Dental teams should be identifying alcohol misuse and educating patients on its negative health impact as part of their preventive approach that includes dental hygiene and smoking cessation, maxillofacial surgeons have suggested.

Because most people visit their dentist for routine check ups, but only attend their GP when they are ill, dentists are in a prime position to ask patients about their drinking habits and spot the early signs of excessive drinking such as dental neglect, erosions, and cancerous changes, they say in the Royal College of Surgeons’ Faculty Dental Journal (2012; 3:doi: …