Interesting Facts

According to the Professor Nigel Hunt at the Royal College of Surgeons, “cake culture” in the UK workplace is fuelling the obesity epidemic and contributing to poor dental health. (As a healthy alternative they are suggesting that workers should bring fruit platters into the office instead of doughnuts, cookies and biscuits. He said, “Cake culture poses difficulties for those who are trying their hardest to lose weight or become healthier - how many of us have begun such diets only to cave in to the temptation of the doughnuts, cookies or the triple chocolate biscuits?” I agree in principal, but I wouldn't want to be the one to bring a box of apples to work on my birthday, I don't want to be known as Lynney no friends.)

A Beatles fan is allegedly aiming to clone John Lennon from DNA extracted from a tooth. (The tooth was sold in auction (which in itself is profoundly disturbing), and bought for just under £20,000 by Canadian dentist Michael Zuk. He is now attempting to sequence the DNA, which is the first step in the cloning process. (He's also selling Lennon DNA pendants and tooth dust.) You can follow the story on http://www.johnlennontooth.com/ Yes, that is a valid web address.) 

Fizzy drinks are on average, 5,000 times more acidic than water, which has a neutral pH level. (This is having a disastrous affect on people's teeth. A normal sized can of pop contains approximately nine teaspoons of sugar, and regular consumption of these sugary drinks increases the risk of tooth decay by over 200%. According to dentists, who are at the front line of the battle against tooth decay, if you drink a lot of canned or bottled fizzy pop, you might as well stick your teeth in an acid bath. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1969 Australians used to drink about 47 litres per person in a year, in 2012 it was estimated to be over 100 litres, and rising. That's almost 300 cans a year! Australian peridontist, Dr Amis Lidums, said "Teeth initially become quite sensitive and they'll start to become shorter as the protective enamel over the surface of the teeth disappears." Almost 60 per cent of children aged five to sixteen consume ...

In the past young women from poor families had all their teeth taken out and replaced by dentures as a 21st birthday present. (These were sometimes presented to the man of their dreams as a sort of dowry. I guess the idea being that the woman wouldn't cost anything in dental bills, or maybe the teeth could be sold so that well to do people could have dentures.  This kind of thinking continued into the twentieth century, when having dentures was still a bit of a status symbol. Of course nowadays people will do anything to get that perfect white smile, I'm sure there will be equal astonishment in the future when someone reads about how people would bleach their teeth in the twenty-first century.)