Ashish Singla

Fluoride is often called a double edged sword because deficiency of fluoride intake leads to dental caries while excess consumption leads to dental and skeletal fluorosis. Fluorosis of dental enamel occurs when excess fluoride is ingested during the years of tooth calcification-essentially during the first 7 years of life It is characterized by mottling of dental enamel, which has been reported at levels above 1.5 mg/L intake. India is one of the worst fluorosis affected countries, with large number of people suffering. This is because a large number of Indians rely on groundwater for drinking purposes and water at many places is rich in fluoride. In India 62 million people including 6 million children are estimated to have serious health problems due to consumption of fluoride contaminated water. Defluoridation was the conventional and widely tested method for supplying safe water to the fluorosis affected communities. Defluoridation refers to methods of water treatment that reduces the concentration of fluoride in the water, normally, in order to make it safe for human consumption.

Probiotics are an emerging area of research in oral health; however, they have been well studied in relationship to systemic or gastrointestinal health. Knowledge of probiotics on the host immune system has entered a new and fascinating phase of research and progression in this field is likely to offer novel and useful means to modulate host immunity for protection from, or treatment of, a wide variety of oral diseases and disorders. Probiotics play an important role in combating issues with over use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance. Today's new technological era would be the right time to change the way bacteria are treated. Nowadays, dental professionals are slowly moving away from the purely surgical approach of treating dental caries to the use of probiotic strategies, that may provide the end of new cavities in treated populations. Efforts should be made to increase the awareness and motivation among the general dental practitioners on this aspect of oral disease therapy and invigorate the implementation of the concept of "food rather than medicine."