The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare plans to begin subsidizing costs for municipalities that run simplified saliva tests to screen for periodontal (gum) disease, starting in fiscal year 2027. The goal is to let anyone who wants one get tested every year, raising the share of people who’ve had a dental checkup within the past year to 95% by fiscal 2035. The ministry’s fiscal 2027 budget request includes 9.3 billion yen for related costs. As of 2024, 40% of people had not had a dental checkup in the past year. On 5ch, some welcomed the move, citing links between periodontal disease and heart attacks or Alzheimer’s, while the thread also branched into gripes about the sheer number of dental clinics and how healthcare spending gets allocated, debates over fluoridating tap water, and even how to properly use an electric toothbrush — a mix of support, skepticism, and tangents.
Starting in fiscal year 2027, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare will subsidize the costs municipalities need to run simplified saliva tests for periodontal disease, making it possible for anyone who wants one to get tested every year. The aim is to raise the share of people who’ve had a dental checkup within the past year to 95% by fiscal 2035.
In its fiscal 2027 budget request, the ministry earmarked 9.3 billion yen to move the “Dental Checkups for All Citizens” initiative forward, positioning it as a key measure in its “proactive preventive medicine” push to extend healthy life expectancy. As of 2024, 40% of people had not had a dental checkup within the past year.
The ministry is considering formally establishing the simplified test as a program under the Health Promotion Act starting in fiscal 2028. It also plans to shorten the interval for periodontal disease checkups — where dentists examine teeth and surrounding tissue at dental clinics — from every ten years to every five.
Source: nikkei.com / Read the original article here
2AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:36
None of your business, honestly.
42AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:54
Can't help but suspect vested interests are at play here, but there's no doubt Japanese people should take better care of their teeth. Body odor isn't much of an issue for Japanese people, but plenty of them have pretty strong bad breath.
44AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:56
Re: #42
They're paying for the checkup — nobody said they'd cover the treatment too.
6AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:37
Why do Japanese people have so many cavities?
Don't they brush their teeth?
Are Japanese people just unclean?
And their teeth are crooked too, right?
Aren't there way too many dentists?
Is Japan's dental technology just behind the times?
Is that why Japanese people are riddled with cavities?
78AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:19
Re: #6
In the US and South America, tap water has fluoride in it, so people don't get cavities as much.
Just a little trivia for you.
10AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:39
Put ceramic fillings under insurance coverage already.
35AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:51
Re: #10
Hybrid ceramic crowns are already covered by insurance now.
18AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:41
Having more dentists than convenience stores is basically criminal at this point. One or two per prefecture would be plenty. There are so many dentists that a massive amount of taxpayer money gets dumped into them. If the number of dentists dropped to a hundredth of what it is now, taxes would go down and everyone's wages would go up.
25AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:45
Go to a supermarket or anywhere with a lot of elderly people and the bad breath is seriously brutal. Never noticed it with my own grandparents though — guess they were the chosen few.
41AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:54
Re: #25
The baby boomer generation really does smell. And they block the aisles too. What is going on with those people?
40AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:54
If you don't want to suffer from periodontal disease, don't use an electric toothbrush. Brush by hand, plus floss and interdental brushes. It's a hassle, but you just have to carefully do each tooth one by one. With an electric toothbrush you feel like you've brushed even when it's not actually hitting the spot — it's actually doing harm.
53AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:00
Re: #40
Realistically, you have to go get your tartar removed every three months or it's hopeless.
54AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:00
Re: #40
Depends how you use it. I use a Panasonic Doltz and my dental hygienist always compliments me on it. They check with the red plaque-disclosing solution every time, and it comes back perfect.
110AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:40
Re: #40
I use floss, interdental brushes, and mouthwash on top of the electric toothbrush.
46AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:56
Since it's been found to be one of the causes of heart attacks, and periodontal bacteria have turned up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, oral care has basically become mandatory in modern medicine now.
49AnonymousSep 6, 2026 17:59
Silver alloy costs so much these days, yet insurance coverage hasn't budged — nothing but contradictions here.
57AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:02
Re: #49
These days insurance treatment really pushes you toward resin fillings instead, lol.
63AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:07
Re: #57
Silver fillings run at a loss, so nobody's actually benefiting.
99AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:32
Re: #57
Those white fillings these days (resin, I guess?) are seriously hard. I thought my filling had chipped, but it turned out to be my actual tooth — gave me a scare.
51AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:00
So they're adding a saliva-based periodontal test to the annual physical now, huh.
72AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:16
If only we could just wipe cavity bacteria and periodontal bacteria out of the mouth entirely…
Then you wouldn't lose your teeth down the road, and dentures wouldn't even be a worry.
Also, apparently too much citrus, vinegared food, or sports drinks can dissolve your teeth too.
87AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:24
Re: #72
"Teeth dissolving," "bones dissolving" — that was a trending scare back in my parents' generation. How old even are you, lol
83AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:22
Most developed countries have massively cut cavities by adding fluoride (sodium fluoride) to their tap water, but Japan can't do fluoridation because the Japan Dental Association opposes it. On that front, Japan is seriously behind the times…
145AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:40
Re: #83
Well, weather plays a role too, but if it's scientifically proven to reduce cavities, you'd think they'd just do it.
The fact that they don't suggests some group is using people's health for profit — that's basically a developing-country move. At the very least, if they actually cared about the public, you'd expect them to inform people about it.
Sure, it was only tested in some places, but since it's proven to reduce cavities, the US and South American countries have adopted it. Whether a country does this or not is basically a baseline test of how trustworthy it is.
100AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:34
They told me to come in for a checkup every four months.
Isn't that too often?
Though I haven't been in three years since COVID started.
115AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:43
Re: #100
Mine's always been every six months, and it's just one round of tartar removal each time.
102AnonymousSep 6, 2026 18:36
Doesn't mean much to get tested and find out you have periodontal disease if you don't actually go get treated for it.
I get regular checkups.
151AnonymousSep 6, 2026 19:45
Re: #102
There's no real cure for periodontal disease anyway. Cleanings just indirectly support your own brushing, that's about it.
In most cases it's really just that your immune system starts losing the fight against the bacteria as you age. Old people just have smelly, unclean mouths — that's how it goes.
169AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:12
I'm already struggling to get a dentist appointment as it is — please stop trying to pile on more patients.
177AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:25
Re: #169
Dentists are disappearing left and right, so it's only going to get harder to book an appointment from here.
182AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:31
Re: #169
Appointments really have gotten hard to get lately. If you cancel one, you can't get back in for another two months — it's rough.
185AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:31
Once you're diagnosed, is there actually any way to fully cure it?
187AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:33
Re: #185
There's no full cure, no. But you can definitely keep your teeth longer, and it pays off once you're older.
192AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:35
Re: #185
Regenerative medicine. There are out-of-pocket drugs with a track record, and insurance-covered drugs that come with strict eligibility conditions.
201AnonymousSep 6, 2026 20:52
Re: #185
Go to a periodontal specialist or the conservative dentistry department at a university hospital for flap surgery with Emdogain or Regroth-type treatments, and lately Tohoku University's come up with a killer weapon called Blue Radical — if you've got the money, it's curable.
Background and Talking Points on This Topic
“Dental Checkups for All Citizens” is a goal the government has pushed as policy in recent years, and this saliva-test subsidy is one concrete step toward it. The saliva test is strictly a simple screening tool, and the article itself doesn’t make clear whether the program guarantees follow-up treatment or visits for people who test positive — worth noting caution here, as post #44 points out. In the thread, opinions clashed over the sheer number of dental clinics and how healthcare spending is allocated, but as the article notes, dental costs make up less than 10% of Japan’s total medical spending. Also, the difficulty of getting dental appointments raised from post #169 onward could become a real design problem if expanding who gets checkups increases demand faster than the treatment side can keep up. The arguments over fluoridation reflect genuine differences in policy from country to country, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the thread’s sweeping judgments don’t necessarily add up to a fair verdict on the program as a whole.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Health Ministry Aiming for “Dental Checkups for All Citizens,” to Subsidize Saliva-Based Periodontal Tests.”
