Faculty, staff and students from the UCSF School of Dentistry will extend their care and outreach beyond the city this weekend when they participate in the largest all-volunteer health fair in the country.

For the sixth year, School of Dentistry members will provide free dental health screenings at the 10th annual Su Salud ("Your Health") Fair on Sunday, July 20, in Stockton, California. Su Salud is is expected to draw 12,000 to 15,000 fairgoers from throughout the state. Most of the people attending the fair are uninsured, jobless or homeless and have no regular medical or dental care or access to health care.

The UCSF dental team will screen adults and children for tooth decay, dental hygiene, gum disease and diabetes, and will provide information and education on how to prevent oral disease. They will also screen babies for baby-bottle tooth decay and will perform a survey to determine risk factors in childhood for developing oral disease.

One of the primary goals of the UCSF dental faculty and students is to screen fairgoers for diabetes. Periodontal (gum) disease is a common complication of diabetes and is one of the early warning signs of the disease.

"Working with the San Joaquin County Dental Society, we are teaching our students and volunteer dentists to recognize patients who are at risk for diabetes," said Nelson Artiga-Diaz, DDS, MPH, UCSF professor of dentistry and director of the UCSF Family Dental Center at the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco General Hospital. There are 170,000 dentists throughout the U.S. who see millions of patients a year, Artiga-Diaz pointed out. "At least half of the diabetics in the U.S., around 8 to 9 million people, are undiagnosed. It is a major public health problem," he said.

The earliest manifestations of diabetes occur in the mouth, including fungal infections, gum disease and burning tongue syndrome. "If dental professionals can learn to recognize diabetes early in high risk patients, then they can refer people to physicians for follow-up care," Artiga-Diaz, who himself is a diabetic, said.

Type II diabetes, also called non-insulin dependent diabetes, usually occurs in adulthood, Artiga-Diaz explained. It is caused primarily by a genetic predisposition to the disease exacerbated by other factors. Two conditions that are predictive of the disease in persons who have a genetic predisposition are obesity and a family history of diabetes.

"Early detection and control have been shown to be extraordinarily effective in minimizing the more serious complications of diabetes," he said. The fair is scheduled from 7 am to 4 pm at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds. For more information about Su Salud, please call (209) 472-2090.

By Alice Trinkl

1st appeared 7/17/97