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Anyone who has had gum disease is probably familiar with the discomfort and embarrassment of poor oral health, such as bad breath, bleeding, discolored teeth and even tooth loss. But gum disease, especially the more advanced type known as periodontal disease, can affect far more than our mouths. Periodontal disease is associated with a wide range of health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and dementia, making the reduced access to dental care during the coronavirus pandemic a significant concern, dentists say. (Hunt, 7/29)

Jay Reinstein remembers the day he took the cognitive test President Trump keeps bragging about. “One of the questions was to draw a clock at a certain time, and I’m staring at the circle and can’t figure out where the small hand goes,” said Reinstein, 59, who was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “I have a bachelor’s and master’s. … And I can’t draw a damn clock. I felt so frustrated, ashamed.” (Wan, 7/29)

The relationship between the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its most decorated Olympian, Michael Phelps, has been rocky for years. The more Phelps won, and did he ever win, racking up 28 Olympic medals across five Games, the more he became the organization’s poster child, worthy of whatever special treatment it could provide. Or, from Phelps’s perspective, he was the latest and greatest commodity that Olympics promoters cared about only as a medal-producing swimming machine. Phelps distills that dynamic near the end of “The Weight of Gold,” the HBO Sports documentary he narrates about depression and other mental illnesses with which Olympians struggle. (Futterman, 7/29)

In 2018, West revealed he has a mental illness. Some mental health advocates are now pushing for the media to reexamine how it covers West's actions like his comments about slavery, President Trump and his running for office. One of those advocates is Bassey Ikpi, author of “I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying.” She says her own experience of being hospitalized because of bipolar disorder has impacted her view of West. (Mosley and Hagan, 7/29)

When being a human gets too hard, the brain will cope with psychological stress in fascinating ways. While most of the 260 million people worldwide who suffer from depression will have common symptoms, such as sadness, fatigue, disinterest and sleeplessness, an exceedingly rare few could lose their humanity completely — by assuming the identity of an animal, according to researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium.In the Dutch medical journal Tijdschrift voor Psychiatrie, psychologists described the case of one 54-year-old woman, unnamed in their case study, who was found in her garden “clucking and crowing like a rooster”  — a condition called zoanthropy, or the delusion of believing oneself is not human, but animal. (Sparks, 7/28)