Special Smiles: Sports Dentistry and the Special Needs Athlete.

There is a need to expand dental services to underserved populations, such as athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This review introduces dentists to this need by sharing the direction taken by the Special Smiles program of Special Olympics and addressing the need to educate special needs athletes on prevention and care of sports-related mouth injuries.

Neck and waist circumference biomarkers of cardiovascular risk in a cohort of predominantly African-American college students: a preliminary study.

Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to assess the value of measuring neck and waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) as biomarkers of metabolic syndrome in college students (18 to 25 years of age). Participants (n=109) were 92% black, 62.4% female, 45.9% overweight or obese, and 20.2% prehypertensive or hypertensive. Overall, 41 (37.6%) students had one or more risk factors for metabolic syndrome. Percent body fat, assessed using whole-body air-displacement plethysmography, was positively correlated (P<0.0001) with neck and waist circumference (as measured at the midpoint between the right lower rib and suprailiac crest; hereafter "midpoint"). Neck circumference correlated with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P ≤ 0.02) and both neck circumference and waist circumference-midpoint correlated with insulin (P ≤ 0.001) and triglycerides (P ≤ 0.002). The best-fit cutoffs were ≥ 83 cm waist circumference-midpoint and ≥ 88 cm waist circumference measured at the suprailiac crest for percent body fat in men and ≥ 75 cm waist circumference-midpoint for metabolic syndrome in women. The proportion of overweight and prehypertensive individuals among self-described healthy students underscores the need for screening tools that identify those who might benefit most from health interventions. Waist circumference-midpoint provides a simple yet sensitive method for the estimation of percent body fat and metabolic syndrome risk in primarily African-American college students. The novel use of neck circumference should be further investigated.