Chew on this

My dental hygienist and I understand each other perfectly. Carol knows not to pick at the sensitive spot near a lower left molar, and I promise not to smack her hands away while she probes. We do share a love of flossing, however, and here's her latest find.

Check out G.U.M. brand's Soft-Picks. These darling little bristled picks are the very thing; they make satisfying little squeaky noises as you drag an entire village of bacteria screaming from your gum line. The Soft-Pick motto? Healthy Gums, Healthy Life.

Indeed, research shows that poor dental health in middle-age raises the risk of end-of-life dementia by 30-40%. Swedish researchers followed sparsely betoothed women over 24 years, then compared their incidence of dementia with their toothsome colleagues. Tooth counts proved that those women with 9 or less at study's start were 5 times as likely to lose their marbles by study's end.

Floss on.