If you're lucky, it will all be kisses and hugs around the Thanksgiving dinner table, with friends and family near and dear gathered about, and puppies gathered around your feet waiting for table scraps¹（残羹剩饭） . But peace won't reign²（统治，支配） within the confines（范围，界限） of the oral cavity, where Streptococcus mutans（变形链球菌） and other harmful bacteria will await their own holiday feast. Your meal will enable S. mutans to launch one of its biggest assaults of the year on your tooth enamel³（搪瓷，珐琅） .

New work by dental researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center brings both good and bad news. While bacterial⁴ forces in your mouth will exploit your delectables in newly discovered ways, some foods common at the holiday dinner table – like the cranberry⁵（蔓越橘） and even wine – offer new leads in the effort to stop tooth decay.

The Thanksgiving Day battle for oral health hinges on microbes like S. mutans. Most cookies, pies and the like contain mountains of sugar, but it's not the sugar itself that causes tooth decay. Rather, S. mutans and other bacteria in our mouths – billions of individual microbes all waiting for their next snack – feast on the sugars, stick on your teeth and then churn out（大量生产） acid that eats away at tooth enamel.

At the front lines is Hyun "Michel" Koo, D.D.S, Ph.D., a dentist turned food scientist and microbiologist who is both exploring the destructive power of S. mutans and scouring⁶ foods and natural substances to harness their ability to prevent cavities. With every portion of bad news he delivers about cavities comes good news about compounds that may help prevent tooth decay.

"Natural substances offer tremendous possibilities for stopping tooth decay," said Koo, who earlier this year received a $1.6 million from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to conduct his research. "Our time spent in the laboratory is aimed at harnessing the potential of some of these compounds, perhaps eventually incorporating them into a toothpaste or mouth rinse⁷（冲洗，漂洗） to stop dental decay."