Oral hygiene
Oral hygiene.
The dental health industry is enormous. It’s a 360 billion dollar a year industry, in fact, and it grows by 4.4% per year. People spend a lot of money getting treatment for self-imposed tooth decay and other oral health issues that are nearly always preventable and often treatable without medical intervention.
Oral health is an inside-out issue.
Weston Price, a dentist in the early 20th century did several observational studies with native peoples in Alaska and Florida who consumed a traditional nose-to-tail diet congruent with their tribal history as compared to those who had been westernized and ate a more standard American diet. What his observations revealed was that those who ate their traditional, evolutionarily appropriate diet had wider facial structure that accommodated all of their teeth without the necessity of medical intervention to pull those teeth, and that there was very little tooth decay amongst those populations. By contrast, those who had been introduced to a more modern diet of processed and refined foods suffered from narrower jaws and had jumbled teeth IF they had all their teeth. Often these people had lost teeth due to unhealthy gums and decay. He also found those who ate their traditional diets to be thriving in ways that modern societies were not. His research is incredible and if you’re looking to get down an ancestral living rabbit hole, Google him. His studies have been replicated in more clinical settings over the years and they all say the same thing: tooth decay and oral health issues are, in most cases, self-inflicted. This is evident when we look at modern day primitive culture tribes who don’t use Colgate yet have pristine, white teeth. Poor oral health is a result of a chemical imbalance in the mouth due to overproduction by the pancreas of certain digestive enzymes like amylase that is found in saliva and begins breaking down carbohydrates in the mouth. This is exacerbated, also, by refined sugars in the mouth that just are not supposed to be there. Further, this is all complicated by not just what is there, but by what isn’t. A lot of people in modern societies are deficient in critical nutrients and it is evident when you look at their teeth. A vitamin D3 deficiency, for example, results in a lack of regulation of calcium and phosphorus which, in turn manifests itself with arthritis-like symptoms (which are so often misdiagnosed and mistreated), osteoporosis, and bad teeth. Obviously calcium deficiencies look the same.
What to do:
There are 3 fundamental things we can do outside of medical intervention, which merely serves as a temporary fix or a Bandaid, to promote oral health.
- Eating a nutrient-dense, nose-to-tail diet that prioritizes meat and organs and eliminates refined foods will ensure that you have the building blocks for bone and tooth health without introducing the menacing ingredients that prove detrimental to your endocrine system and, in turn, the health of your mouth. We have posted several recipes in our blog to give you ideas as to how to employ this diet and our meal plan page is a great resource.
- Getting daily sunlight after a restorative night of sleep will ensure that you’re synthesizing cholesterol from your nutrient dense diet and producing adequate amounts of vitamin D. This vitamin D plays a critical role in bone and tooth health by regulating calcium, which we all grew up learning is essential to strong bones.
- Engage in oral hygiene practices that are free of chemicals. We like natural bristled toothbrushes used to gently brush the food and garbage off your teeth and to keep the plaque from building up. Flossing food that is stuck is obviously fine. Beyond these techniques, however, there is no need for anything more IF you’re treating your mouth from the inside out.
We can help.
For more information, email our performance experts. They have pretty teeth.
