluoride adhere to tooth surfaces when saliva is present, providing an excellent fluoride treatment.

A chemical mix imitating the minerals found in saliva, but at higher concentrations, can be added to toothpaste to plug tiny pores that lead to nerves. The exposed pores lead to nerves, causing pain and sensitive teeth.

Now, a new ingredient in toothpaste, developed by dentists, called Novamin, can dramatically reduce teeth sensitivity. Teeth become sensitive when gum tissue recedes, exposing a tooth's roots. Roots contain small holes or tubules that lead to nerves. Novamin plugs up the holes cutting off contact with nerves and eliminating pain.

It is made from a compound from elements naturally critical for bone and tooth mineralization: calcium, phosphorus, silica and sodium. In their common forms, these elements have very limited value in tooth healthy. But in their rare ionic form, they can make teeth stronger and help eliminate tooth sensitivity.

In young children, certain social and psychological factors seem to increase the risk of tooth decay, a new study finds.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada did the study. They kept track of 132 kindergarten children for 2 years. Nearly half of the children had tooth decay.

Decay was linked with three factors:

• High levels of decay-causing bacteria
• High levels of a hormone called cortisol
• A family income below poverty level

Children with the most decay had high levels of decay-causing bacteria in their mouths. They also had high levels of cortisol in their saliva. Cortisol is released in response to stress. It aids in the body's digesting of sugars.

The researchers also examined any baby teeth that were normally lost during the study. Children with more cortisol in their saliva had baby teeth with thinner, softer enamel.

The authors suggest that the process of producing a cavity in a tooth is influenced by factors such as poverty level and stress.