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By: Ben Preiss
African Dental Sticks – Folk Medicine for your Smile (GALLERY)
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Across sub-Saharan Africa you will find people chewing on sticks and twigs, this is nature’s toothbrush. Users say that the sticks are more natural, cheaper, effective and medicinal than their plastic store bought counterparts and science is beginning to back them up. They come in a variety of types with different medicinal properties, good for stomach, good for your head, easing toothaches, etc.
Their users say the sticks are also medicinal, providing not just dental hygiene but also curing a variety of other ills. Dental experts agree they seem to clean teeth well and some up-market health stores in the United States have been selling chew-sticks as a natural form of dental care.
"It's good for your stomach and your head ... it whitens your teeth and gets rid of bad breath," said Abedis Sauda, a Senegalese street vendor.
Traders in Dakar and other Senegalese cities sell neat bundles of the pencil-sized sticks, usually about 6inches long, on the pavement, offering a variety of different types of wood at different prices.
"There are several documented studies which suggest that the cleaning sticks are at least as effective as normal toothbrushes and paste in maintaining routine oral health," Christine D. Wu, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Illinois College of Dentistry, told Reuters.
She said some laboratory studies indicated plants from which some of the sticks in Africa are cut contain protective anti-microbial compounds that act against the bacteria in the mouth which cause tooth decay and gum disease.
(news.yahoo)
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Via: news.yahoo
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