BDS · Conservative Dentistry · TOPIC 01 Dental Caries A multifactorial disease of host, microbe, substrate, and time Dental caries is the most common chronic disease in humans. Most students learn it as a disease of sugar and bacteria , which is correct but incomplete. The clinically useful framing is that caries is the visible end-point of a long-running pH imbalance between demineralisation and remineralisation at the tooth surface — and that imbalance is driven by four factors that all have to be present at the same time. ▸ The four factors are host (the tooth and saliva), …
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