Dhru Purohit Show - Poor Oral Health Leads To Alzheimer's: How To Fix Your Mouth For Longevity with Dr. Mark Burhenne

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, and Pique Life. Did you know your oral health directly affects your overall health, longevity, and risk for chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s?  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Dr. Mark Burhenne to address why you need to start doubling down on your oral health for chronic disease prevention and tips for how to get started today. Dr. Mark Burhenne is a functional dentist and author of the number one Amazon bestseller The 8-Hour Sleep Paradox. He received his degree from the Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco and is a member of the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (AADSM), Academy of General Dentistry, American Academy for Oral Systemic Health (AAOSH), and Dental Board of California.   In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Burhenne dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -How our oral health and dental health relate to longevity (1:59 / 1:59) -The connection between dental health and Alzheimer’s disease (3:53 / 3:53) -Why you need to floss (10:07 / 7:31) -The different types of floss and how to floss correctly (21:36 / 19:23) -Tongue scraping for better oral health (34:56 / 30:53) -The do’s and don’ts of teeth brushing (40:11 / 36:07) -Bad dentistry (46:08 / 42:44) -The biomechanics of proper brushing (51:45 / 47:41) -Recommendations for better mouthwash and toothpaste (1:01:14 / 57:14) -The dangers of fluoride (1:07:05 / 1:03:52) -Mouth taping: its benefits and why it’s going mainstream (1:14:48 / 1:11:30) -Top reasons why people have gum disease and cavities (1:24:15 / 1:20:13) -Why Dhru changed his mind about fruit (1:31:05 / 1:27:00) -Next steps after getting the Bristle test (1:45:22 / 1:29:45) -The connection between the oral microbiome and gut microbiome (1:51:37 / 1:40:16) -A cost-benefit analysis of root canals (1:54:47 / 1:51:25) Also mentioned in this episode: -Bristle at-home oral health test. Use code DHRU for 15% off. -askthedentist.com -The Dangers of Fluoride on the Brain and IQ (episode 207) -Order Dr. Burhenne’s book, The 8-Hour Sleep Paradox here. -Cavity Free Kids Guide Access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests with Rupa Health. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com today. BiOptimizers is offering 10% off and a special gift with your purchase. Head over to magbreakthrough.com/dhru with code DHRU10. Get up to 15% off and a complimentary beaker and rechargeable frother on subscriptions over $105 when you shop at Piquelife.com/DhruTea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the brain is inflamed, it starts laying down this amyloid plaque in response to an oral bacteria that all of us have in our mouths, but most of us have too much of. And if you're over age 40, that's 70% of the population has gum disease. This is a very causative way of getting Alzheimer's. If you're curious about how our oral health and dental health is deeply tied into our longevity, our lifespan, and our health span, today's episode is absolutely. for you. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is my dear friend, Dr. Mark Berhanna. Dr. Brohanna is a functional dentist and the creator of the website Askthedesthentist.com, which is an incredible resource from people all over the world about the right way to approach

oral and dental health. He's truly leading this wave of dentistry, three point. 0.0, this new version of dentistry that helps people, including other dentists, understand that our mouth is not separate from the rest of our body. In fact, what we do to our mouth, we do to our body. Did you know that there are key bacteria, that if they're found in the mouth, they are associated with a higher degree of Alzheimer's? That there's key bacteria that if they're very high and they're found in dental plaque in the mouth, they're also found in soft plaque in the heart. as well. So your mouth and your dental health is connected to every aspect of your body. And today, we're going to break it down for you, not just by talking about the problem, but by also giving you practical solutions to make sure that you can supercharge your oral microbiome,

your dental health, and your overall health as well. Stay tuned for a fantastic episode with Dr. Mark Berhanna. Dr. Mark Berhanna, welcome to the podcast. Let's jump right in. You know, this audience, they care about longevity. And one of the things that they're piecing together is how is our oral health and our dental health connected to longevity? Can you break it down? Give us a few top line things. Certainly. And I'm also very concerned about longevity, have been since I was too young to really worry about longevity. I would say that oral health has a lot to do with longevity. In fact, more than you would expect and highly underrated. And maybe it's all about longevity when it comes to oral health.

So, I mean, let's talk about metabolic disorders, right? That's BMI, high blood pressure, triglycerides, inflammation, all of that. I mean, all these metabolic disorders that we're suffering from, oral health contributes to all of that. It is very, very tied into it. So it's Alzheimer's, there's a connection now between. high blood pressure, Alzheimer's, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, this oral systemic connection has been around all along, but now dentistry is waking up to this, so is medicine, so is

functional health. Oral health is intimately involved with pretty much everything there is to do with dying or living a good life, living a long life. And if you don't address oral health, you're going to, longevity will be an issue for you. I see it every day as my parents get older and they have not paid attention as much to their dental health, or actually they regularly got dental cleanings, but they often got bad advice along the way. And we're going to give some of the more updated advice based on your research. You have one of the top websites for dentistry.

It's called AskThe Dentist.com. Definitely people should check it out. And so we're going to help re-understand a lot of these myths that people have around dental health. But let's pull on one of those threads that you mentioned, Alzheimer's, right? This is a super scary disease. Tell us a little bit more about how our dental health could be connected to Alzheimer's. This is recent information. It is based out of some research out of UCSF where they actually were able to identify in a,

it's a protease that is formed by a, by the mere presence of an oral bacteria. The P. Gingervalis bug, when it gets into the bloodstream, and we can talk about how that happens. But if you have gum disease, the peach and chagelous bug is getting into your bloodstream, and it does get to the brain past the blood-brain barrier, and it has 10, 12 different effects on the brain, mitochondria, inflammation of the brain, it can even cause psychiatric disorders, and certainly Alzheimer's. When the brain is inflamed, it starts laying down this amyloid plaque in response to an oral bacteria that most of, well, all of us have in our mouths, but most of us have too much of. And if you're over age 40, that's 70% of the population has gum

disease. This is a very prevalent or causative way of getting Alzheimer's. Easy to fix, right? So you're a dentist twice a year? It's more than that, actually. But that connection now has been made, and not everyone knows this, but to tie a disease like Alzheimer's, which is on the rise, to something that happens in the mouth. I mean, that's really groundbreaking. And the good news is that it's fixable. Yeah. Let's give a little preview of some of those fixes.

Just in the context of gum disease, ginger vitivitis, this p. ginger, what? P ginger valis bug. That's the same thing as ginger virus. Yes. Right. And that relates to gum disease. Right.

That relates to gum recession as well, which a lot of people suffer from. Yes. So give us a couple top line fixes just so that people don't lose all hope as we we go through this and think, oh my gosh, like I'm doomed, there's nothing that I could ever do. Right, exactly. So what can be done about this bacteria buildup inside of the mouth? Right. And what are some of the myths that people have about what works that's still being talked about out there?

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Yeah, there is a lot of doom and gloom, even amongst the professionals. dentistry. It's something that we would think that we could arrest gum recession. We can't really fix once it happens. And it's not a curable disease. That now is changing. And that's because now we're able to test for this P. Gingervalis, that's oral microbiome testing. That's very recent. If you know that you have this problem before you get the symptoms, like you mentioned, receding gums, that's a necrosis of the very free margin along the gum line. of that tissue that's related to poor circulation. It's related to the oral microbiome in the sense that there are bugs on the back of the

tongue that produce nitric oxide. If you're using mouthwash, for example, that gets knocked down, and then the blood flow to that area is not as good as it should be, and it literally necrosis. That's one thing that you can do to prevent that is stop using mouthwash. Counterintuitive, right? I mean, who would have thought? but we still in the profession are recommending mouthwash. We think that's a good thing.

And hopefully that's changing. So brushing, flossing. Flossing is probably, flossing and tongue scraping are probably the two big things you can do to prevent Alzheimer's. I mean, not just gingivitis, Alzheimer's. So talk about that. Especially if you go down the YouTube rabbit hole, there's all sorts of people that have different thoughts. Yes. Even some people that might say that flossing is overrated.

And, you know, people weren't floss. that are our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Right. Right. So let's go down a little bit of the rabbit hole of flossing. So you're saying it's one of the top one and two things, tongue-scraping, flossing when it comes to our oral health, but also potentially linked to the bacteria that would be influencing and playing a role in Alzheimer's.

So why do you feel that way? And what are your thoughts about the fact that, you know, when Weston Price, who you're a big fan of, was going out and studying these communities in Africa, these indigenous communities, these modern-day hunter-gatherers, he didn't see them necessarily using what we would consider traditional floss. Right. Well, flossing, to be blunt, flossing is a modern need because of our diet and because of what we've decided to eat and how we've decided to make our food and buy it and package it

and process it. Because of all that, we need to floss. That food has altered our oral microbiome. Again, like a gut microbiome. Similar problem. All the foods that we're eating are causing a gut dysbiosis as it does in the mouth. So flossing is unfortunately speaking of rabbit holes on YouTube, it has Pfeas in it, it's nylon, it's plastic, it has teflon in it. If you use the right floss, most flosses, yeah. But if you use the right floss, and if you use floss on a stick, perhaps, we can talk more about that. Floss is a very difficult thing to do.

What you're doing is you're disrupting this biofilm that is overgrowing because of easily fermentable carbohydrates. Packaged foods, broken net, like crackers, goldfish, candy obviously is on the list, any kind of sugar. These are fermentable carbohydrates. The bacteria in our mouth, which is where digestion starts in the mouth, when they consume that food, they excrete their metabolic excretions. They're waste products. They're waste products. And that is very high acid. And the acid levels change, and that's what changes the oral microbiome.

The oral microbiome, like the gut microbiome, likes a neutral pH. So every meal we have, typically we go through an acid attack. Flossing helps restore this oral microbiome, not by removing plaque. Same thing with brushing. You're not really removing plaque. That's impossible. You're disrupting it so they can reorganize and go back to its natural state. Of course, if you keep eating the wrong food,

foods and you snack all day long, the body can't keep up. And so that equilibrium of trying to fix the oral microbiome as opposed to, you know, it waning and going to a dysbiotic state, it's no match for our diet, unfortunately. So regarding flossing, just to do a little bit of recap, you mentioned it being one of the top things you can do for your oral and dental health, right? And that it also could have implications by helping us reduce the bacteria that's associated with some of these chronic disease like Alzheimer's, and then even some of the bacteria that people find in heart disease, some of that plaque that starts to go through the bloodstream, or rather the bacteria that is going through your bloodstream because your mouth is overloaded with it.

And I believe you've written some articles about this, that we can link in the show notes. They have found this, researchers have found some of that same bacteria inside of the heart with plaque around it as well, which is completely mind-blowing. We have plaque in the brain, which we know that it's connected. Alzheimer's. We have plaque and cancer cells. Plac and cancer cells. I didn't know that. Yep. Yeah. So it seems to be this plaque, which many people

have talked about, including Dale Bredesen, is a protective component. In itself, it's not the problem. Amyloid plaque is not the problem when it comes to Alzheimer's. And we know this because we have all these billions and billions of dollars in research just destroying amyloid plaque.

And yet we don't see any improvement for Alzheimer's patients or people with early cognitive decline. So this is why we want to be paying attention to the bacteria inside of our mouth, just to make it super clear. And you're saying that even if we didn't traditionally floss, we need to do it now because of we're having, eating the wrong types of foods, a lot of continuous carbohydrates and excess calories from that. Excess calories from sweets that ferment in our bacteria, changing the acid in our mouth.

And then we're eating all the time without giving our mouth an opportunity to sort of repair and return to homeostasis. And let me add also breathing through our mouth, and that is a modern dental disease as well. We're not developing the way our ancestors developed, and that is with a wide, full face, which affects the airway, the entrance of air through the nose, through the nasal passages, through the airway itself, all of those are under attack. They are constricted and small. And when that happens, and when our mouth falls open, let's say you breathe with your mouth open

for six, seven hours a night, that dramatically changes the pH in the mouth to a point where you're going to wake up with a dysbiotic oral microbiome. And if you have a dysbiotic, non-commensal, non-symbiotic, not a healthy biome in the mouth, that leads to Alzheimer's, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or at least is involved in aggravating. Well, contributing, but also causative. There is a causative link now between the P. Gingervalis bug and Alzheimer's. Wow. That's fascinating.

We're going to come back to mouth taping and we're going to be coming back to oral breathing. I want to just go a little bit further with the flossing and the tongue scraping because those are two recommendations you're giving us right now as we go through some of these areas of how our overall oral health and dental health is connected to longevity. So one of the component which is tied to this airway piece is that the diets of our hunter ancestors, and we can see this even with modern day hunter-gatherer communities, who do suffer with dental challenges, but it's often because of injury or broken aspects of a tooth that can lead to an infection.

And obviously they don't have access to just the basic dental care that's there. But largely, if they're able to avoid those, their teeth are strong. Their teeth are big and white. They have beautiful smiles. They've never had braces before. Right. No white or brown spots. No white or brown spots.

And it looks impeccable. And again, people can Google Weston Price and we can chat about that a little later on. But one of the thing that's there is that these societies, and I've spent time with one of them, these modern day hunter-gatherer tribes, I spent time with one of them called the Samburu. Right. I remember that. That's in Kenya. They're cousins of the Messiah. And I went a few years ago with this group in Summit.

But the other component. that you notice is that there's a little bit more space, not in a way that is like a big gap between their teeth, but there's a little bit more space and their teeth and their jaws are wider. I mean, it's not the whole skull. I mean, there have been changes to the skull, which is the brain cavity, but the lower face has changed dramatically since the neolithic era. Describe what of the changes. If we describe the before and the after. Right. So before, and this again is, I mean, it depends on which study you read. And ironically, a lot of these studies are based on dental calculus. Oh, this one is great. You see this one on X? So it's the width of the mandible. We use the width of the maxilla. That's

the upper jaw. So the distance between this tooth, the upper second molar and this upper second molar in back, that is a measurement that a lot of good dentists live and die by, I mean, in terms of treatment, and as it should be. If that width isn't, you know, what our ancestors had, That width determines the width of the bony structures in our airway and in our nasal cavity. If that's narrow, then everything else gets pinched. Also, if these two teeth are too close together, the palate becomes vaulted. It should be kind of a very broad, flat, horseshoe-shaped kind of cross-section, and that means it's wide. and if it's wide, that area of the palate is actually the floor, the sinus.

If it's pointed and has been pinched, then the septum, which sits on top of that, gets buckled and also you lose the width. So if this mouth doesn't develop correctly, the width of that maxilla. If we don't maintain the width. Exactly. Everything else gets crinkled and pushed out of place and gets shrunken down. Including our airways and also our teeth. For those that are listening, I'm just, we're looking at a photo.

We have a before, which is our ancestors on the left. And we have an after, which is many of us. And you see that the base of the jaw is more narrow. The teeth are all squished in. And, and even the sort of end of the chin is kind of more narrow. Retronathic. Yeah, the one on the right, which is our modern day one, it basically looks like my face. You know, I don't have a wide jaw at the bottom.

I have a more narrowing. My teeth were always crowded. And I had brace. when I was younger, I had to have a bunch of teeth removed. Why is this going on? Well, basically, our entire jaw structure has changed over the years largely because of the diet that we're eating. Now, I want to share one anecdote that relates to flossing is that in the past, I would always have a very difficult time with flossing. A lot of people don't like flossing because it causes bleeding in their gums. Right. And it's very tough and the floss gets stuck inside of there.

Yes. I met a dentist that's based here in Los Angeles who is doing what's called palate expansion. Primarily because I was having some grinding. We'll come back to that later on. I was grinding my teeth at night and I was having a lot of pain in the morning and tension in my lower jaw and in kind of my tempo region. And through that process, one of the things he mentioned is as he was expanding my palate with a little bit of a like a retainer type device, he said you should notice it becomes

easier to floss. And as I was flossing one day and I totally forgot about. that comment, I realized that there were certain teeth that I would regularly get food buildup, especially my front teeth, where I had no regular buildup, even after eating things like a steak or salmon or other stuff that would get stuck in there. Celery, right? Celery, whatever would mango, right? All these things would get stuck.

I was not, for weeks at a time, I was not getting anything stuck and just a little bit of stuck at some in my back, you know, molars that I was having my back. That's a sign that your jaw was getting bigger. The teeth are the same size. But if they come in, as they come in like a conveyor belt, and they are the same size, teeth don't get bigger or smaller based on evolution. We haven't seen that. But the jaw does.

The teeth come in into a small jaw. It's like putting too much furniture into a room. You start running out of space and everything gets really tight. By opening up the jaw, those teeth can settle in. They become uncrowded. They actually may move. They line up properly next to each other instead of crowding each other. And that's why you have those little pinpoint.

now that when you floss, that's all you're pushing up against instead of a very broad surface of a tooth or an overlapped tooth. Yeah. So it also really helped solidify for me. Of course, I totally believe that flossing is important. And it also helped me understand how really our ancestors, and it's not true that they didn't exactly floss. They didn't have modern day floss. And we obviously don't know. I mean, if we're talking about 500 years, a thousand years, we have a generally good sense. But you go beyond that, like there's all sorts of So different accounts of history and what people are doing and what they were eating. Chilling sticks.

But I know in my background in India, for as long as my dad can remember, and it was my grandfather, too, when we were younger, there was this version of flossing, which were these chewing sticks, as you mentioned. In our tradition, we would call them daten. And it was basically a way to chew to just remove any additional debris, but also people were taught to do it at a young age, just to sort of improve their overall sort of oral health. And it kind of gave them also a little bit of like it was the modern day gum because many of them had kind of like a cinnamon type taste or like a, you know, I don't know what the common bark is that is used in it. But it would sort of be a mouth freshener as well. Yeah. So we did have versions of this in our more recent ancestors that were there. But definitely to go back to the larger point in the beginning is that because most of us have such narrowing jaws and our teeth.

are so compacted, you're going to get debris. And if you find debris, you have to take it on a regular basis. So for individuals that are out there, how often should they be flossing? And then what type of floss should they use? Because that's a whole area of controversy. It is. So the, how often to floss? Once a day is fine. In the evening? Yes. It doesn't really matter. I mean, evening before bed would be best because your mouth will probably dry out, even if your mouth is tape closed, saliva glands kind of shut down at night, assuming you're getting deep sleep and REM sleep. So the mouth will dry off a little bit. But if people want to floss in the morning, that's fine. Whatever is convenient, as long as you're flossing once a day. And you should floss properly. Most people aren't flossing

properly. They're not wrapping the floss around the teeth. They're finding it difficult to floss. Wrapping around your finger is difficult. Flossing takes a lot of dextreys. It is a very difficult thing to do properly. And that's why I like floss sticks, speaking of chewing sticks, right? The flostics help because, for example, if you're older, if you're a child, let's say you don't have a lot of hand mobility or a lot of coordination, it allows you to floss properly. The type of floss, the floss that goes into your mouth, if it's a plastic product or nylon, it's breaking apart.

Little particles are breaking off and you're introducing microplastics in your mouth. That is a big issue. So I recommend using silk floss. It's not as smooth as regular floss. If you have tight contacts, you may find it difficult. It may break. But it's worth trying. And you can get 100% silk floss pretty much anywhere in the U.S. today.

Now, there's this whole trend you're seeing more and more, a brand that I've used. I have no affiliation with that at all whatsoever. I'm just kind of talking about to get your thoughts. For some people hearing like, hey, we got to get silk floss. I'm sure there's a cost aspect to it. Yeah. Right. It's not too bad.

It's pretty reasonable. Okay. Is there a brand that you recommend? Radius. Radius? Can we bring that up? Radius? It's on my store.

It's on your website. It's a silk floss. It's a woman-owned company on the East Coast. They make a great toothbrush and great floss. I'm sure there are other brands, but there it is. What's the price on that? I don't know. I haven't priced floss lately.

$2.99. Yeah. Okay. Not bad at all. Depends on how many yards. Okay. So let's put that in the category of optimal. Yes.

Optimal is you're using silk floss, which by the way, just so everybody's aware, and I know you agree with this too, health is on a spectrum. right and our health journey is not a destination and it's not about doing every single thing that you hear on this podcast right it's about picking the few little things that are there opening your awareness and saying hey is this a reasonable choice that's a swap and if it's a swap and it makes sense to you and you're listening to dr mark brahanna mr ask the dentist and it's not going to put you out of your way then awesome it makes you know an easy sort of shift that's there. But everybody individually has to look at that because if you're starting from

scratch and you haven't been getting regular dental care, right, you know, the first thing you need to do is to find a good dentist in your area, which by the way, we can help people with that. You have a whole directory on your website. We do. Right. What's it called? Ask a dentist, functional dentist. Can we bring that up to them? It's Ask the dentist slash directory. Ask the dentist's directory. Just type that into Google. It'll probably come up. And we're almost, we're almost up to 300 dentists. Your dentist is on the directory. These are functionally minded dentist that will have these discussions with you. Like what kind of floss to use? Not all floss is the same. Why would you want to use a toxin in your mouth? Just real quick before you

go on microplastics. So if we're on the website, people can see it on YouTube, but you just got to click up in the top. Yeah, find a dentist. Find a dentist right there. Thank you. Right. And obviously you can go in by location. Oh great. You got some in Australia. Australia, Europe, Africa. Africa. Amazing. Amazing. So, you know, good dental care. And if I can recommend something to people, It's in an ideal world you live in a place like that has access to one of these dentists and they become your regular dentist that's there. What I've seen for a lot of people because you've been on this podcast many times is that finding a good dentist is tough. As you mentioned, you have 300. Right.

And I'm sure there's a lot of states probably especially in the middle of the country that may not have a lot of individuals because there might not be these dentists that are educated. So what I would suggest is that if your dental health is really, bad. I would even suggest as you start to unpack some of the research that we're going to go through through the rest of this episode and what's already presented, if it's a long drive, maybe even one time at least it's worth making the drive or combining it with the trip that you're already taking. I know this sounds crazy. But when you go to somebody and you get an accurate assessment of your dental health and they give you a good plan, most of these dentists that I've seen, I haven't encountered one that doesn't approach it this way, they will give you guidance that you can take

back to a regular dentist who can continue to work with you and they can give you tips, tricks and other stuff, things to avoid and things that you can do on your own to have better oral care. So even if you don't live right next to somebody, I think it is important to try to find somebody strong, especially if your dental health is really bad. Yes. If your dental health is okay or needs to be improved, generally I think a lot of the resources on your website, you can work with a dentist. in your area, as long as you're willing to be more of an advocate for your health, the same way that

you can ask your doctor to run a full metabolic panel. And even if they don't understand how metabolic health is tied to longevity, you can say, hey, it's important for me to get a fasting insulin, an A1C, my fasting glucose, and a few other things. So you can kind of navigate a little bit and advocate for your health. We've actually helped our dentist on our directory. We've taught them how to do teledinistry. And so we got a lot of requests on Instagram. You know, there's no one in my area. I do. And so we direct him to a dentist that has that ability. And it's just, I mean, you can still see your dentist. As long as they're a good clinician, you're fine, and get advice on what to do and which way to go. What is the best path? Should I get a crown? Should I do a root canal?

And then just rely on your good clinical dentist to do the work. Yeah. So I was going in terms of order of importance mentioning again, the goal is not to get everybody in this podcast to do everything or be perfect or worry about every aspect of health. Although we're trying. Over trying. That will overwhelm you. Right. And it'll make you feel like you're actually not focusing on the basics. You know, you were just on a friend's podcast. He has this great quote, major in the majors, Max Lugavir. Right, right. And we want to make sure we're not majoring in the minors. Yes, correct. Right. And this podcast is all about helping you take on things that some people think are minor like your oral health, but actually understanding why you might want to put in the category of major. Now, even within it, great, we have this silk floss. We'll link to your

store. You know, people can check it out. Or they can. can look it up on any other store that's available on the internet. And that might be at the top. Now, generally, you know, flossing is important. So just starting with flossing. If you can, there's a lot of brands that are out there that are now moving away from PFAs. There's one that I've used for years, no affiliation at all whatsoever. It's called smart floss. They had PFAs in their product. Yes. The consumers started to speak up. You know, these companies are listening. They are. So when you start demanding better products, they're listening. They're paying attention. And they ended up launching a new version of their floss that had no.

PFAs. That's incredible. It still has some of that nylon and I'm sure other stuff. So is it ideal like the silk floss? No, but it's treated me well. And generally, my oral health has been pretty good. We're going to go over some my lab results from a company that you recommended to me, that you're an advisor on. And we'll share that with the audience. So just start flossing if you haven't. Definitely upgrade to PFA free. Right. And then the next component would be silk. And again, if the silk is the same price as other options, why not just choose the silk option? It's a great swap. Unless you're a vegan.

And we get a lot of that as well. So there's another product out there that I like. I have no affiliation with them other than affiliate. It's called Slate, the Slate flosser. It's a very thick stick. It's the shape of an electric toothbrush. Rigid head. In other words, it doesn't bend.

And that really, I am now a fan of that kind of flossing over any other. kind of flossing. It is a game changer. And the reason I bring that up is because a lot of people will not floss. They just will not floss. It is, it's too difficult. You know, they know that it's good for them. That thing is a game changer. I hate to use that term. For most people, you know, honestly, probably the most amount of exposure that people have just from all my research in PFAs, for example, right? These forever chemicals that people are waking up to. Even our own government here in the United States did a recent study showing that almost 40% of all municipalities have contamination of PFAs in the water supply.

The only challenge is they only looked for nine PFAs. Right. And there are hundreds of thousands maybe that are out there. PFAs, we actually don't know because the industry doesn't disclose at all and nobody has a database that's there. So just so everybody's here, you're not getting the vast majority of your exposure of PFAs from floss. Right.

It's probably coming from two things. Water and food. And then ultra-processed food. Ultra-process food in particular has one of the highest concentrations of PFAs. And we'll link to a study that we came across recently on that. So generally, if you're filtering your water, good reverse osmosis filter, we have some articles on that. People can check out.

And generally, if you're staying away or minimizing ultra-process foods, that's where most of that exposure is going to come from. If you're not flossing, just start flossing because that's going to be something that's going to be helping you overall and you're not going to have that bacterial buildup in your mouth from debris that's lodged in. So whether this one has PFAs or whether it doesn't, do you know by any chance? It's PFS free. PFS free.

Yes. Okay, amazing. I looked into that. So we can link to that. I can't recommend anything that is going to worry me and my family at home. So it's a great. I would recommend trying it. And if you don't like it, return it.

But it is, it is amazing. The slate, electric philosophy. Awesome. I got to give it a shot myself as well. So maybe I'll pick one after this. You know, the truth is, if your gut isn't healthy, it's hard to truly be healthy. Your gut impacts every one of the other systems in your body. And poor gut health has been linked to a ton of chronic diseases.

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peaklife.com slash D-H-R-U-T-E-A. That's Drew T to get 15% off along with a complimentary beaker and rechargeable fraud there on subscriptions over $105. So first takeaway here, already. right out the gate when it comes to oral health, dental health, and the connection of longevity and how certain bacteria is associated with and maybe you have a causal link, right? I'm not as familiar with the research as you are, so you're saying a causal link with Alzheimer's and maybe an associative link, right, that's there with heart disease.

The associative link has been around for 10, 15 years. Been around for a long time. So flossing is the first thing. Let's talk about tongue scraping. Tongue scraping, right? Tongue scraping. What's the history of it? and why is it so important for dentists that are practicing what a lot of people are calling

like dentistry 3.0. Kind of like how Peter Attia talks about medicine 3.0. Tongue scraping, I think, is an Arivedic practice. And the tongue health is definitely something that the Arovetics, what I call generational medicine. I mean, generations of good observational, clinical, observational data that's passed on. And there's a lot of basis in Arabic science and medicine. And tongue health was a way of knowing, you know, what your patient was going through.

You could tell by the coating on the tongue, the color, parts of the tongue that were affected, geographic tongue, that's a modern term that we use, nutritional deficiencies. But tongue scraping is more about the oral microbiome. And again, it goes. back to food. So the tongue is this carpet of picture a meadow of mushrooms and all that, there's that little space underneath the mushrooms and all that crappy food they're eating, you know, the, like a picture of a cracker that mulches down into this little paste and it gets underneath there and the bacteria that are there, the oral microbiome, start feeding on that

and they start producing a gas called ammonia, which then later has sulfide bonds. That's where we get are a bad breath. But if you're producing ammonia, you're not producing nitric oxide. We can talk later about that. Nitric oxide is one of the most underappreciated substances in the body for longevity, for example. So it makes sense to tongue scrape. Very simple to do. I think tongue scraping is as important as flossing. It's certainly more important than brushing your teeth. And you can use a metal tongue scraper. So there's no worry about plastics. Let's bring up an image. Just for those that are watching on YouTube so they can understand. Yeah. I've been doing this since I was a kid. I'll talk about that in a second. Oh, good. It's a U-shaped piece of metal. I like tongue scrapers that have little serrations in it because I like to dig into that mushroom field. I hope that's descriptive. So it's a little U-shaped. You can easily hold it in your hand. Right. You can widen it, you can narrow it. It will last forever. You don't throw it away. And you're scraping down your tongue. You put it in your mouth and you're scraping down your tongue. You put it down the tongue. And when you do that in the beginning, you're going to see. And you're going to see. And you'll put it back as far as you can. And you're going to see. And you're going to see. And you're. And you're

it's the same color on everyone. A dysbiotic tongue will have a very light, not to gross anyone out, a very light beige exudate. No, it's a liquid. It's a thick liquid. And that will come off on the tongue scraper. Keep the faucet running. Rinse out your tongue scraper. Keep doing that until that goes away. That could happen within six to ten strokes of the tongue scraper or it could take you weeks to the point where nothing comes off the tongue scraper. So if your tongue scraper, you're tongue scraping correctly, your tongue scraping once or twice a day, once a day is fine, and nothing's coming off the tongue scraper. It's just something you should do. And it benefits the world microbiome. And no gas gets produced, the ammonia, the sulfide bonds go away. Most bad breath

comes from the back of the tongue. Don't use mouthwash because obviously that has the opposite effect. It's killing the bacteria back there. And then you go back to ammonia producing bacteria. Yeah. Ironically. That's great. You know, my family, I I didn't have people that were in there that were Ayurvedic practitioners. But generally, because Ayurveda is so pervasive in India, you have a lot of families that have their own family traditions and remedies. And one of the ones that was very common in our family is from the time that I started brushing by myself and even before that, my parents would use a tongue scraper.

And I did it every morning and I did it every evening whenever my parents would brush my teeth. Was it metal or use? Yeah, it was metal. It was you shape. It literally looks like these top copper. And often we would use copper. That was very common in our tradition. And there was a whole bunch of different theories about that on conduction of electricity and other things which I won't go into right now.

But we were tongue scraping as kids. And I can remember even into my teens, a lot of people would talk about, you know, a common thing to do in sort of high school is to make fun of people, right? Like through all those aspects, right? And so anybody that would have, this is the time that people are really starting to pay attention to hygiene and the opposite sex. other stuff. So people will get made fun of for smelling because they don't wear deodorant or maybe they're more stinky. But people will get made fun of for for bad breath. Certainly. And I actually didn't really even know that it was a thing because nobody in my family had bad breath. Right, because you were tongue scraping. Yeah, we had, you know, probably eating a little bit healthier too

than the average person, even though my high school diet was like terrible. I was a processed food vegetarian. But we were tongue scraping and I've never had any issues with bad breath in my life. So I I love that recommendation. Okay, so two things that we've shared here, falsing and tongue scraping. And that should take less than, well, two minutes, two and a half minutes. Less than two minutes and a high value in return. Exactly. Let's talk a little bit about brushing and also navigating the topic of brushing, right?

What are some of the top do's and don'ts around brushing that you like to talk about? You're not in practice right now, but that you talked about for years for your patients. Right. Most people are overbrushing and they're brushing incorrectly and they're brushing too hard. I mean, they're sawing back and forth and they're using a toothbrush too long. And that's actually causing more damage than good. Brushing for me lately has become more about massaging the gums, brushing up the gum line, aiming for the gum line, and brushing the teeth, obviously. but brushing the gum line because there was an incredible study out of Japan,

only a few years old, with beautiful images, cross-sectional microscopy images of lymph channels in teeth, in the root portion of the tooth, and especially the gums. Do you think that we might be able to bring it up on the screen if you want to follow? So what could Tessa type in to do you? Lymph channels, teeth and gums, Japan, maybe, I don't know. It was, and I didn't learn this in dental school. I didn't know this until about six months ago.

So when you're brushing, and I spoke to some lymph experts and- And can you explain to the audience what lymph system is? Lymph is a secondary way of clearing toxins out of the body. The blood vessels are the primary source, but it's a passive system, it's gravity, and it's energized by gravity, but also by muscular movement. You know, you've got lymph channels in your armpits, moving your arms when you walk, lymph nodes.

And most people don't know this, but we actually have more lymphatic fluid in our body than we do have blood. That's true, yes. And the only way it moves, as you mentioned, because it moves based off of gravity and muscular movements, is we actually have to move it through exercise. Exactly.

Walking, not being sedentary. And the more sedentary you are, the more stale that lymphatic fluid is. Except for the case of the brain, the glymphatic system, that is more about getting deep sleep. And as the brain shrinks, there's room for those lymphatics to drain. So, again, I was aware of lymphatics, and we got a little bit of that in dental school, mostly anatomy. But that really blew my mind.

It makes sense to me that we should be massaging our gums because a lot of people in ancient medicine would rub their gums with their finger. You are milking the lymph gland and getting rid of the toxins. There are toxins everywhere in our body. especially in our gums. Our gums are one of the forefronts of the immune system, and they're always active, and that's why our gums bleed so often. That's the first sign of inflammation is in the mouth. That is the canary in the coal mine, bleeding gums, gingivitis. That's it. This was such a well-done study. It was just so much love put into this. So detection of lymphatic vessels in dental pulp.

We'll link to this in the show notes. Anybody can find it so they can check it out for themselves. So scroll us down and talk about some of these images. So it was dental pulp, but it was also in the free margin. So those are biopsy scans, I mean slides that are dyed. Go to the scanning electron. There's a channel. Not sure what that image is. Keep going down until you get to the black and whites, SCMs, incredible magnification. Keep going. These are all lymph cells. Okay, so stop there. So those are. Those are. in a human molar. That's in calcified tissue.

Okay, so we're looking at basically what almost looks like a cave. Right. Right, but this is a tooth. This is a tooth? That is tooth structure. And so who knew that there were channels, lymph channels in there.

There's tiny little holes that allow for the movement of things in and out. Toxins. Even in your teeth. Exactly. That look like they're solid and there wouldn't be these little holes. Right.

And it's unclear whether it's coming from the pulp. In other words, there could be toxins in the pulse. The pulp is the tissue inside the tooth. That's the tissue that helped form the calcified structure. It's mesenchal tissue and its blood vessels and nervous. And so this one that we're looking at that looks like a cave with a bunch of different holes inside, it's a damaged tooth. I don't think so.

Slightly damaged collagen fibers of pulp? Probably from the dissection and the cross section. So that's larger magnification, human molar in, is that denton? and blood vessels. And then keep going. That's even greater magnification. That's one lymph channel in the dental pulp. So that's inside the tooth.

So there's some images from that study lower down as an add-on. He said, oh, and by the way, here's some images of these lymph channels in the free margin. And there are more at the base of the gum where it's thicker and they're less at the free margin. And what's the takeaway from that? The takeaway is that if you've got lymph channels in there, how are you going to get those lymph channels to do their job? Right. Brushing, rubbing your gums with your finger.

Massaging your gums. Losing. Literally could look like when you're brushing your teeth for one minute. This is what we used to do as kids. Another thing that was very common in our culture. Our parents would have us massage our gums. Sometimes as a kid we put toothpaste on it. Good.

Perfect. Yeah. And we would just massage our gums. Like, you know, it took literally less than 30 seconds. A little bit on the top, a little bit on the bottom, massaging it. And even after we would brush my dad sometimes when I would come to you know, we're getting ready for bed. He said, did you massage your gums?

Really? And I say, no, and I have to go back. Oh, my God. It's crazy. Like, how much we were doing a lot of these things. Your parents are awesome. And my dad wasn't a dentist. He didn't know about all this stuff, but it just was, he had been told that this is important.

Right. And he had grown up with that. Right. Unfortunately, then they kind of got in the modern sort of dental community and their teeth were destroyed through a bunch of different things. Root canals, which we're going to get to in a little bit. And a whole host of just poor, procedures. I'm so thankful for modern dentistry for us having access to a lot of things that

would cause major issues for people. But another way we really need, and this is your work, we need a wave of a different approach because more people are now being harmed by it, you know, in other ways that are causing, you know, chronic diseases. So it's a problem. We're using toxins in our filling materials, mercury. We've got BPA fillings or fillings with BPA in it, microplastics, you know, and then the wrong approach. And bad dentistry is also a big problem as well. Yeah. You know, it's got to be, it's got to be good clinical work. How much is dentistry today being guided by the sort of lack of awareness? Just like, hey, we didn't know about people like Western Price. We don't know about these things. We don't know about the history. And how much of it

is being steered by basically sort of industry capture or. regulatory capture. It's as you can expect what the answer is. It's industry, it's third party, what does the insurance company pay for, it's corporate products available, what product makes the job easier for clinician, what product makes it quicker so that there's less time and more profit, therefore. I mean, I hate to say that, but it's that way in any profession. The medical industry that way. I had dinner with a very high-level dentist in the dental professional guild, if you want to call it that, associations, and that was a few nights ago. And he was not aware of a lot of this. He wasn't aware that there's a lawsuit against fluoride. He wasn't aware of

microplastics and, you know, the lymph channel certainly. This is not a discussion that we have in normal circles. It's more about the techniques. It's clinical work. It's the materials that we're using. We want to use fillings that last a long time. We're definitely interested in that. But we're mostly concerned about cosmetics. What looks good? And so are our patients? You know, this really brings up one of my favorite quotes that you're familiar with and a lot of people talk about. And it's from the Nobel Prize winner Max Planck, right? The German physicist, I believe. And that quote for individuals is, I'll just read it off here, I brought up on my computer. A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light,

but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that's familiar with it. Right. So we are probably used to convenience, just like most people are eating out of convenience, not understanding how they're destroying their health. And a lot of these things, including even PFAs, there's life-saving components that we have that PFAs provide. So I don't want to demonize the entire assets. aspect, but there's also a lot of damage it's causing and secondary and tertiary issues.

And when it comes to a lot of these things, I think that, you know, it's convenience and money in just terms of like supply chains and it's already there and these corporations have it. But I don't think it's a big sort of a group of men in a dark room that are meeting with hoods on at night and are plotting to destroy us all. Although I'm sure there's some shady tactics that are out there is it's really just a lack of awareness. But what's exciting about your website, your podcast, you coming on my podcast, on other people's podcast, is that I've never seen more interest in oral health amongst young people. And I've never seen as many dentists waking up because those same dentists are questioning

things. I have many family members that are dentists, friends here in Los Angeles who are starting to scratch their head because they're like, you know what? I eat organic. I do all these other aspects. I care about my longevity. I care about my brain health. I wonder, is there a version of that for dentistry?

And they start asking questions. And there's an incredible group of, you know, functional, clean dentistry, you know, whatever terms, biologic dentists that are out there who are taking these young dentists under their wings and are showing them the light in many ways. And many of them are saying, this is crazy. I was never taught any of this in medical school. All right. We're going to bring it back to some of the action items that we have here.

We already talk about flossing. We already talked about tongue scraping. We added in another component that takes 30 seconds and it's just massaging your gums, which you can do once or twice a day right when you're brushing. This is all habit stacking. We're not trying to do this at a separate time. Right, right. And then along with that, it's this stimulation that you're saying that with brushing,

many people are brushing too hard. I've shared before. I've had my own dentist, Dr. Rosita Roshian on the podcast. She was the first person that helped me identify that I had gum recession. I'm not going to do a zoom in on the camera right now of my teeth because I don't want to freak people out. Not that it's crazy, but I actually had some gum recession. And it was primarily on my lower left side of my mouth. And she said, I want to tell you why you have gum recession there.

She's like, you're right-handed, right? And I said, yeah, like, how did you guess besides the fact that, okay, there's more right-handed than left-handed? But why did you know so clearly? She said, when you're brushing with the, normal toothbrush, you are using your dominant hand, which most of us do, and you're applying too much pressure overall. Right. But in particular, on your lower left side, you're applying a lot of pressure because you're

right-handed. Exactly. And you are putting too much pressure on your gums and you're causing gum recession. That's the first time that I'd heard. It's the biomechanics of brushing and also the angle of your wrist is different. You know, it goes from this to that. So there's more leverage. Yeah.

She's absolutely right. It's also the type of toothbrush as well. Yes, which I learned from you and her as well. So tell me what you started recommending to me and other people. Right. So the biomechanics of brushing is very important, as I said earlier, I think. For example, if you watch a clip of a famous movie star acting and brushing their teeth, Natalie Portman comes to mind.

I forget the movie. I think we have a link of her somewhere. And she's, you know, obviously agitated, but she's in there sawing away. And the toothbrush is splayed apart. Maybe that was part of the, maybe that was in the screenplay. The comedic effect. Exactly, right. But you really have to be careful. That sawing motion is very dangerous. Nylon, especially as it wears, or if it's an inexpensive toothbrush and the bristles haven't been tufted or rounded, because freshly cut nylon is like miniature little knives. Yeah, on a microscopic level, they're quite sharp. Very.

And they're causing damage to not only our teeth, but actually our gums. Gumbs. And you can, the gums will recede. And they can cause recession. Yes, you're scarring your gums. You're also gouging your teeth. You're also making them more sensitive. And you're really not accomplishing much in terms of brushing. So really small, circular, vibratory motions. We can also overdo it with electric toothbrushes. In fact, it's easier to do.

A lot of electric toothbrushes now have pressure sensors on it. My sonic hair will light up at the base if I push too hard. Yeah, they're letting you know. Exactly. And this is generally something that is not controversial. It's just that a lot of people aren't aware of it. Even traditional dentistry, as long as they're in the nose, know. And they didn't go to dentist school like maybe 30 years ago. You know, generally they'll be

aware that brushing too hard is a problem for a lot of people. And that's why many of these toothbrushes now will actually either stop. I had one called a rotodent or something like that. Yep, you're right. That if you press too hard, it would stop because it would tell you you're brushing too hard. Right. But often many electric toothbrushes will have a light. And if they don't, you want to hold gently. So describe how you teach people kind of how to hold the electric toothbrush. So, I don't have a pencil here, but basically pick it up like a pencil, you know, have your pinky up. Yeah, exactly. So you're holding a bottle.

Very light grip. And if you're pushing too hard and if it falls out of your hand, you're doing it right. Also, in your case, switch hands. Go to your non-dominant hand. Well, I'll tell you what, because I get my gum recession measured every dental appointment. Since I switched how I brushed, I have no further gum recession. Exactly. So just so everybody's aware out there, we may not have yet the technology on how to repeat.

prepare gum recession fully just yet, although that might come in the future. But we can stop gum recession from going further, which is key because what was happening for me is I, for the first time in my life, about however many years ago when this was first identified, maybe five to eight years ago, I would drink a cold beverage or I drink a hot beverage

and I would have all this pain inside of my mouth. And like a lot of people, I'd say, ow, what the hell is going on? So I got referred to to this dentist, Dr. Roshian here in LA, she's amazing. She's on your list too. And she was telling me, you're brushing too hard. You're causing gum recession

and now you're exposing the nerves. And so she did a filling, right? I don't know what sort of better fillment they use, but she ended up covering some of it so I didn't have as much exposed nerve. And then she said, as long as you follow this correctly, you maintain good oral care, good dental health, continue the tongue scraping.

We can prevent further recessive. recession from happening and knock on wood, I've had no further recession happened since that time. Yeah, that could be a resin. You don't necessarily have to drill the tooth. You can cover it with a resin. It was a resin. But sometimes the tooth has a gouge in it. It's a very easily identifiable groove. And of course, once the groove is formed, then the bristles are guided into that groove, which potentates the wear. And we can tell the difference between a ab fraction groove, which is caused by grinding. Those are strong compressive forces on the tooth. And the enamel where it thins at the base of the tooth is popping off like a calving glacier.

And we can tell the difference between that and toothbrush abrasion. And then there's another one called erosion from acidic beverages or sucking on lemons. And so all of these grooves on the side of the teeth and gum recession are easily identifiable. Find the right dentist that can see that before the gums actually recede. The other thing I like about back to toothbrush, the new nano-style tufting of brush. You should be able to call it up just by typing in nano-toothbrush. Or nanobristles, nanobrissile toothbrush. Yeah, so describe what we're looking at here.

So it's denser. The bristles are smaller in diameter, and they're packed in closer together. So what you're doing there, it's like instead of taking like a shoe brush. So this is a brand called Swiss clip. Right. They're so close together. You can't really see the bristles unless you look very closely. So what happens there is that's a great gum massager as well.

So always aim for the gums when you're brushing. Do you know any electric? tooth brushes that do this nano version? They don't have nano yet. I'm sure it's coming. That could be a product. We can't talk about it now, but you have some future stuff coming out. I mean, that would be nice.

And you could do an aftermarket that fits all the toothbrushes out there. There's another option. Generally, I like to recommend. I find that a lot of people don't have, and I'd love to get your opinion on this, just if they're not regular about their oral care and they don't have a good routine, they, brushing is always feels like this chore. And what's nice about an electric toothbrush is they have timers. Right.

Right. So they have like these, generally it's like a two minute timer. Right. Brush on the top, brush on the bottom, go around. And then you don't have to think. And you can kind of zone out and do other stuff, whatever, I'll listen to a podcast while I'm, you know, doing my nightly routine or evening routine. And it just makes sure that you're brushing for the appropriate amount of time. Then you can do your floss or gum massage, et cetera.

And then again, also I like using the ones that let me know that I'm brushing too hard. Yes. So hopefully one day somebody makes a nanothrush. electric and that'd be a great addition. Right. But don't, don't overbrush. Make sure it's a very soft toothbrush and a high quality toothbrush. Yeah, and you're going to protect your gum.

In the worst case scenario, right? So when you have gum recession, most people know because they generally, if they look in the mirror and they know what they're looking for, they can start to see some receding gum line. Secondarily, which is actually how I find most people find out about it, like me, is they have a beverage and they have pain. Yep. Take us from there. What's the worst that happens if we don't address this?

And maybe even some of our listeners today are dealing with this unfortunately. But for those that are younger that might not have this so far, they're thinking, okay, so what? Who cares? Who cares? Exactly. But take us a little bit further all the way to the worst version of gum recession. Well, I mean, your example is a good example. Imagine every beverage that you like, whether it's cold or warm or acidic, could be a salad

dressing, balsamic vinaigrette. But imagine jumping or having an uncomfortable experience every time you consume or come into contact with those products. That would be enough to motivate me. And how bad have you seen that pain get sometimes? Oh, to the point where I see people jumping in restaurants and I kind of know the jump. I mean, but it can be. So if you have enough exposed root and enough of a gouged area there and it hasn't been sealed like what you had done. and they're not using the right remuneralization toothpaste.

Even fluoride will help with that topically. Remineralize those areas. Breathing in cold air. Breathing in cold air will be a problem. Especially if you live in cold climates. Exercising, you know, when you have to mouth breathe, and that can be painful. Could it also contribute to more bacteria in your bloodstream? No.

I mean, maybe via an. indirect route, but typically no. But it could lead to pulpitus, and that's where the inside of the tooth is swollen. And if that occurs for a long enough period, then you're looking at a root canal. Wow. So it can contribute to a Ruth canal, which obviously has its own challenges and problems, which we're going to get to that in a second. Let's touch on one more thing. So we talked about the appropriate way to brush on top of all the other suggestions that you have. And again, this is really about not just our dental health, it's about our longevity and our preservative. of a species really, right?

Digestion starts in the mouth. And we don't want to have, if you see anybody older and I've been fortunate in a position where I was able to be by my grandparents bedside in their later years on my mom's side, they suffer for years because of poor dental health and poor routines that largely happened when they moved to America. Yes. And started eating a Western diet. and started not having the best dental care,

even though they would regularly mouth scrape and gum massage, the dietary aspect of it and the poor dental care and the misguided dental care and root canals and other things caused so many challenges that, you know, teeth falling out, dentures, other stuff. And it just was a miserable, you know, inability to digest food properly. It starts in the mouth.

It's gastrointestinal issues. Other things that all cause, because of dental care. Let's come back and let's touch on. You already mentioned mouthwash, right? Check it out the window. Yep. Throw it in the trash.

Right. Are there any healthy mouthwashes that people might want to use if temporarily they feel like they're dealing with really bad breath? Right. Which, by the way, we're going to talk about the number one bacterias that are associated with bad breath. And we're going to talk about my bristle health results. Good.

Testing results. That we're going to talk about them. We'll share it with the audience over here. But is there, you know, I know that my dentist office. has kind of like a little mouthwash before you go in that is from this one company that's pretty popular. I've seen different dentists sometimes have it. But you would say, look, in general, I don't want the reliance on mouthwash. Now, if you go to your natural food store or Whole Foods, there's all sorts of natural mouthwashes that are there. How do you feel about them? Hydrogen peroxide,

this thing, that thing. Are they any good? It's a good question. Hydrogen proxide is a carcinogen to gum tissue. So I would stay away from that. Short bursts of it to help modulate the oral microbiome under the direction or supervision of a dentist, that's fine. And it's highly diluted. But in general, mouthwashes are really a waste of time. I would rather have the person, my patient or listener, focus on tongue scraping, brushing, and flossing. Why throw something else in there to complicate it? It's costly. It takes time. But in general, unless you want to use water or a little salt water, that's fine. But the action of fluid in mouth and swishing. Maybe if you have braces, conventional braces with brackets and metal and you can't

really get in there and clean properly, a vigorous rinsing with saltwater would help. But just the product itself, let's forget the chemicals in it and that action, I mean, that mechanism, it's just a waste of time. You've got to touch the gums. You got to get in there and break apart that biofilm. Swishing with water or mouthwash, anything liquid actually doesn't have an effect. You've got to break the biofilm. You've got to touch it. You've got to use a toothbrush and floss to do that properly. And tongue scrape.

Those are all hands-on kind of methods. And the mouthwash is superfluous. I mean, it's ridiculous. Then add the, which is what we've been recommending as a profession for a long time, add the bacteriocytals and the cytotoxic elements in it that are designed to kill bugs and disinfect the mouth. And then all of a sudden, you're causing systemic disease, let alone. increasing your incidence, your predilection to getting bad breath, as I mentioned earlier with the ammonia, the bugs convert to producing ammonia.

But why would you want to use a product that elevates your blood pressure? Why wouldn't you want to tongue scrape, which actually lowers your blood pressure, according to studies? So that's the problem. So mouthwash isn't worth it. It's not worth it. And even some of these ones that are being touted as healthy mouthwashes, they could be very abrasive. Well, acidic. A lot of mouthwashes have low pH.

they work, but essential oils. Most essential oils are bactericidal. How do you know what the kill rate is and what bacteria it's picking on and just let the bacteria in the mouth thrive. Let them do their job. Feed the good guys. Keep them happy. Use prebiotics, probiotics, scrape, disorganize the biofilm if it thickens, if you're not eating well. But don't throw in this nuking fluid that just makes things a lot more difficult and it's a it's a wild card and you know why would you want to elevate your blood pressure let's talk about toothpaste for a quick second just people are going to be wondering since we're covering all the categories what do you want to say about toothpaste and how people are navigating that landscape toothpaste is one of the worst products out there a lot like

mouthwash we've put we've put a lot of bad stuff in there not because most of the products in toothpaste are there so that we can make toothpaste in large batches. in large, large containers. And with an amulsifier, surfactants, that keeps all the ingredients from separating once you've mixed it in that large vat. And then you fill the tubes and you sell it. And then when you come into contact

with the emulsifier and surfactin, and this is the base ingredients of every toothpaste pretty much out there. Just to keep the ingredients in place, your oral mucosa suffers for it. It's a lot like a detergent that you ingest, maybe from the big thing now is dishwasher.

So a residue on your glass and dishes that gets into the gut, and that takes down the gut microbiome. It also affects the permeability. I'll stick to the mouth for now of the oral mucosa, which is like the lining in the gut. It's one cell thick. We have plenty of studies. A lot of things get absorbed through the oral mucosa,

including fluoride, but including all these toxins that are in our mouth, bad bugs, the Pige and Javallis bug. Toothpaste is making that worse. It's more likely that those will be, You pass through the oral mucosa, the lining of your cheek, cells, your floor of the mouth, even the palate, gets to the bloodstream, and then any chemical that you're putting in your mouth, like triclosan, fluoride, propylene glycate, let's say you're getting a varnish at the dentist

as a kid up to age 14. They will paint something on your teeth, which is a very high strength fluoride paste. It also has hexane in it, propylene glycate. I mentioned that already. these horrible chemicals. Most kids go in the next room and vomit. We used to think it was the taste. It's probably these horrible chemicals that they absorb.

Fluoride appears in your bloodstream within six minutes. Wow. After it being in your mouth, that's not swallowing. These are rat studies, some human studies. I mean, is that what we want? Is that we want the oral mucosa to do? The oral mucosa is there to protect us. It's designed to be semi-permeable, a filter,

But toothpaste really is countering that. So toothpaste isn't maybe as bad as mouthwash, but I think it's important that we understand that it's pretty close to being as bad. And it's allowing a lot of toxins to get into our blood supply, into our body. So is the goal, don't use any toothpaste, choose better options? Well, if you're pretty healthy, flossing, tongue scraping, brushing occasionally, maybe even a chewing stick, would be fine. That's not most of us, though.

So toothpaste does add a remineralizing agent, which would be my favorite is hydroxyapotite. I would throw away anything that has fluoride in it, obviously. But you did mention that fluoride does have a remineralization component. Topically, it does. Right? And so we have to understand that there's a reason why traditional dentistry used it. The only question is, is it doing more damage because it's showing up in our bloodstream? We know that fluoride is a neurotoxin.

We know that also fluoride in water, very controversial. study that we covered in our previous podcast that was published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association about a controlled sort of fluoride study and naturally controlled that was done in Canada by a young female physician or researcher and they looked at two towns in Canada, one town that had exposure to fluoride in the water system and one town that didn't. And the town that didn't had kids with higher IQs, especially young boys in particular. Now, that was one study. 49 points and they were not, it wasn't only just the towns, one without, one with fluoride.

They were measuring the urinary levels of fluoride in the moms that were pregnant. So fluoride, just so everybody's out there, fluoride does work in the traditional sense that dentistry uses it. It does re-mineralize. It does do these things. In toothpaste, topically. In toothpaste, topically. and also like when people are going to the dentist office and they use fluoride, it does work. But again, what damage are you causing long term?

And as you mentioned, it's showing up in the bloodstream and it has all sorts of connections of being a neurotoxin inside the body. Exactly. So that's very scary. But the good news is that hydroxyapatite, which is the biomimetic material, that is the material that is what our teeth are made up of, is available now. It was available in Japan for the last 40 years. We've missed out on it for some reason.

It's been available in Europe for maybe about 10, 15 years. It is now here in the U.S. And it is as good, topically, as fluoride, and in some cases better, especially in the whitening area. Yeah, and there's a few toothpaces you've talked about before. We can link to your store or other stuff that people can find these. But the best toothpaste is one without surfactants, amulsifiers, as little in it as possible, no essential oils and hydroxyapitite. If you want to put a little xylitol in there and a little flavoring, it's perfect. Yeah.

That would be fine. One question about hydroxy appetite, because I know that some people have always, also referred to as nano-hydroxy appetite. Is there any concern or is anybody paying attention to the fact that that could also show up in the bloodstream because of its size, how permeable the mouth is? Obviously, in an ideal world, we have a great diet. We're eating the adequate amount of organ meats, which seem to be an important part of dental health.

We're not breathing through our mouth at night, which dries us out and changes our pH. and other things. But do you have any concern about hydroxyapatite and any sort of studies around that or us looking at it or not looking at it about it showing up in the world. The only concern I have is that there are a lot of people on Instagram that are putting up misinformation about nanos. Now, nanoparticles, nanos are four-letter word, obviously. I would not recommend using nanotidium or zinc oxide.

These are particles of inert substances that do not dissolve. in your body that once they get into the body, what does the body do with it? It typically has to wall it off. The macrophages have to come in. Then you get a little piece of scar tissue. Maybe it comes to the surface of the skin. Those are not good things. But nano-hydroxyapatite, that's nanocalcium, essentially, which dissolves in the body. There are some forms of nano-hydroxy appetite that I'm not happy about that shouldn't be available that are in some toothpaste available here in the U.S. right now. And there's some zebra fish studies where it does get into the bloodstream and it doesn't

quite break down quick enough. And those are needle shapes. It's also the particle size. The good news is that the EU, the European Union, has a scientific body called the SCCS. Not sure what that stands for. But they are an elite group of scientists. They rotate in and out every three years. They're the leaders in their category.

They're typically about 12 on the committee, and this is something we need in the U.S. They're not paid. And what they do is they just look at ingredients and certain substances that are in cosmetics and toothpaste and toothpaste obviously is a cosmetic. Unfortunately here in the U.S., it's under the same regulations. And if there's something in there that they think is unsafe, they will call it out and it has to be removed right away and you cannot sell it. Yeah, they have more of the precautionary principle.

They do. Again, that would never happen here in the U.S. unfortunately. But they have approved one form of this nanohydroxyapatite. And the reason I like nanohydroxy appetite, and again, we were talking about sensitive teeth earlier, it would desensitize those teeth within days. Because of the particle size, it gets pulled in into those little porous open tubules, not necessarily a lymph channel, but, and it occludes them, it blocks them. It helps remineralize it better than fluoride. Fluoride is a larger piece. When fluoride, gets incorporated into remineralized areas of the tooth, whether it's dentin or enamel, it's a wavy surface and it's very brittle, and it can break off easily. The nano-hydroxy appetite and a little bit of micro. Micro is the normal version. It's just ground up tooth material or bone. But the uptake isn't as great because the particle size is too big. But micro and nano get taken up by the tooth. It's a smooth surface and it's less brittle. And because it's smoother, it looks wider. It has a higher reflectivity. And that's, why would we want to use that?

It's inexpensive. It's not toxic. And it works. But it has to be that specific rod-shaped. I think it's an 11 micrometer size. I mean, and it's only one manufacturer makes it. And it's in Portugal. And they were able to get their nano version approved.

So my only- And there's a few brands in the U.S. that use that right now? There are a few brands that use it currently. And those are the brands that are on your store that we're going to. Exactly. Right. Exactly.

Great. So it's just to recap on nanohydroxyapatite. And if you want to use the micro, that's fine. That's better than nothing. It's wonderful because it's safe. It's what's in our teeth. You can swallow it. It's good if it dissolves in your saliva that improves the ionic integrity of saliva.

Slava needs minerals in it to work properly. It also buffers the pH of saliva, like mineral water. You add minerals to water that increases the pH. and then fluoride does none of that. It's cytotoxic. It kills cells. It kills the bacteria that produce N-O, nitric oxide. And when it does get incorporated into the crystalline structure of tooth, when it does remineralize, it's not as good as hydroxyapatite.

And it doesn't look as good. And it's toxic to the brain. Before we go over my results here in a second, and we talk a little about some of the advances and sort of testing and oral health, let's talk about mouth taping. You know, something happened in the last couple months, which is there's been a few tennis stars. Tessa, let's see if we can bring this up. Yeah, there it is. There it is. Here we go.

Earlier this week, the number one world women's tennis player, Iga Seuostek of Poland, turned heads when she practiced with a strip of tape over her mouth. The purpose she told reporters, this is from the Washington Post, the purpose she told reporters at a bank national tournament in Montreal was to improve for endurance since it's harder to breathe only through the nose. Right. And then I think it was also Jovac. Yes.

Right? Novak Djokovic. I always mispronounce his name. So that's not the complete story, though. I mean, it does improve your performance. But how does it do that? And why would you want to- And why are people doing it at night?

At night, because it improves your ability to sleep. So in a nutshell, if we were designed as a species, to breathe through our nose because it doesn't allow us to over breathe CO2. If we breathe through our mouth, we're expelling too much CO2. That affects, in this case, if you're an athlete, that affects the uptake and the release of oxygen to the muscles when you need it. So that CO2 is, I mean, in dental school and pre-dent, actually, I was told CO2 is a toxin. Right?

I mean, you can't just survive on CO2 alone. Well, you can't just survive on O2 alone. So it's very misleading. CO2 is what the body is measuring, what the base of the brain is measuring to find out how to breathe, to measure your rest, to modulate your respiratory rate. So what they're doing is it's a, and of course they have the best advisors and health advisors and coaches and they're optimizing their ability, their VO2 max essentially, their ability to hit hard, run and keep doing that for five sets.

And more effectively turn oxygen into energy, which obviously nitric oxide production, which you've done a ton of episodes on, you and I talked about it a little bit, is a key part of it. Totally. So I applaud them for doing it. I'm sorry that they're being, maybe it's not ridicule, but I think they're the smarter players than the ones that are not. But you have literally number one and number one tennis players. Exactly.

Well, people would ridicule me for mouth taping. That was 10, 12 years ago. people still get ridiculed for mouth taping at night or during the day, obviously. It's unfortunate. It works. It's amazing. And once people do mouth tape, assuming that they can mouth tape, not everyone can mouth tape because they can't breathe through their nose. But mouth taping for me, early on in my practice, was a way to diagnose who could mouth tape and who could nose breathe and who was mouth breathing. Because if you're a mouth breather, your decay rate goes up, your gingerful inflammation rate goes up. I mean, your oral disease rate goes way up.

Would you say that if people regularly mouth tape, again, these are people who often have trouble keeping their mouth closed at night, which often most people don't know that they have trouble. Right. Unless that they have a partner that has woken up in the middle of the night without waking them up and can kind of see that, hey, you're breathing through your mouth. Right. I actually was able to do that for my wife. When we were early on in our courtship phase right before we got engaged and eventually married, I mentioned to her and I said, sweetie, you're mouth breathing. And it could be because of a little bit of a tongue tie situation she has.

And I think that we should start mouth taping. And she's like, you're literally crazy. You're crazy. This is not a thing. I said, look, just trust me. Well, you got married, so you're good. Well, this is before we got married. Right, exactly.

It wasn't a deal breaker. But, you know, before we engaged too. So, you know, she thought you were a little, that was a bit much. She knew you were, you know, a health influencer. that, I got her because at nighttime she'd get a surge of energy. And I got her to dim the lights. And then in our bathroom in particular, in our bedroom, we would have a red light. Perfect.

And she noticed that when she did that because she wasn't getting all this blue light exposure, she wasn't getting the surge. She wasn't getting this surge of energy right before bedtime that would have her often sometimes have a hard time falling asleep before midnight. So she did trust me on that, right? She did the trust but verify approach. And she had mouth tapes to this day. And she's still, to this day, Maltape.

In fact, this past week we were in Vancouver. We forgot our Mouttape. And she had not the best quality sleep and was feeling groggy the next morning. And it was like, I can't wait to get back to L.A. and get back to our little cheap Moutht Tape that we use. Right. And I also want to say, you know, I had heard about Moutaping. I didn't get it until we did our first podcast together.

And even you said, look, try it. And I think I might even told you at the time I did try it. and I didn't notice a huge difference. And I think largely, I was sleeping pretty well. Then I personally feel that I, you know, I'm not going to go down the whole rabbit hole. I got invisaline done and the shape of my mouth changed. And I had a more likelihood of breathing through my mouth.

Interesting. And I also noticed I was grinding my teeth a lot. In all fairness, I don't think it was the invisaline. I think I was grinding a little bit before that. I went through kind of a stressful situation and time in my life. I was going from one company and selling it to go to another company. And I just started grinding my teeth at night. And then I think Invisaline made it a little bit worse.

Not that I'm putting this out there. This is my situation. Obviously, you know, Invisaline don't come after me. I don't even know if that was exactly it. But that was just something that was I was noticed going on at the time. It's probably related, but it's not a bad thing. The change of my, I was noticing there was a shifting in the shape of my mouth that was there. And so I was mouth breathing more.

And then I started regularly doing it. And I noticed an improvement, right? It wasn't as game changing for me as it was for my wife. Right. Because she was all night. Her mouth was open and her mouth was so dry in the morning. But it did help me improve my sleep a little bit. I mean, you're right.

Even if you can breathe your nose, our mouth does fall open at night. The Envisaline probably changed your lip posture. Remember, you have a small jaw like I do. Narrow jaw. And the teeth are, there's only so much room for the teeth. And as you widen them and get the teeth in position and uncrowed them, they do push out a little bit and that will change lip posture. Also, as you age, it's more likely that you're going to start mouth breathing. There are a lot of factors. Could be air pollution. Could be the amount of CO2 in your bedroom. Open your windows. Reduce that amount of CO2. Buy a device that measures CO2. That will increase your respiratory rate. This is all easily reproducible and measurable, even with a tracker like aura ring. Certainly with sleep studies, I've done over 250 sleep studies, not myself, but I've done several for myself, but for other patients. I've been there watching them. Put the mouth tape on myself while they were sleeping, you know, things like that.

Mouth taping is a very beneficial thing, and I think most people will notice it not when they introduce it into their sleep regimen, but when they take it away, and like in Vancouver, for example. And some people will say, well, it's because, of course, true, it's because you went into a different room. Maybe the windows didn't open in the hotel. Maybe it was a different mattress. I can tell you, this is reproducible at home. Take the mouth tape off, put it on. You'll see differences in heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygenation. It depends on to what degree you open your mouth and how narrow your airway is. And of course, if you have an allergy, or if you have a cold, all of that. I'm glad you're a proponent of mouth taping. The medical world hasn't quite

jumped on the bandwagon yet. In fact, I would say I probably know as a percentage, I know more percentage of doctors that mouth taped than dentists. Good. Awesome. Okay. That's good to hear. Including, you know, family members and other people and people that have been on this podcast. And, you know, dentistry, it takes time. It takes time. Yeah. It's not just a TikTok phenomenon. Yeah. There is a lot of science behind it. And it really does help. calm you. It actually increases parasympathetic tone. I mean, there's so many reasons you should mouth tape, even if you can breathe 100% through your nose properly. So you have a couple articles on this, mouth taping. I also have a guide to mouth taping, including kind of the mouth tape that I used today.

It's pretty cheap. There's some custom solutions that are out there, but there's also some pretty cheap solutions, some different silicone tapes that are out there that are used in sort of medical taping that I use today that are quite inexpensive. Exactly. So putting some of this together, You know, dental plaque is something that people are always focused on and they want to reduce dental plaque. Would you say that using these combination of things, and we'll have you do a quick recap, would those combinations of things help reduce dental plaque? We're talking about brushing, flossing, tongue scraping, mouth taping, eating the right diet. These are all factors. So the way I would rank them, if you are a mouth breather, I would say that's the number one.

That's the number one reason you're getting cavities and inflamed gums. The number one reason is because... If you're a mouth breather. If you're a mouth breathing. Because your mouth is open when you sleep and during the day, your body, your mouth doesn't have time to recover and adjust for pH. Okay, great. Give us a couple of the top reasons separate from mouth taping that people have gum disease

and cavities. Right. Number two or number one, let's say you are able to breathe your nose. Then the other major reason why you have oral disease, that includes. decay, of course, tooth decay, gum disease, bad breath, halitosis, is because of your diet. And again, I haven't mentioned flossing and brushing yet. That's number three. And then number four would be genetics, epigenetics.

And regarding the diet, from what I understand from your content, it's both the combination of what you are eating, but also what you're missing. Can you talk a little bit about that? That's very well said. So you really have to stay away from carbohydrates. Anything that is in a bag or it's processed, even if it's a healthy masa chip, I just had some over at heroin, a Masa chip made with beef tallow. That's a ground-up corn, and that's going to produce, that's going to feed the bacteria in your mouth to the point where they will overgrow.

And the bad bacteria are the ones that grow first and outgrow the good bacteria. That's how the oral microbiome works. You're not going to get rid of the bad bacteria. You're going to change how they're interacting. And if the good ones aren't in charge and modulating, the bad ones because the bad ones do have a purpose. But if they become the bullies in the community, then all hell breaks loose. So just to clarify here, because, you know, people are listening to you and they sometimes hear these statements like staying away from carbohydrates and they feel like they take it so literal. You know, we've gone to dinner together. Yep. Right. And you just mentioned before you came to this podcast studio, you went to Air One, which is a grocery store. Kind of like the mecca of

grocery stores. You'll spend your entire paycheck there easily. But you had a chip, right? You had an organic corn chip, a company called Mossai, I think it's called. It actually tastes great. I've had it before too. I loaded a lot of guacamole on it. Yeah. You know, dressed it with proteins and fat. I didn't, I, we don't have no, any affiliation. It's just a core brand. We'll link to in the show notes that people want to try it. So you still regularly eat some carbohydrates in your diet. Not regularly. Not regularly. You regularly. Well, what is your definition regularly? So every, I mean, my wife and I are, I mean, it's a paleo diet 90% of the time. Okay. So does that include, okay, so there's

types of carbohydrates, right? So sweet potato, purple skin, sweet potato is fine in moderation. Yeah. I think that the one area that even I might feel a little bit confused on that is that generally speaking, I've found that when people control for calories and they don't de-prioritize protein, they don't de-prioritize healthy fats and they're staying away from ultra-processed foods, Right. They, and that's kind of my diet right now, that they can actually tolerate if they're doing a lot of things. And even myself personally, I increased a little bit my carbohydrate intake when I started working out pretty rigorously. Right.

With a group here in Los Angeles called Ultimate Performance. And I noticed significant gains that were there. Now, the other part of it is because I regularly do my- Now, the gains were physically, though, right? Muscle mass. What else? Were there any games? I noticed that I just had better performance in the gym.

More energy. I had more energy. My muscle health improved, which also improved my lipids. I actually was eating a little bit more carbohydrates. I'm not talking about like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but I would do that sort of philosophy that people talk about, which is, you know, you earn your carbs. Right. Right.

And I noticed massive improvements in the gym. And also because I'm always concerned about lipids. I look at like, you know, I'm an investor, advisor to levels and continuous glucose monitor. And I want to make sure that I'm not having too many blood sugar fluctuations. So I'd make sure I have the right timing. I would do all the things that the glucose goddess talks about, dress your carbs up, just like you did with this chip. You put some fat on it, some protein.

And my fasting insulin was still staying in the optimal range, right? I think it went from like 2.83 to maybe like 3.5ish somewhere on there. slight increase, but that generally is considered optimal. Yes. Right. I've been going in for my regular dental appointments. Obviously, this has only been a year, right? So you might say that you haven't been able to see a shift.

I guess my only challenge is, is if we tell the entire population that's listening and kind of nodding their head along with us to avoid carbohydrates completely, it's such a hard thing to do. It is very hard. And 99% of people are not going to do it. And so I'm not saying you should change how you believe. I mean, you're, I'm asking you on this podcast to talk about what you believe and what you've seen. I just guess I worry that it's not going to be doable for everybody who's listening.

I mean, it depends on the carb. I see where you're coming from. I was a carboholic, but they were high quality carbs. That really wasn't working for me. Gave me a lot of energy. It was short-term energy. Then I kind of went through a fat-adapted phase, increased my protein in fats, lowered the carbs. I think the paleo diet is a great example of a good diet.

They're carbs in a paleo diet, but they're complex carbs like yams and tubers. But again, dressed up with a lot of meat and spices and antioxidants, a lot of foods with antioxidants in it. But typically it's protein powders in the morning with some monk fruit for me. It's eggs, sausages. Occasionally, I will do a wrap with a lot of meat in it with cornflower, tortilla, and you know, that's two tortillas. That's 20 grams of carbs. And then dinner is paleo. Maybe a piece of chocolate, 80%. I don't consider that to be much of a carb. Some fruit in your diet? Not a lot of fruit. I don't do a lot of fruit. My wife does a lot of fruit. No juices,

of course, because that's, I mean, if I would do it, I would do the fruit, the whole fruit instead. But, you know, if I'm at a restaurant, you know, we had some, we had a salad with, was it, pears or apricots and occasionally for special occasions. But my daily routine is low on carbs. And I do worry. I mean, I haven't had a cavity in 20 years. But the last cavity was a healthy rice snack, was caused by a healthy rice snack from Japan with no industrial seed oils. and that instantaneously. You had a rice snack and you had a cavity right after.

It was within six months. Yeah. Really? Yes. Right. Well, I mean, I haven't had knock on wood. I haven't had any new cavities. I get my, you know, I probably do in the next few weeks for another one.

I've kind of changed my mind on fruit, you know. I think I was on that sort of being a little bit worried about fruit because so many people are talking about it. But I generally find fruit to be way more digestible. right then I still eat a lot of vegetables too and I eat fermented foods but I often find that I prefer getting my fiber from fruit and I've been doing that over the last year I've kind of up my fruit intake I feel better I try to eat a large variety of fruit that's there yep I'm not a fruitarian I still get my protein I do all my other things my fats but I kind of used to minimize fruit before

now I don't eat there's a great article in the Wall Street Journal talking about how you know it's not just you, the fruit is actually getting more sweetened and sugary. So I try to make sure that I get a large variety. I stick to the lower glycemic fruits, things like kiwi. You know, I love eating kiwi. Kiwi's great. You know, vitamin C. Yeah.

And but I, you know, knowing how important the gut microbiome is and how much polyphenols from our fruit are a big part of that. I'm worried about the opposite impact from talking to a lot of people like Dr. William Lee. even Dr. Mark Hyman has kind of changed his mind a little bit and sort of telling people to, you know, have fruit generously, right, within the context of paying attention. And largely what's driving our metabolic health crisis, it's not fruit, right? Because people barely, if you look at the stats, like people aren't eating fruit, they're eating french fries, potatoes, corns. They're not

eating fruit. They're eating orange juice, right? That's not really fruit, apple juice, but they're not eating whole fruit, which can be a really good source of polyphenols and dietary fiber. It's really going to be they're eating a lot of donuts. They're eating a lot of French fries. They're eating a lot of sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice that's there. And that's driving a lot of these challenges. My guess largely is that if people have a whole foods diet, they're staying away or minimizing ultra-processed foods. Then your carbon intake can fluctuate a little bit as long as you're prioritizing healthy protein and healthy fat that's there. Not to take away from how you eat. I always want people to share what they eat.

I just want to contextualize for my audience. Is there a little bit of wiggle room? There is wiggle room. Absolutely. Because most people here are actually eating pretty healthy. Right. They just need to dial a couple things in. Well, Drew, here's the beauty of it.

We can test our oral microbiome. And when you get the test results, it tells you if you are prone to getting cavities. And, you know, if you push the limits a little bit and you're eating what you think are great carbs and some fruit and your cavity score is low, that's fine by me. I mean, that's the, I'm just staying well beyond the limits because I've had some cavities and I certainly don't want to get a root canal and that's where a deep cavity eventually leads to. So let's talk about some of this testing. So in all the disclosures that are there, this is a company called Bristle. Right. You are an advisor to them.

I am an advisor to them. You're also an investor. Yes. Great. You believe in it. Totally. I'm an advisor investor to a lot of things in there. I don't invest in much.

I don't invest in much, but this one I couldn't let go. So it's just always good for people to understand. Totally. You guys were very kind enough. I typically pay for everything. You guys are very kind enough to send me this test. I did it. And so basically this requires you building up some saliva first thing in the morning before you brush.

Yes. Right. Because toothpaste will alter that biome. And then spitting into like a little tube. No difference in like a DNA test that people do. And then you mail that in. Yes. And then so we're going to be sharing this on YouTube,

but we can put the link to the screenshot in the show notes if you want to see it. I'm a big fan of transparency. So whether my test results are good, whether my test results are bad, I share my metabolic labs, my heart test, which had some interesting, you know, results that were there. So talk to us big picture. How is this broken down and what is this test looking at? So you're looking at the test results of bristle after spitting. You got the results back in about a week or two. Yeah, about a week. And it's a sampling of saliva, the oral microbiome and the saliva, not in other parts of the mouth, but the good news is that saliva, That's its job. It samples the outside environment and it contains most of the oral microbiome. So it's an easy test. It's easy to get the results. How much does it cost? It's about 100 bucks. 100 bucks? Okay. Not too bad. There's a volume discount. And it's a metagenomic shotgun type of test. In other words, it's looking for everything.

It's the first oral microbiome test that does that. So it's very high resolution in that regard. and all the other tests that we've had are just looking for keynote speakers kind of thing, like just the main players. Yeah, this is looking at a lot more bacteria. It's looking at maybe five or ten bugs, and if they're present, you know, the practitioner will get very excited,

but that's not the full picture. That's not how the oral microbiome works because they're always present. And then it compares, I mean, there's raw data available in your test, by the way, and I would tell you not to look at the raw data because it won't mean much to you, but that raw data is available to your,

practitioner in case they want to see it. So this is a test that most people will know about before their dentist knows about. So I would encourage you. You can buy it online. It's a direct to consumer test. Direct to consumer tests. Go get it done. Get the information and share the results with your dentist. He or she may not know how to do with it, but it could enlarge there and expand their practice. And so for people who aren't looking on YouTube, it's broken down into a few quadrants. And we'll kind of go through these. And each of these quadrants underneath it has some rankings. And those rankings show you as high, moderate, or low, right? It's color-coded.

And there's the ones that are in the health-related. So those are the ones that we want high or moderate versions. Right. That's oral health-related. Oral health-related. And then there's the disease-related. Right. And I have one flag.

We're going to talk about this regarding gum inflammation. And then there are scores. The scores. I mean, they make an assumption scientifically based on the numbers. And they give you a score for heliotic. Soon there will be a score for nitric oxide, although this is indirectly related to helotosis. If you do have helotosis, then your oral microbiome on the back of the tongue is making more

ammonia and that takes away from the nitric oxide that it should be making. So indirectly, that's kind of an NO score. We'll have an Alzheimer's score. Health related, we have a breakdown of a few different types of what looks like commensal is a type of bacteria. Yes, right? Right. So mine scored as 8.4 out of 10.

Is that good? That's very good. That's very good. So what does this mean? Do you want the commensals? Commensals are the bacteria that are doing all the heavy lifting for you. They are doing a lot of, I mean, they're, they're helping modulate. They are, they're doing, it's community service. That's how I remember, commensal community service. Exactly. They are wonderful bugs and they keep everything under control. They crowd out the bad stuff. They crowd out the bad stuff or they will redirect what the bad stuff does. It's not necessarily. just crowding out. It's redirecting. Yeah, they're almost like conductors. Exactly. Right? We've heard that about the gut microbiome, but there's these certain flagship ones like Acrimancia. Exactly. They're conducting and they're telling other bacteria what to do, which is crazy. They need to be able to survive. I mean, they need to have the right foods and the

right environment to be there. When the commensal score is low, typically your other scores will go down or up depending on like tooth decay, that score will go up. The gut impact will go up. And then diversity Which is the next one, diversity. Right. I scored a little lower. Yeah, too much diversity. That's not bad, but too much diversity is bad.

That was new to me speaking to the researchers and that was interesting. And kids, actually, the oral microbiome of kids, they have too much diversity. It's almost like their oral microbiome is trying to figure out, and it's the same thing with their gut microbiome.

And of course, they're putting a lot of things in their mouth and their bodies. Licking pets. Exactly, right. They're licking the floors and whatever. someone else's spoon and of course oral microbiomes are contagious and can be shared to detriment but also to benefit. But so kids will have a high diversity score and then a lot of adults will have a low diversity

score and that will change the color. It will go to orange and then red and that's bad. So diversity kind of fits into the commensal score. You need to have diversity. I mean, like any other. How do we know what a good mouth looks like? Right. Right.

What's the benchmark? mark of data that this is being compared against. Like, how do we know what is like a gold standard of what a good mouth oral microbiome should look like? It's a good question. And the answer is, we don't know. I mean, that's the, I mean, we don't know what a good gut microbiome should be. We have an idea.

We have certain scores. We have certain bugs that we want to see in certain levels. Here's the problem. There's a lot of diversity from person to person. Your oral microbiome is going to be a lot different than. my oral macro biome. And they may both be very commensal or symbiotic. They may be working. And it's the same thing with any biome in the body. So we don't have a standard. We do have something we look for and we look for certain populations and a ratio of like a pigeon javelis to like

a fuzobacterium or I mean, because they they don't contradict each other. They work well together unless one is under attack or if it's not present. And then the other, one becomes a bully. So you're looking for like flagship strains. Yes. Enough of what we know is generally good. Yes. Not too much of what we know is bad.

Right. Or associated with negative aspects. Right. And then as the data set increases, there'll be more and more refinement on the way that it's being presented. Right. And of course, Bristol is, you know, collecting a lot of data. And the more they collect, the more they know what is a functional, well acting, well,

behaving bio. Let's talk about nitrate reduction and then we'll go to disease related because I know that a lot of people will be very curious about the disease related. So you did very well on that and that's where most people, that's typically where most people

will get a lower score. Assuming if you're coming from health, that's the first thing that pops up. And nitrate reduction essentially is a reduction of nitrates and food. Let's take a beet or arugula salad and there are bacteria on the back of the mouth. They're also in the nasal membrane and the nasal mucosa.

They reduce nitrate and turn it into nitrite. And the nitrite is the building block for nitric oxide. So the better you are in this score, typically the higher nitric oxide production. Yes. Lower your blood pressure will be, for example. The better your breath will smell. I mean, the longer you will live. I mean, that's a longevity substance.

Yeah. So this is way bigger, just so people get it. This is way bigger than I even hate saying this just oral health. Right, I know, but it's true. That's how we look at it. But that oral health is part of the entire health. It's not just a little niche in the body that can be treated and viewed by a specialist called the dentist. I mean, it really should be viewed by any healthcare practitioner.

Yeah. Okay, take us to the disease related. Let's go through each topic, including the one that I didn't score as well on. Yeah. So halitosis was added after the fact, and it was added because people love that score. It's on top, in fact. and people want to know if they have bad breath or not. I mean, I would just say, ask someone, you know, breathe, breathe into their face and find out, ask your dentist.

Is there a coating on your tongue? But this is a helpful score. This helps people get interested in testing. And of course, that has benefit as well. So you did well. It's a, you want to be on the low side. And you have a two out of ten. Yeah, you have a very low likelihood of getting health doses.

What was your score? Mine was higher. Mine was, I think it was like four. And that, so when I, we got to get some more polyphenols in the dye. Well, I wasn't tongue scraping back then. I wasn't tongue scraping. So I'm going to test again and I will report back to you. But here's what happened.

So I took the test early on and they didn't have the halitosis score. And I got all green. And of course that affirmed everything that I've been talking about and made me feel very good. And then after the fact, and this is the great thing about this company is they're going to be adding scores. And retroactively, you will get that information sent to you in your email. Alzheimer's score. Exactly, right. So my halitosis score came back and I was like, damn, really, okay. So tongue scraping. That's, I mean, I was eating well. So you're going to retest soon and I will retest soon. Great. And, you know, I mean, I started tongue scraping and there was stuff coming

off the tongue scraper. And so that, we'll see. I mean, it could, it's usually multifactorial. It could very well be diet. Certainly, that's the case in most cases. So gum inflammation. That's the next category. You got a moderate score. And I scored yellow, which is. moderate, and a 3.8 out of 10. Right. So what's going on here? And what could be going on in my life, knowing everything that you kind of know, that is leading to me having slightly higher level of gum inflammation?

Probably an elevation in P. Gingalas, but there's certainly about seven, eight, nine other bugs that when they see a rise in it, you can look in the raw data if you want to see what those bugs are. Well, they have them right there. That is a indication that your oral microbiome is slightly dysbiotic. I mean, it is diseased, and that is something that we should all be aware of. If there is a likelihood that your gums will be inflamed, I mean, when you floss, do you see any blood in the sink? I don't see any blood.

Okay. So that's good. It doesn't mean that you have bleeding gums, but it means you have the bacteria that makes you more likely or predisposed to having bleeding gums. So that could be genetic, but you have it well under control because you have an optimal diet, you're exercising, your NO levels are high. your resting glucose is low. There's a link between gum disease, bleeding gums and diabetes and insulin resistance. So you've got that all under control, so you shouldn't worry. But it's good to know that you were inclined to have that. My wife had an elevated gingerly bleeding score. So here I have a couple bacteria. I don't even want to try to pronounce them. Oh, they're tough. But some of these are associated with gum inflammation. Now, what should I be looking out for the next time that I'm with my dentist, who obviously is very supportive of these types of tests in the

conversation we're having today, Dr. Roshian. By the way, if you're in the L.A. area or Southern California, she's definitely worth a visit. We'll link to her in the show notes below. What could I mention to her to take a look at? Is there anything that she could look at to see if my inflammation is getting worse or if it's getting better? Right. It's a great question. And she knows what to look for. And that's what we've been looking at for decades, or actually centuries in the profession, is bleeding upon provocation, depth of the pocket. That's the breakdown of the peridonal ligament. That's how deep your pockets are, that little moat around each tooth. It would be morphology of the gum tissue.

That's stuff that all good dentists are looking for. Yeah. So I can mention to her, hey, look, I scored a little higher in the moderate category. How do I look compared to last time? Exactly. And anything that you want to have me pay attention to. And then it could be dialing in some of other factors that you mentioned, right? Could be flossing, brushing, brushing, could be tongue scraping, could be another oral microbiome niche in the rest of the mouth that's feeding this.

In other words, we're reading the saliva. So where is that bacterium? Is it on the gums or is it somewhere else in the mouth? So it's not a complete picture. It is the best picture we have right now in oral microbiome testing. But at least it warns you of a condition that could happen. A lot of people will get very high scores

and obviously they're bleeding and they've got gum resect. deep pockets, they have full-on gum disease. But for your dentist, definitely give them the raw data. Give them access to this. You can sign over this access. Give them a temporary password and they can look at it. And there are, in some cases, you do need to be aggressive with a dysbiotic or a microbiome. In other words, using what I said don't use on a routine basis, hydrogen peroxide, certain mouth rinses, very strong mouthwashes to reset the microbiome so that it can reform into a better state. So if you're getting deep cleanings, gum surgery, make sure you're also getting the complete picture here. Most dental work in regards to peridonal treatment is just that. It's the

mechanics of it, the surgeries, the deep cleaning, the scraping. This picture isn't, this data isn't part of the picture. I would also encourage you to get a CGM. If you're a dentist out there, a lot of dentists are-leukose monitor. Exactly. Get that on your patient and make sure, because there's this bidirectional connection between diabetes or being pre-diabetic or any kind of metabolic disorder and gum disease. So if you're being treated for gum disease, make sure you know where you stand elsewhere in terms of metabolic disorders because you're going to be wasting your time and money and a lot of chair time by getting dental treatment when it's connected to things that can trigger and feed the inflammation in the mouth.

Let's go back up to the top, Tessa, if we could. And, okay, great. So the disease related. Yep. We talked about halitosis, which, by the way, one thing about halitosis that I want to mention, I've noticed this thing and I think there's a phenomenon. There's a term for it. I don't know what it's called.

But basically, if you have bad breath, you can't really smell it yourself. Yes. Right. What is this is called something? That's a habituation. Like you're used to that smell. Right. And so you don't think it smells bad.

And you cancel it. Your body cancels it because it's used to it. Right. So you are not the judge for your bad breath. You have to ask someone else. You have to ask someone else. Yeah. Right. So the next one was tooth decay and there was gut impact. Talk about those big picture. On both of those, I scored low. Good. 1.9 out of 10 for two decay. Excellent. For gum impact, 2.3 out of 10. So what do these mean? By the way, I scored like 0.8 on tooth decay. Nice. Anyway, you know, it's everyone's different. Great score on the tooth decay and whatever you're doing, including citrus and fruits and vegetables and the amount of carbs that you're eating

should be fine. But if you add some carbs to your diet, I would test. I would test within six weeks of having added those carbs to see if there is a change to your flora, to your bio. So I have been on a little bit of an extra amount of carbs. Good. Right. And just so everybody understands, like we're talking about, you know, where I was previously very low carb. Right. Going out of my way to even avoid things like sweet potato and other stuff and whatnot. Not eating, you know, bread, not eating this. Like now, like this past weekend, I mentioned another podcast. Like, I had like a croissant.

I was in Vancouver. My buddy told me about this great place and I wanted to try it. So I had a croissant. It was delicious. When you went to Italy, you had some pasta. When I went to Italy, I had pasta. I'm not against that, by the way. And on a more regular basis, like primarily and the form that I really like is like before

I know I'm having a heavy workout. I have usually a little bit of sushi, right? I'll go to, you know, usually air one or someplace. I'll have a little bit of rice. I'll have some, you know, fish that's there. Or I'll have a bowl that might have a serving of rice inside of it. And that's kind of my preferred method. And I genuinely have noticed a huge difference.

And I probably will do that at least, you know, a few times a week, you know, three to four times a week, depending on when I have a hard workout. Right. But again, you know, I think that there's all sorts of variation that I've seen. But I like to talk about my own journey because I've been sharing it with my podcast community and also reminding people, I'm definitely not an expert. And that's why I have so many different people on here who have different viewpoints. But I do want to share that I have kind of switched my approach a little bit.

And I feel like, you know, in combination, not just eating extra carbs on their own, it has helped me perform better in the gym and has been a part of my process. been there. So I've been doing that for about a year. So right now you would say from at least an oral microbiome standpoint, I can continue. And I would just continue to pay attention to it. Maybe it's a test that I do a couple times a year and see if there's any difference. Or if there's a change in your diet. If there's a change in my diet. Right. Exactly. So this, this test reflects a year of adding your new carbohydrate regimen, right, which is fine. And it had no gut impact as well. That's an indirect score. So there's a link between the oral microbeumptory

microbiome and the gut microbiome. It's bidirectional. I would say it's more from the mouth to the gut. You're swallowing a liter to a liter and a half of saliva a day. And in that saliva is a lot of NO nitric oxide, but also a lot of bugs. Some of them make it past the stomach. And that is important. It is seeding and feeding the gut. They are linked together. And there is an axis between the oral microbiome, the brain, and the gut. It's part of that axis. as well. So this is an indirect score. I think it's more than just assuming that if your oral microbiome is sound, that your gut's fine, they do look for certain specific bugs that are good to be swallowing for the gut, for the health of the gut. Yeah. So it's not a direct score. Like a lot of tests, you're looking for, you know, you're looking at the individual results, but you're really looking at themes. Yes, exactly. If you have a lot of things that are on the disease-related side, you have a lot of moderates, you have a lot of highs, and you have very poor health-related bacteria, diversity, nitric reduction, commensal bacteria that's there,

it's maybe that wake-up call that some people need through a test to see like, hey, maybe your dentist has told you and you've been seeing you've been getting cavities and other things, but if you stay on this road, you're really on the path to a lot of pain in the future. Does this report, because I haven't gone through the whole thing, does it provide also recommendations for people? It does. In fact, there's some coaching that you can take. take part in where a registered dental hygienist, having been trained by Bristol, having looked at

the raw data, will make some very specific recommendations down to the specific product. Maybe a lot of some stuff that we've talked about on today's spot. Exactly, a lot of it. That's great. But, I mean, oral microbiome testing is, I think it's huge for dentistry as the profession, because we've been saying the same thing over and over. We should be saying more, of course, but brush, floss. Oh, you know, they come in again in six months.

I've got another cavity. Well, you're just not doing a good job. There's a little bit of shaming going on. This empowers the patient because this is the data. This is better data than what a dentist can tell you because we're not testing. We're just looking at the results and your signs and symptoms. This is all in the prodromal phase of disease. You can see it before it happens.

That in the purest way is a functional approach to looking at health. And so and the fact that it's available to the public is, is wonderful. That's awesome. I highly recommend that whether you get it through your dentist or on your own, if you're having dental problems, quantify it. Yeah. Get testing down. Get tested, yeah.

Well, bristlehealth.com. I don't know if we have any special link or anything like that that we want to include it. I don't. But I have a link on my website. Yeah, we have a link on your website. So we'll link to that or people go to bristlehealth.com and they can check it out. I love just the democratization of health. Yes.

The more access that people have. Absolutely. And then everybody individually has to measure out because we don't all have unlimited budgets. We have to figure out, you know, what do we want to focus on? And really, if oral health is a main category for you, especially if you've been listening this far into the episode, it probably is. Yes. This could be a good test to get a chance to check out.

Mark, just a couple more things I want to talk about before we sort of do a little bit of a recap with our audience over here. You know, I mentioned to you that I had a video go just gangbusters viral. With my dentist, we've mentioned multiple times, Dr. Rosita Rostean. root canal. And it was on root canals. And it was talking about the fact that there is like all interventions, there's a cost-benefit analysis.

And when it comes to root canals, this dentist, my own dentist, the dentist for my mom as well, too, my sisters, we've been going to her now for almost 10 years since we've been in Los Angeles. There is advocacy work that she's doing to help people understand that a root canal is just not a benign thing that you just do and it has no consequences that are there. Right. And people should be informed. So first of all, you know a lot about this space.

Can you just recap to the audience about why people might want to be, you know, having a double take when it comes to root canals, not that it can't be used because there are situations where you have to bring it in. But what is it about root canals that are potentially something that we should be a little bit concerned about before jumping right into it. Right. Well, I'll cut right to the chase. A poorly done root canal or root canal that is done on a tooth that has fractures in it that weren't noticed by the dentist can take you down. I mean, sepsis, death. They can cause leaking internally of bacteria into your body. It's a systemic infection directly from the tooth itself.

It's a very difficult thing to do. It's very technique sensitive. And if it's not done properly or if it's done on a tooth that shouldn't be getting root canaled, it will fail, and those bacteria will change. Again, it's like a biome, and it will get into your bloodstream, and it will take out some of your organs. It will require that you take a series of very strong antibiotics that could lead to all sort of colitis or gut issues. Gut issues. And so root canals do have a bad reputation, unfortunately.

It doesn't mean that a root canal cannot work. There's actually a dentist here in LA that she's a specialist. She's an endodontist. That's a dentist that does just root canals. And that would be my recommendation is that if you're looking at a root canal, get a second opinion, first of all, because sometimes, you know, people jump to the gun. Obviously, a dentist wants to get you out of pain. Sometimes they do the wrong tooth.

It's hard to know which tooth is causing the pain. The need for root canals is based on pulpitus. We talked about it earlier, where the pulp inside the tooth is dying. It's inflamed. It goes through a phase of a lot of pain. Sometimes the pain will go away. Often it does because the tooth is dead, but the infection is still there. And a lot of patients and a lot of dentists will say, oh, everything's fine.

You survive that incident of pulpitus and the swelling went away. Well, then it gets you a year later. And all of a sudden, you're traveling, you're in a foreign country, and you've got a fever, and you've got a severe infection in other parts of your body from that one tooth. So it's important to get, I would say, C and endodontas, get pulp tested, get the tooth pulp tested, get a 3D image of it with an x-ray, don't rely on regular conventional dental x-rays, find out what the problem is, make sure that you have the tooth checked for fracturing. A lot of people will fall off, you know, the sidewalk or a horse or a trampoline. and when they fall, the blow is not to the face, but as they fall, their teeth are clenched,

and then the jarring motion is transmitted to the teeth. One tooth will kind of spider fracture. The way to see that is to shine a very bright light through the tooth. It's a transillumination device, very easy, inexpensive. Every dentist should have one. If there are fractures, no root canal will save that tooth. You'll have to extract it. But if the hard structure of the tooth is sound,

There's infected tissue in there. If it's removed properly, if you use lasers, ozone, these are all the newer techniques that this dentist here in L.A. is using. But not all dentists are using. We use chemicals. We use just little files that have serrations in them. We're pulling out that dead tissue. That's not enough.

You're leaving infected tissue behind. You really have to properly make sure that nothing is left in. Exactly. Just so people understand, a tooth is dead. Yes. Or is dying. you need to basically remove it, including the roots. But you got to make sure that that sort of cavitation, that little hole, that there's nothing left.

Right. Because if there is something left, it'll seep out. It can basically attract bacteria. Right. It can become infected. And that can cause all sorts of problems. We actually had, you know, a friend of mine many years ago that her multiple chemical sensitivity and some of her pots. like syndrome that she was dealing with. Ultimately, after working with a group of functional

medicine doctors and trying so many different things, lime, mold, this, that was connected back to a root canal that was massively infected because there was still some flesh that was left in. Exactly. And she had to go to a cavitation expert who then took it all out, opened it up, and disinfected it with ozone. And I didn't even know that that was a thing that this could even be possible. So really it's the awareness you're saying is that sometimes root canals have to happen. Would you say that they're generally in our world today? Are they overprescribed? Like there's over? They can be. I mean, you can overprescribe many ways. You can be greedy and do root canals because insurance covers 80% of it and then you have to crown the tooth. Is that common? Does that happen?

Hard to say. I would say it is common. It is common. There are dental sort of financial incentives that are these big chains and, oh, there's certainly incentives. But a functional dentist, you know, someone that you've been going to for a long time, typically they won't take advantage of you like that. Right. They're going to do the right thing because you're in pain. Right. I mean, private equity is.

But the question is that many of them feel, what percentage of dentists have you had to guess, right? That are properly know how to do a root canal. A root canal. That are in the larger category because pretty much every single dentist will do the root canals themselves. Well, don't. Because they know it's difficult to do. Okay, got it. And certain teeth are almost impossible to get right unless you have a microsephersonal.

You have a microscope. So they'll refer you out. Yeah, they'll refer you out to an endodontist. But, you know, look, get a second opinion. Get pulp tested. Get that 3D image. Make sure you're seeing an endodontist. Maybe get a second opinion from another endodontist.

Make sure there's a $30,000 microscope on wheels sitting in the corner. That's the best way to do it. Make sure they're using laser and ozone, all the latest techniques. And going back to the recommendations you shared earlier, another reason that people end up having cracked teeth that can lead to a root canal is grinding. Yes. grinding in the mouth with which mouth taping can help with that. And some of the other components of just having good oral health to maintain. If there are fractures in the teeth, root canal could delay the loss of that structure,

but it could also complicate things. Certainly if it's from an acute moment, a fracture from an accident or a blow to the face. So root canal is hard tricky. I hate to admit that as a dentist, but I think in dental school, you're told that it's, A fantastic way to be able to save a dying or dead tooth. I mean, in medicine, can we save dead tissue? No, we usually cut it out. But the tooth is a unique structure.

It is, has a hard shell. It's the only, I mean, you wouldn't do that to bone because there's bone marrow inside there. It's, and bone is living. Enamel is inert. So it has that outer structure. Can it survive in the mouth if it's sealed off from the rest of the body? Theoretically, yes. Practically, there are a lot of problems with it.

Absolutely. And obviously the other alternative, which a lot of people don't want to do is you have to replace that tooth. Exactly. Taking the tooth out has its issues as well. And implants are far from perfect. You can get gum disease, peri implantitis around an implant. They don't connect the same way as teeth do to the jawbone. I'm not saying you shouldn't get an implant. But try and hang on to that tooth if you can. A natural tooth, whether it's alive or dead. If it's dead, hopefully it's cleaned out and it's sealed off. That still has that soft tooth. tissue ligament attachment to the jawbone. It still moves a little bit. You can still feel pressure on the tooth. Can't do that with an implant. Mark, this has been fantastic.

You've given us so many recommendations. We've had a nice, healthy back and forth on dietary approaches, which was great. You walked my audience and me through my bristle health test results, a nice direct-to-consumer test that people can find and have access to if they want to look at the health of their oral microbiome. and you gave some practical solutions to help us not only take care of our teeth, which we need our teeth into our old age, to chew, to have good gut health, to have all these different aspects, but also preserve our oral microbiome because a healthy mouth and healthy teeth

is directly tied to longevity. And you've made that super clear. I want to thank you for breaking all that down on today's episode. It's always such a pleasure to chat with you. And I also recommend to people. We've done a few other podcasts together. We did one where we've highly focused on moutaping, which we're linked to in the show notes. And we also did one. We talked about fluoride in particular and the dangers, especially around kids with fluoride that we'll link to as well. Before we go into your world and we talk about the different things that you have going on that people can keep in touch with, any final and lasting messages for our audience. Well, thank you for having me on the podcast again. And for your interest in the

oral health. It's not always a thing. And oral health, hopefully in this discussion, we can all agree that oral health is a big player in overall health, not just longevity, but in the quality of your life. You know, I really don't have anything to add other than you scrape your tongue, take interest in your mouth, smile, stay away from toxins, see the right dentist. I mean, all the things we talked about. There are things that you can do at home that are simple and easy. There are things that you can take out of your routine, like mouthwash. Don't spend the money in time. It's just, it can really make things a lot worse for you. I mean, high blood pressure. Who wants that? And by the way, when your blood pressure goes up, guess what? Your gum start receding. The blood supply

in that tissue is so fragile and so tiny. It's a microvasculature. It's a peripheral blood supply. When the blood pressure goes up, those parts of the body with like kidneys, same thing, small blood supply, they necros, they die. And when the gum tissue dies at the edge, it recedes. So there are a lot of ways that oral health can impact your life in general. So, and again, thanks for allowing me to talk about oral health as it relates to systemic health. You have a ton of great resources that are out there. First and foremost, people can always go to your website, ask the dentist.com. and they can find a directory that has a list of many practitioners around the world, as we mentioned

earlier, that are in this functional dentistry 3.0 sort of space. You are very active on social media. Ask the dentist is the handle. People can follow you on Instagram where you're probably most active. You have a book called The Eighth Hour Sleep Paradox, which will link in the show notes. Do you want to say something about the book? Book is, I'm very proud of it. It's still very popular. It's just kind of a self-help book after my wife and I discovered that we had sleep apnea and both being in the profession, Roseanne, not in dentistry, but in health care in general, and we found it very difficult to navigate that whole sleep apnea cycle. So just would love to update that book and lots of new data there, new ways to deal with sleep. Amazing. You also have a guide

for kids and cavity. Yes. I think it's called cavity-free kids. Right. So parents can look at that. That's very popular. That's very frustrating for parents. They are, they take all of our advice on Instagram or on our website and then they go in and they get that first report from the dentist, three, four, five, six, seven, eight cavities. And it's a very difficult thing to deal with. And they literally are in tears and they're upset. And then of course the kids have to go through that procedure. So it's a great way to get all the information in one area. We also have a lot of continuing education for other providers. We're beginning to get into that realm where they actually get continuing education credits and start teaching this new younger wave of dentists that you were referring to. We've got to let the other ones, not die, as Max Planck was saying, but retire.

Yeah, just sort of is clear. Exactly. That's the natural progress of life and death. Exactly, right. We're not trying to accelerate that in any way. We're trying to delay it, actually. Delay it. We want them to live longer as well, too.

But happily, retired. Yes, happily. Anything else that I didn't, that I didn't think of it. Amazing. And you might have some future special projects. We'll have you back on to talk about those things. So we're excited about that. And for Dennis as well.

Incredible. And we're just trying to make change happen and improve the whole oral care and oral product space. So thanks again for supporting oral health. Mark, thank you for being a beacon and a guiding light in this complicated, sometimes it feels to be able, but you're making it simple and straightforward. space of oral and dental health. I appreciate your brother, and I'm honored to call you a friend. Thank you, Drew.

Same. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button

on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. Share with a friend

who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called

Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says, try this.