Bengaluru: If dental experts and surveys are to be believed then Bengalureans are smiling less because of poor oral hygiene. A nationwide survey by AC Nielsen revealed that Bengaluru is second to Delhi in terms of poor oral hygiene, consequently reducing the people's 'Smile Quotient'. The majority of the city dentists couldn't agree more that the state of oral hygiene has a direct bearing on healthy confident smiles and hence on the 'Smile Quotient'.
"It does have a direct bearing on confident smiles and bad oral hygiene leads to a lot of problems like bad breath and gum diseases which inhibit people with dental issues from socializing," says Dr MLV Prabhuji, President, Indian Dental Association(IDA) Karnataka who adds, "Sadly even though awareness has increased slightly, people are still unaware of certain basics like how frequently should they change their toothbrushes, how they should brush their teeth and other oral hygiene practices."
Dentists also highlight interesting situations that they notice among patients which point to the same connection between smiling and oral hygiene. Dr Chandra Mohan Raju D who is the regional co-ordinator for Apollo White Dental Karnataka adds, "Awareness of oral hygiene is low and patients with crooked teeth or suffering from gum diseases or periodontitis are slightly hesitant to socialise and they smile less. Sadly in the IT city, many patients have the habit of chewing tobacco, gutkha, smoking and consuming alcohol. Hence they are highly prone to dental staining. Therefore these patients are hesitant to speak and smile."
According to experts, oral problems like caries, gingivitis, periodontitis, infections, halitosis and other systemic problems can be prevented if patients take due dental care in time. VS Venkatesh, CEO, Apollo White Dental adds, "In our practice we have observed that social presence is important and there is a direct connect with oral hygiene on four main counts namely; malocclusion, social interaction problems because of halitosis or bad breath, poor gum care for which one needs to go for regular check-ups , scaling and lastly teeth cleaning."
