At the upcoming Chicago Midwinter Meeting, dentists and dental professionals will check out the latest offerings from Colgate-Palmolive, including their latest innovation, the Colgate Total Active Prevention regimen, inclusive of toothpaste, toothbrush, and mouthwash.
"We came out with the first multibenefit toothpaste many years ago, and we continue to perfect our technology and really to bring to practitioners and patients the best multibenefit toothpaste for everyday use that is out there, and that is the new Colgate Total," Dr. Maria Ryan, PhD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Colgate-Palmolive, told me during a face-to-face chat at the Greater New York Dental Meeting. "The active ingredient is stannous, but it's formulated to enhance stability with high levels of bioavailable stannous compared to other toothpastes. What's interesting is that stannous has always been known to stain, but we actually have reduced stain using this toothpaste."
Dr. Ryan also beamed when discussing the mouthwash component of the Colgate Total line.
"Our new Colgate Total mouthwash is the only alcohol-free mouthwash to get the ADA seal for reducing plaque and gingivitis," Ryan said. "We have formulated an alcohol-free rinse that has achieved the standards set forth by the ADA seal program for plaque and gingivitis, which in the past had only been achieved by alcohol-containing rinses."
As Colgate-Palmolive is a leader in oral healthcare products, Ryan emphasized the company's "Know Your OQ" (oral health quotient) initiative, a free, interactive quiz that teaches people about their oral health and how they can improve it.
"I think it's really important, because people don't recognize how poor their oral health literacy [can be]," Ryan said. "People change their attitudes about the importance of oral health and about going to the dentist after taking the quiz, and that's important because many oral diseases are often silent."
She sees OQ and its accompanying website and online tools as a way to help busy dental professionals who have limited time with their patients.
"I think practitioners really try to empower their patients with home care. They're doing their best, but also our time is very limited with people, so anything that can engage our patients to better understand what we're offering and what we do and how they can help us and help themselves with self-care is going to be beneficial," Ryan added.
"We have received feedback from practitioners that they actually like using it, because they often don't have the time to do all of the education they would like to do," Ryan continued. "Now they can say, 'You can go on to this website, and you can take the quiz and come back and talk to me about what it is that you may have missed or you didn't understand, as well as how I can help you and how you can help yourself.'"
"If you think about precision medicine, it's the four Ps -- being preventive, being predictive, being personalized, and participatory. OQ gives patients an opportunity to be more participatory in their care."
You can learn more about OQ in our recent video interview below as well as why Dr. Ryan is so passionate about the link between oral health and mental health.
