Information about BPA
September 13th, 2013
There has been some increased interest in BPA in dental materials since a small article appeared in USA Today. You may recall that BPA is a chemical that was shown to be released from some water bottles, especially when hot water was placed in them. This chemical has the potential for causing some health problems that could be potentially serious. This is not a new concern for the dental profession since there was a similar article that appeared in the dental literature in 2008.
A couple of points were made in the article that are very important to review. This gets a little complicated, but there are some very important considerations and we are talking about you and your children’s health. In the article they differentiated two different compounds that dental materials could be made from. Bis-Dma and Bis-Gma. In the article they pointed out that only the Bis-Dma seemed to release BPA into the saliva for about 3 hours. BisGma is a completely different molecule and did not break down to BPA.
There are still dental sealants on the market today that contain Bis-Dma (mainly Delton by Dentsply). In Dr. Paul Peterson’s office we have never used a sealant that contains Bis-Dma. In fact we don’t actually use a sealant material for our sealants. We use a permanent restorative material in the form of a flowable composite. Studies have found that it is a stronger material and tends to last longer in the teeth.
I went back to check the materials that we use in our office and NONE of the materials contained Bis-Dma. There is actually a good reason for it that has nothing to do with BPA. The Bis-Gma material have some better characteristics for how we use them and have therefore become much more common in the more expensive materials. Since that is all we use, it has not been an issue in our office.
Dental sealants have been in service for many years and have been a main reason why our children do not have near the number of fillings in their teeth that we did. They are a great service and a terrific way to prevent tooth decay. Even in the article they mentioned what a valuable service they were and recommend their continued use. To learn more about the materials we use in our office, please contact us today.
