TikTok is full of videos that demonstrate DIY hacks, from up-cycling tricks to cooking tips. Meanwhile, a growing number of TikTok videos offer tips to help you save money and time at the dentist. But do they deliver?

Here are five popular dental TikTok trends and why you might treat them with caution.

1. Home-made whitening solutions

Many TikTok videos provide tips to whiten teeth. These include tutorials on making your own whitening toothpaste using ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide, a common household bleaching agent, and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate).

In this video, the influencer says:

And then you’re going to pour in your hydrogen peroxide. There’s really no measurement to this.

But hydrogen peroxide in high doses is poisonous if swallowed, and can burn your gums, mouth and throat, and corrode your teeth.

High doses of hydrogen peroxide may infiltrate holes or microscopic cracks in your teeth to inflame or damage the nerves and blood vessels in the teeth, which can cause pain and even nerve death. This is why dental practitioners are bound by rules when we offer whitening treatments.

Sodium bicarbonate and hydrogen peroxide are among the components in commercially available whitening toothpastes. While these commercial products may be effective at removing surface stains, their compositions are carefully curated to keep your smile safe.

2. Oil pulling

Oil pulling involves swishing one tablespoon of sesame or coconut oil in your mouth for up to 20 minutes at a time. It has roots in Ayurvedic medicine, a traditional medicine practice that originates from the Indian subcontinent.

While oil pulling should be followed by brushing and flossing, I’ve had patients who believe oil pulling is a replacement for these practices.

There has been some research on the potential of oil pulling to treat gum disease or other diseases in the mouth. But overall, evidence that supports the effectiveness of oil pulling is of low certainty.

For example, studies that test the effectiveness of oil pulling have been conducted on school-aged children and people with no dental problems, and often measure dental plaque growth over a few days to a couple of weeks.

Chlorhexidine is an ingredient found in some commercially available mouthwashes.
In one study, people who rinsed with chlorhexidine mouthwash (30 seconds twice daily) developed less plaque on their teeth compared to those who undertook oil pulling for eight to 10 minutes.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely you will experience measurable gain to your oral health by adding oil pulling to your daily routine. If you’re time-poor, you’re better off focusing on brushing your teeth and gums well alongside flossing.

3. Using rubber bands to fix gaps

This TikTok influencer shows his followers he closed the gaps between his front teeth in a week using cheap clear rubber bands.

But this person may be one of the lucky few to successfully use bands to close a gap in his teeth without any mishaps. Front teeth are slippery and taper near the gums into cone-shaped roots. This can cause bands to slide and disappear into the gums to surround the tooth roots, which can cause infections and pain.

If this happens, you may require surgery that involves cutting your gums to remove the bands. If the bands have caused an infection, you may lose the affected teeth. So it’s best to leave this sort of work to a dental professional trained in orthodontics.

4. Filing or cutting teeth to shape them

My teeth hurt just watching this video.

Cutting or filing teeth unnecessarily can expose the second, more sensitive tooth layer, called dentine, or potentially, the nerve and blood vessels inside the tooth. People undergoing this sort of procedure could experience anything from sensitive teeth through to a severe toothache that requires root canal treatment or tooth removal.

You may notice dentist drills spray water when cutting to protect your teeth from extreme heat damage. The drill in this video is dry with no water used to cool the heat produced during cutting.

It may also not be sterile. We like to have everything clean and sterile to prevent contaminated instruments used on one patient from potentially spreading an infection to another person.

Importantly, once you cut or file your teeth away, it’s gone forever. Unlike bone, hair or nails, our teeth don’t have the capacity to regrow.

5. DIY fillings

Many people on TikTok demonstrate filling cavities (holes) or replacing gaps between teeth with a material made from heated moulded plastic beads. DIY fillings can cause a lot of issues – I’ve seen this in my clinic first hand.

While we may make it look simple in dental surgeries, the science behind filling materials and how we make them stick to teeth to fill cavities is sophisticated.

Filling a cavity with the kind of material made from these beads will be as effective as using sticky tape on sand. Not to mention the cavity will continue to grow bigger underneath the untreated “filled” teeth.

I know it’s easy to say “see a dentist about that cavity” or “go to an orthodontist to fix that gap in your teeth you don’t like”, but it can be expensive to actually do these things. However if you end up requiring treatment to fix the issues caused at home, it may end up costing you much more.

So what’s the take-home message? Stick with the funny cat and dog videos on TikTok – they’re safer for your smile.

Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In July 2023, rising US basketball star Bronny James collapsed on the court during practice and was sent to hospital. The 18-year-old athlete, son of famous LA Lakers’ veteran LeBron James, had experienced a cardiac arrest.

Many media outlets incorrectly referred to the event as a “heart attack” or used the terms interchangeably.

A cardiac arrest and a heart attack are distinct yet overlapping concepts associated with the heart.

With some background in how the heart works, we can see how they differ and how they’re related.

Understanding the heart

The heart is a muscle that contracts to work as a pump. When it contracts it pushes blood – containing oxygen and nutrients – to all the tissues of our body.

For the heart muscle to work effectively as a pump, it needs to be fed its own blood supply, delivered by the coronary arteries. If these arteries are blocked, the heart muscle doesn’t get the blood it needs.

This can cause the heart muscle to become injured or die, and results in the heart not pumping properly.

Heart attack or cardiac arrest?

Simply put, a heart attack, technically known as a myocardial infarction, describes injury to, or death of, the heart muscle.

A cardiac arrest, sometimes called a sudden cardiac arrest, is when the heart stops beating, or put another way, stops working as an effective pump.

In other words, both relate to the heart not working as it should, but for different reasons. As we’ll see later, one can lead to the other.

Why do they happen? Who’s at risk?

Heart attacks typically result from blockages in the coronary arteries. Sometimes this is called coronary artery disease, but in Australia, we tend to refer to it as ischaemic heart disease.

The underlying cause in about 75% of people is a process called atherosclerosis. This is where fatty and fibrous tissue build up in the walls of the coronary arteries, forming a plaque. The plaque can block the blood vessel or, in some instances, lead to the formation of a blood clot.

Atherosclerosis is a long-term, stealthy process, with a number of risk factors that can sneak up on anyone. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diet, diabetes, stress, and your genes have all been implicated in this plaque-building process.

Other causes of heart attacks include spasms of the coronary arteries (causing them to constrict), chest trauma, or anything else that reduces blood flow to the heart muscle.

Regardless of the cause, blocking or reducing the flow of blood through these pipes can result in the heart muscle not receiving enough oxygen and nutrients. So cells in the heart muscle can be injured or die.

But a cardiac arrest is the result of heartbeat irregularities, making it harder for the heart to pump blood effectively around the body. These heartbeat irregularities are generally due to electrical malfunctions in the heart. There are four distinct types:

• ventricular tachycardia: a rapid and abnormal heart rhythm in which the heartbeat is more than 100 beats per minute (normal adult, resting heart rate is generally 60-90 beats per minute). This fast heart rate prevents the heart from filling with blood and thus pumping adequately
• ventricular fibrillation: instead of regular beats, the heart quivers or “fibrillates”, resembling a bag of worms, resulting in an irregular heartbeat greater than 300 beats per minute
• pulseless electrical activity: arises when the heart muscle fails to generate sufficient pumping force after electrical stimulation, resulting in no pulse
• asystole: the classic flat-line heart rhythm you see in movies, indicating no electrical activity in the heart.

Cardiac arrest can arise from numerous underlying conditions, both heart-related and not, such as drowning, trauma, asphyxia, electrical shock and drug overdose. James’ cardiac arrest was attributed to a congenital heart defect, a heart condition he was born with.

But among the many causes of a cardiac arrest, ischaemic heart disease, such as a heart attack, stands out as the most common cause, accounting for 70% of all cases.

So how can a heart attack cause a cardiac arrest? You’ll remember that during a heart attack, heart muscle can be damaged or parts of it may die. This damaged or dead tissue can disrupt the heart’s ability to conduct electrical signals, increasing the risk of developing arrhythmias, possibly causing a cardiac arrest.

So while a heart attack is a common cause of cardiac arrest, a cardiac arrest generally does not cause a heart attack.

What do they look like?

Because a cardiac arrest results in the sudden loss of effective heart pumping, the most common signs and symptoms are a sudden loss of consciousness, absence of pulse or heartbeat, stopping of breathing, and pale or blue-tinged skin.

But the common signs and symptoms of a heart attack include chest pain or discomfort, which can show up in other regions of the body such as the arms, back, neck, jaw, or stomach. Also frequent are shortness of breath, nausea, light-headedness, looking pale, and sweating.

What’s the take-home message?

While both heart attack and cardiac arrest are disorders related to the heart, they differ in their mechanisms and outcomes.

A heart attack is like a blockage in the plumbing supplying water to a house. But a cardiac arrest is like an electrical malfunction in the house’s wiring.

Despite their different nature both conditions can have severe consequences and require immediate medical attention.

Michael Todorovic, Associate Professor of Medicine, Bond University and Matthew Barton, Senior lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.