In the world of beverages, few products are as iconic or as damaging as soda. Dentists have long sounded the alarm about its direct corrosive effect on tooth enamel. Physicians warn of its links to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Yet, its consumption remains staggeringly high globally. Why? The uncomfortable answer lies not just in marketing or taste, but in examining the perverse economic incentives that a product like soda creates—incentives that some argue are quietly embedded within our medical and economic systems.

Dental emergencies can happen suddenly and often without warning. Severe tooth pain, broken teeth, infections, swelling, knocked-out teeth, damaged dental implants, and uncontrolled bleeding may require immediate professional treatment to prevent serious complications.

If you have noticed swelling and red coloring around a tooth that previously received root canal treatment, you may be wondering whether the tooth is infected again, whether the treatment has failed, or if the tooth can still be saved. These symptoms can be alarming, especially when they appear months or even years after what seemed to be a successful root canal procedure.

The Fountain: A New York Story About What Keeps Us Going

The thing about saliva is that you never think about it until it’s gone. For Leo, a second-generation bookbinder in a tiny West Village shop that smelled of dust and leather, that moment came on a Tuesday. He was painstakingly repairing the spine of a 19th-century poetry anthology when a dry, papery feeling seized his tongue. A profound, unquenchable thirst. It was the first whisper of what his doctor would later call xerostomia—a side effect of new medication, a simple drying up of the well.