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Background and objectivesNarghile is becoming the favorite form of tobacco use by youth globally. This problem has received more attention in recent years. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and pattern of narghile use among students in three public Jordanian universities; to assess their beliefs about narghile's adverse health consequences; and to evaluate their awareness of oral health and oral hygiene.MethodsThe study was a cross-sectional survey of university students. A self-administered, anonymous questionnaire was distributed randomly to university students in three public Jordanian universities during December, 2008. The questionnaire was designed to ask specific questions that are related to smoking in general, and to narghile smoking in specific. There were also questions about oral health awareness and oral hygiene practices.Results36.8% of the surveyed sample indicated they were smokers comprising 61.9% of the male students and 10.7% of the female students in the study sample. Cigarettes and narghile were the preferred smoking methods among male students (42%). On the other hand, female students preferred narghile only (53%). Parental smoking status but not their educational level was associated with the students smoking status. Smokers had also significantly poor dental attendance and poor oral hygiene habits.ConclusionThis study confirmed the spreading narghile epidemic among young people in Jordan like the neighboring countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region. Alarming signs were the poor oral health awareness among students particularly smokers.

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Implant survival in sinus lifting procedures could be influenced significantly by timing of implant placement, Schneider's membrane thickness, antihypertensive treatment and smoking habits, but not by antrostomy membrane coverage.

Systemically administered omeprazole impairs bone healing and implant osseointegration.

Propranolol enhanced bone healing and implant osseointegration.

Our findings suggest that treatment with antihypertensive drugs may be associated with an increased survival rate of osseointegrated implants. To our knowledge, this could be the first study showing that the systemic use of a medication could be associated with higher survival rate of dental implants.

In previous studies, we showed that the size of apatite nanocrystals in tooth enamel can influence its physical properties. This important discovery raised a new question; which factors are regulating the size of these nanocrystals? Trace elements can affect crystallographic properties of synthetic apatite, therefore this study was designed to investigate how trace elements influence enamel’s crystallographic properties and ultimately its physical properties.The concentration of trace elements in tooth enamel was determined for 38 extracted human teeth using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The following trace elements were detected: Al, K, Mg, S, Na, Zn, Si, B, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se and Ti. Simple and stepwise multiple regression was used to identify the correlations between trace elements concentration in enamel and its crystallographic structure, hardness, resistance to crack propagation, shade lightness and carbonate content. The presence of some trace elements in enamel was correlated with the size (Pb, Ti, Mn) and lattice parameters (Se, Cr, Ni) of apatite nanocrystals. Some trace elements such as Ti was significantly correlated with tooth crystallographic structure and consequently with hardness and shade lightness. We conclude that the presence of trace elements in enamel could influence its physical properties.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-499) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.