I don't think this is an appropriate response to an article about South Asian farmers losing their teeth because temperatures are now reaching 45 Celcius.
The average Tumblr blogger has such poor manners that even a pig would be embarrassed to bring them home to its mother.
After I suspected a climate connection to tooth decay, I conducted systematic saliva pH testing across my patient population and documented
okay so i think i found the article op's (and me in my tags) talking about. being exposed to over 40 celsius (120 farenheit or so) for the whole day means youre sweating a LOT (the article says rashid- the farmer at the centre of the text- drinks around 17 liters a Day. humans usually only need 3, so i presume the rest is mostly used for sweat). so much so that the organizm reroutes water from other parts of itself to not die of heatstroke - salivary glands included, which means that 1. they have very little saliva in comparison to a healthy human being 2. what little their bodies DO produce is incredibly acidic, falling to ~5.5 ph from the ideal of 7ph. Teeth dissolve. Quickly. There's a mention of someone losing 8 teeth in two years
im not reading the whole article now (headache -_-), but later on the author of the article says about 30 million people (employed in agriculture) are at risk for extreme dental health problems. 30 million people at risk of not being able to eat solid food. 30 million people at risk of not being able to find work. being able to marry. being able to be part of their community. being able to speak clearly
this is. fucking horrible feels like an understatement, but it is the best i have. this exceptionally, terribly inhumane, and the pakistan goverment's lack of a plan to adress this is embarassing
Hadn’t heard of this before but the theory is sound. Severe dehydration -> body diverts resources away from salivary glands (same reason why you get dry mouth when you get nervous and fight/flight activates) -> dry mouth -> severely elevated cavity risk. Coupled with what is probably unideal preventive care in the farmer’s lifestyle, that results in tooth loss
I was guessing it would involve high heat -> increased hydration with electrolyte drinks that are often flavored by sweet/acidic products that keep mouth pH lowered in the critical pH where teeth begin to dissolve (looking at you, Stephan curve).
After reading the article, it looks like it’s both factors at play, in addition to chewing on sugarcane during the day and turning to bottled soft drinks as the tap water turns brackish from contamination with nitrates. And if you drink the brackish water that’s also acidic, you’re not much better off
Just a truly tragic series of circumstances and that is hard to get governments or medical systems to care about because “they’re just teeth, that’s a cosmetic issue not a health issue” 🥴
