The Morning Drill: June 22, 2011

A collection of dentistry and health related links/comments to start your day.

Dental start-up takes page from Groupon's playbook

With daily deal websites such as Groupon and Living Social flourishing, the format was sure to come to products in the dental industry. And while Groupon has strayed into the realm of selling dental services with mixed results, BiteDownDeals is exclusively offering daily deals on dental supplies.

"We're the first and only daily deal website that's dedicated to dentists and dental professionals," Alon Swartz, president of BiteDownDeals, told DrBicuspid.com.

Launched on April 19, the California-based e-commerce company has sold 23 different products to date, initially selling one per week until settling into the daily offering pattern on June 1.

"What we're looking to do is address those products that most offices use and reuse month in and month out," Swartz said. "We sell a lot of disposables, although we've done a little bit of equipment."

The process is simple. Each day, starting at 12:01 a.m., a new product becomes available at BiteDownDeals' website. Much like Groupon.com, the market price, sale price, percentage of the discount, and a countdown clock displaying how much time is left before the deal expires are displayed. Features known to Groupon users are also present on BiteDownDeals' site. A membership or user name is not required to make a purchase, although creating one streamlines the purchasing process during subsequent purchases.

Each day, an email blast goes out to all members announcing what product is available that day. "For example, today they got an email saying today's bite down deal is film," Swartz said. "Everything is opted-in so we're not spamming or emailing anyone who hasn't asked to get the emails." Previous products have included a Clearfil SE bond kit (Kuraray), Ketac-Silver Aplicap (3M ESPE), and an ART-P4 piezo electric scaler (Bonart Medical Technology).

Smoking Addiction Risk Doubled in Obese vs Nonobese Girls

Compared with nonobese adolescent girls, obese adolescent girls have more than twice the risk for high-level nicotine addiction in young adulthood, according to the results of a survey study reported online June 21 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"As we address the issue of obesity, it is important to prevent poor medical outcomes, but we must also recognize the risk for these psychosocial outcomes and support and counsel teens appropriately," said lead author Aliya Esmail Hussaini, MD, MSc, from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation in Austin, Texas, in a story by Laura Kennedy, from the Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health.

The hypotheses tested by this study were that obese adolescent girls would be at increased risk for nicotine addiction in young adulthood, and that this association would be modulated by specific individual and social variables.

Smoking, Prostate Cancer a Deadly Mix

Smokers diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to have the cancer recur after treatment and are more likely to die than non-smokers, a new study says.

The study included 5,366 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1986 and 2006. There were 1,630 deaths in this group of men, including 524 (32 percent) from prostate cancer and 416 (26 percent) from cardiovascular disease. There were 878 cases of prostate cancer "biochemical recurrence," the researchers said.

Compared with non-smokers, smokers had an increased risk of biochemical recurrence and were more likely to die from prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease and all causes. A greater number of cigarette pack-years was associated with an increased risk of death from prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease and all causes, but was not linked with biochemical recurrence, the researchers said.

The risk of death from prostate cancer for men who had quit smoking for 10 or more years was similar to that of men who never smoked.

The study appears in the June 22-29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Enjoy your morning drill!