Permanent Teeth News and Research

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NIH funds national center to advance root canal alternatives

Which would you rather have: a root canal or a pulpotomy? Even if you're not familiar with a pulpotomy, you might be inclined to learn more.

23 Sep 2026

Secondhand smoke alters tooth enamel development in early life

Exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke during the first days of life can cause changes in tooth enamel mineralization without causing visible changes to the teeth.

31 Jul 2026

Maternal stress linked to earlier baby teeth

Children have 20 milk teeth, 10 in each jaw. This set of teeth is important for chewing and speaking, and helps to keep space open for the subsequent set of 32 permanent teeth.

18 Nov 2025

How early immune challenges influence oral and systemic health in children

Once viewed only as infectious invaders, bacteria are now understood to play an important role in overall health.

8 Aug 2025

Can smoking while pregnant harm your child’s teeth? New research suggests yes

Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with dental anomalies in children, including enamel defects and hypodontia, necessitating more rigorous studies.

2 Jun 2025

Medi-Cal’s dental care gap: Getting a tooth pulled is easy — much harder to get an implant

When Bobby Moske went to a community clinic a few years ago with a toothache, he couldn't find a dentist in Marin County willing to take Medicaid to do a root canal.

9 Aug 2024

Fluoride and sealants win against youth dental caries, a robust review informs US health policy

In a comprehensive review for the JAMA Network, researchers find that preventive oral health interventions like fluoride treatments and sealants are effective in combating dental caries in youth, offering actionable insights for the US Preventive Services Task Force and healthcare providers.

8 Nov 2023

Early feeding practices key to shaping lifelong oral microbiome

Research delves into the little-explored world of the infant oral microbiome, examining how early nutrition and environmental factors shape it. With implications for lifelong health, the research aims to guide future health recommendations, emphasizing the need for more longitudinal studies and advanced sequencing techniques.

26 Sep 2023

Expert panel develops first-ever guideline to treat tooth decay in primary and permanent teeth

A new American Dental Association (ADA) clinical practice guideline suggests conservative methods to treat tooth decay in primary and permanent teeth could lead to better outcomes when used with common restorative materials like fillings or caps.

26 Jun 2023

Alternative remedy to conventional root canals would regenerate lost tooth pulp

Each year, dentists in the United States perform more than 15 million root canals on infected teeth, removing the inflamed pulp and filling the emptied canal with inert materials such as rubber and cement. What remains is a mineral shell in place of a living tooth.

9 Jun 2022

Why your dentist might seem pushy

In 1993, Dr. David Silber, a dentist now practicing in Plano, Texas, was fired from the first dental clinic he worked for.

19 May 2021

School-based cavity prevention program reduces health disparities, brings dental care to children

A school-based cavity prevention program involving nearly 7,000 elementary school students reduced cavities by more than 50 percent, according to a study led by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry.

1 Mar 2021

Repeated surgeries have no major psychological impact on children born with cleft lip and palate

Children born with cleft lip and cleft palate (CLP) commonly undergo multiple surgical procedures between infancy and adolescence. By the time they are teens, patients with CLP with more total surgeries do not have increased psychosocial problems.

26 Jun 2020

A learning health system for dentists

The largest study to date of electronic dental records delves into both previously inaccessible data and data from understudied populations with the ultimate goal of improving oral treatment outcomes.

5 Jun 2020

Vitamin D in pregnancy reduces risk of enamel defects in offspring

An important randomized trial shows that when vitamin D is supplemented at high doses in the last three months of pregnancy, there is a fall in the occurrence of enamel defects in the deciduous (milk) and permanent teeth of the offspring by half, over the next 6 years, compared to a low dose supplementation. However, the incidence of caries was not affected.

27 Jan 2020

Fluoride varnish: is there any benefit?

Though hugely popular for preventing dental decay in children, fluoride varnish may not be anything but an expensive placebo, it turns out, from the results of a new study by University of Washington researchers.

20 Sep 2019

Study finds two new genes in the developmental defects of canine enamel

In addition to humans, hereditary disorders of enamel development occur in dogs, greatly impacting their dental health and wellbeing. A recent study reveals canine enamel disorders similar to those found in humans, linking them with ENAM and ACP4, two genes previously described in humans.

29 Mar 2019