Letter From Dear Doctor

Issue 13 of Dear Doctor Magazine

Facial Health, Beauty & Aging

It's hard to explain what goes on in the heart and soul of a magazine, and for Dear Doctor it doesn't begin and end with the mouth and fixing smiles. With so much emphasis in our culture today placed on youth, beauty, and success, one is led to believe they're synonymous, equating them with health and even defying age. In reality this chase is truly elusory. Yet, there is maturity and an aesthetic in aging gracefully; a wisdom that emanates from life's experience — reflections of life well lived. In that light, we are pleased to inaugurate, Facial Health, Beauty & Aging, our latest section in Dear Doctor's evolution. Here's why.

Your face is a window to your health and while the eyes are what you first meet, your health is reflected in the quality of your skin, automatically and subconsciously perceived — at first glance. A professional glance however, embodies years of experience, knowledge and study, and can be life changing if not life saving. The recognition of sun damage or a pre-cancer for example, could just save your life.

As you will read in the section's opening feature, changing the conditions within the mouth can indeed have a profound effect on what goes on outside the mouth. Taking the facial skeleton into consideration when planning dental and cosmetic treatment can be centrally important, it both supports and changes the soft tissues of the face. This can have a remarkable and lifelong effect on facial aesthetics and can actually enhance the inevitable aging process in a most natural way.

In the same vein, “Sinus Surgery — Creating Bone for Dental Implants Out of Thin Air” in this issue, shows how this procedure can change the faces and lives of individuals who previously had no hope of replacing lost upper back teeth. We are pleased to announce that the prestigious International Congress of Oral Implantologists (ICOI), is the fourth professional association to endorse the magazine and this article. This is of immense importance, not only to us, but also to our readers, putting us one step further ahead in achieving our goal of being the “go-to” and most reliable source for unbiased evidence-based patient education.

Understanding the relatedness of Facial Health, Beauty & Aging is quite extraordinary. For us it embodies aesthetics — the nature of beauty, art, and taste that provides new ways of seeing and perceiving the world. It includes an appreciation of health and aging with grace and elegance, reflecting an intrinsic beauty, a spirit we endeavor to capture in Dear Doctor.

Sincerely,