Researchers from the School of Dentistry at the University of Washington followed the dental progress of children who chewed sugar-free gum for five years, and then stopped chewing gum. They found that teeth that had come in during the gum-chewing period were protected from cavities for two years after the chewing stopped. Many nutrition-minded diners have cut out the steak and potatoes and gone out for more Chinese and Japanese cuisine, but a report in the journal Neurology says many years of living on an Asian diet may cause dementia. The journal quotes Dr. Web Ross, a Department of Veterans Affairs neurologist in Honolulu, whos studied more than 8,000 Japanese-American men since 1965, saying that vascular dementia is more common in men with a diet rich in complex carbs and low in meatthe hallmarks of Asian cuisine. He and his colleagues have been trying to figure out why people in the West have a high heart disease rate while strokes predominate in Japan.
Vascular dementia is caused by a series of small arterial blood vessel strokes.
Blood clots form in these small arteries and starve brain cells to death. Ross study says that the subjects who preferred an Asian diet were more prone to these types of strokes than those who had adopted more Western-style diets. Vascular dementia predominates in Japan, while Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia in the United States. Ross says his research suggests eating foods high in fat or animal protein may help maintain the health of smaller blood vessels.