Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2557: Heal Your Cavities & Fix Your Teeth With Functional Dentistry: Dr. Staci Whitman

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Heal Your Cavities & Fix Your Teeth with Functional Dentistry Dr. Staci Whitman Functional vs. Conventional dentistry. (1:48) Can you change the microbiome to be more positive for oral health? (5:26) Are cavities reversible? (11:59) Is dentistry a scam? (13:58) Why have wisdom teeth become a problem? (21:01) Why dentistry would be DEAD if Big Food changed. (28:20) Should we avoid fluoride? (30:32) How bad is mouthwash? (41:38) My gums bleed, what should I do? (45:06) Why you can’t have a healthy mouth without a healthy gut. (49:57) I grind my teeth, what does that mean? (51:00) Peptides and oral health. (53:03) What’s the deal with Tom’s? (53:57) How developed is the field of Functional Dentistry? (58:00) What motivated her to move outside conventional dentistry? (1:00:46) Anything we can do exercise-wise to strengthen our teeth? (1:03:52) Bad breath and drug use. (1:06:39) Why she is not a fan of juice. (1:08:50) Milk is good for oral health. (1:12:50) What is the biggest pushback she gets from her colleagues? (1:14:07) The history of water fluoridation. (1:16:54) Is she hopeful about the government’s direction? (1:22:04) The top 5 holistic approaches to good oral hygiene. (1:24:13) Feed Your Good Guys. (1:30:03) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Feed Your Good Guys (FYGG) for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP20 at checkout for 20% off**  Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code 25MINDPUMP at checkout for 25% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic** March Promotion: MAPS Performance or MAPS Performance Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** Welcome to The Institute for Functional Dentistry New study says chewing may have played a vital role in human evolution Baby-led weaning: When to start, foods to serve, and more Home - The Weston A. Price Foundation Fact Sheet - Fluoride Action Network Hydroxyapatite benefits, dosage, and side effects - Examine Hydroxyapatite Vs. Fluoride: How Do They Compare? Eighty Percent of Americans Have Gum Disease, Oh My! The Dental Diet: The Surprising Link between Your Teeth, Real Food, and Life-Changing Natural Health Myo Munchee Functional Dentist REVEALS the Shocking Truth About FLUORIDE | Dr. Staci Whitman Kisses Transfer 80 Million Bacteria, New Study Reveals Bristle Oral Microbiome Health Test Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Dr. Anastacia ("Staci") Whitman (@doctor_staci) Instagram In Person Visits:  nopokids.com Website Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral) Instagram Mark Hyman, M.D. (@drmarkhyman) Instagram Steven Lin (@drstevenlin) Instagram Vani Hari | Food Babe (@thefoodbabe) Instagram Dr. Mark Burhenne | Dentist (@askthedentist) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump. Today's episode is awesome. We have Dr. Stacy Whitman on. She's a functional dentist. Today's episode she talks about how you can heal your cavities. Your teeth can actually

heal their cavities and you can fix your mouth and change your teeth without many of the modern methods. Now by the way she's a real dentist but she's one of the few dentists that also does functional dentistry. This episode blew my mind. I have a completely different view on oral health and techniques now because of this one of my favorite interviews You're gonna love this by the way. She has a line of mouth care products called feed your good guys It's an oral microbiome supportive oral health care line You can find them at F Y GG calm use the code mind pump 20. You'll get 20% off You can also find dr

Stacy at dr stacy calm Stacy is spelled STA CI you can also find her on Instagram at dr underscore Stacy STA CI by the way this episode is brought to you by some sponsors seed the world's best probiotic we love them as a probiotics the best one so only one I take every single day Go to our link seed.com forward slash mind pump use the code to five mind pump That'll give you 25% off your first month's order of seeds daily symbiotic We also have a sale this month maps performance and maps performance advanced both 50% off You can find them both at maps fitness productscom, but you have to use the code MARCH50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show.

Dr. Stacey Whitman, thanks for coming on. Hello. The show, yeah. We met you at the functional medicine event by Dr. Cabral. Dr. Cabral's event, yeah. And Justin was sitting at your table. Yes. And Justin is typically not the one of us that's like, we've got to get this person on the show.

Sometimes he is, but usually it's either Adam or Adam. He's like, you need to meet this woman. And I'd never heard of a, I didn't know that there was functional dentistry. I know functional medicine. And when he said she does functional dentistry, my, I was like- So unique, yeah.

And I was like, oh, of course, because you have functional medicine, why not functional? So can you explain functional dentistry to our audience? Like what's the difference between that and like conventional dentistry? Yeah, great question. Thank you, Justin. That was fun, by the way.

You had a great night. So it's unfortunate that the mouth has been separated from the body. I mean, it should just be functional medicine all inclusively, but dentistry went this way, medicine went that way. That's a whole separate story. But like functional medicine, functional dentistry looks at root causes. So why do you have oral disease? Why do you have imbalances in your mouth? Traditional dentistry, you know, you go in, they look

at the x-rays and they tell you who have gum disease, come back for cleaning, or you have cavities come back for filling. So it's dealing with end stage disease. I like to think of conventional dentistry a little more surgical. You're fixing the issue, something that's kind of a full blown fire. But functional dentistry wants to know the why. So why do you have oral dysbiosis or imbalances in your bacteria? Why do you have bleeding gums? Why do you keep getting cavities? And it's not just your diet and hygiene. We know there's a lot of intricacies from the oral systemic connection. So the mouth is the gateway into the body.

So we can see nutritional deficiencies. There's gene snips, how you're breathing. We do a lot more lab work. We test the oral microbiome. So just like you test the gut microbiome, you can test the oral microbiome, vitamin D deficiency, micronutrient deficiencies, gluten sensitivity, celiac, all of these things can be tied back to oral health. And so we want to help prevent, it's essentially preventative medicine. We want to help prevent oral disease because most oral disease is truly preventable.

However, we've normalized it because it's so common. Wow, okay, so let's talk about- How far back does the origin go? When did we make this decision that someone needs to intervene and create some sort of functional dentistry when we were heading that direction? When did that happen?

When did functional dentistry happen? Gosh, that's a great question. Functional medicine came about in the 1990s. Dr. Jeffrey Bland was the pioneer there. We've heard of Dr. Mark Hyman, of course, and there's the Institute for Functional Dentistry. But I'd say it's been evolution since then, since that became kind of a normal term. But it's most people still haven't heard of it, right? So it's kind of still up and coming.

It's more prevalent on social media, but there aren't many of us out there looking at oral health this way. Yeah. And I have actually co-founded the Institute for Functional Dentistry, which is launching this summer. And it, we're, we're affiliate partners with

the Institute for Functional Medicine because what the issue is, anyone can call themselves anything but there's no standardized training right now or certification. And so unfortunately for the consumer, for patients, you think you're going to someone that's thinking differently or practicing differently but maybe they're not really because they're just no standardization. So we're trying to work on that to correct that but I'd say it's fairly new. Yeah. Let's talk about cavities for a second because that's one no standardization. So we're trying to work on that to correct that. But I'd say it's fairly new. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Let's talk about cavities for a second, because that's one of the more common things that people are familiar with. So as a personal example, my parents couldn't be any more different with how their teeth, I guess, react or respond to their environment. My mom, very cavity prone.

My father, he grew up very poor, Sicilian, didn't even have a toothbrush growing up. When he came to this country, dentists did not believe that he'd never been to a dentist and couldn't believe that he'd never got braces, never had a cavity. And then you have me and my siblings where I am not cavity prone whatsoever and my sister was getting cavities left and right, we ate the same diet. I'm assuming that has to do with the microbiome of our mouth more than anything. Okay, what's going on there and how do you change that? Or what are the things you can do to change the microbiome

to be, I guess, more positive for oral health? Yeah, there could be a few things at play. So the quality of your enamel matters, you know, how mineralized are your teeth. We are seeing an uptick in under mineralized teeth in children now. It's something called hypoplastic enamel and that essentially is if it's dealing with baby teeth that usually happens in utero and if it's adult permanent teeth that's usually in the first formative years kind of zero through eight years old or ten. Theories are it can be due to environmental toxins or exposures but we're very mineral deficient, we're vitamin D deficient, our soils depleted. So this is

epigenetic generation after generation after generation so we are seeing alterations in the actual enamel integrity. It can be from mold exposure, it can be from a high fever, where you want antibiotics, you know, was there some sort of event that affected enamel formation? Microplastics are now being linked to issues with enamel formation because amelogenesis or enamel formation, it's hormone driven, so endocrine disruption. Microbiome does make a difference too. When I hear that though, this sibling does this, this sibling does that, one gets cavities,

one doesn't, the first thing I think of is mouth breathing. This is an important thing that we can get into, but airway health and how you're breathing significantly impacts your oral health. So if you are a mouth breather, your mouth will dry out. Your saliva is very protective of your teeth. It contains nutrients, enzymes, immune cells, hydroxyapatite, calcium, phosphorus, things that are needed to neutralize and buffer and restore your enamel health. And also the pH drop, so your mouth is constantly acidic if you breathe through your mouth.

So often I wonder, are you a mouth breather? Do you have sleep disorder breathing? Do you have sleep apnea? Okay. And those can have profound downstream effects for the systemic health also. But yes, the oral microbiome could be at play as well. If you mouth breathe, your oral microbiome will also be different. It will be more prone to pathogens.

Pathogenic bacteria love acid. Healthy bacteria love more of a neutral salivary content or even alkaline. But the only way to know really is to test. So there is salivary analysis or oral microbiome testing. It could also be gut health imbalances. If you have intestinal permeability, you're not going to be absorbing nutrients appropriately. Are you dehydrated?

So there's a lot that can go into it, and this is part of functional dentistry is that we would do a workup in the patient to try to say, well, why does your sister get cavities all the time and you don't when you have similar diets and hygiene practices. The other thing too, is many people think they're eating similarly, but they're actually

not. And it's not only foods that we eat, but it's eating frequency. This is something many people don't realize, but anytime you eat or put anything in your mouth aside from water, arguably, your mouth pH and microbiome will shift and change. So we want to make sure that we're timing things appropriately.

So we tend to be a society where we snack and graze and sip all day. So just like we need to be giving our gut a rest, you know, we're supposed to not be eating all the time, you're supposed to be giving our gut a rest, you know, we're supposed to not be eating all the time, you're supposed to be giving your mouth a rest too. And so eating more on a schedule is very important because if you're constantly sipping and stacking, your mouth is constantly acidic. So the acidity helps with food degradation. So it's part of the digestive process, you know, enzymes are released to break food down. This is normal, but if we wait, our saliva will naturally buffer and raise the pH of our

mouth again. So we do, we are supposed to take pauses between eating and this is where the sipping on the frappuccino or, you know, snacking on those goldfish crackers, it really can make a big difference. So I'd be curious about eating frequency too. How long of a break do you typically recommend? Every two hours is ideal.

That can be hard with kids, but this is where protein comes in. You know, we really want a very high protein breakfast to start the day off light for blood sugar regulation. That's important with our children too. So many of our kids and you know, we're marketed to as busy parents, the goldfish

crackers, the Cheerios, the fermentable carbohydrates, that's trashing their oral microbiome, their pH, but also their blood sugar too. So, trying to- So there's truth to the whole like grains and sugar can cause cavities. Yes, flour is sugar in the mouth. So I think goldfish crackers are one of the worst things for teeth and is one of the top reasons that our kids have so many cavities. Oh, wow.

Cavities are the number one chronic disease globally in the world and it's almost entirely preventable, but we've normalized it. So 90% of people can raise their hand up in a room and say, I've had a cavity before. Think about if that was for any other disease. It may be like floored, but we're like, eh, it's a cavity.

You know, but our teeth aren't meant to degrade. Incestral humans, if you look back 10, 12,000 years ago, which wasn't that long ago, we didn't really suffer from cavities. If you go to the Natural History Museum, you look at skulls, the teeth are pretty pristine. Now in areas where there may be, was higher fruit, access to fruit, maybe honey.

Yeah, you might have seen a couple cavities, but not the rampant decay that we see right now. They estimate 100,000 or 150,000 children undergo general anesthesia, have their teeth fixed a year in the United States. Now, is cavities, like, are they reversible in terms of them being able to heal, or is this practice of

getting drilled and then going through that even necessary? Or is it like, at what point do you have to intervene or would you say is probably a good idea? Yeah, great question. Cavities are reversible if caught early. So generally, so our mouth is constantly in a state of demineralization and remineralization, and that has to do with that acidity. Okay, so anytime we put anything into our mouth, our teeth will become demineralized. But then if we allow a break in the saliva to do its thing,

we will naturally remineralize. So if you catch a cavity still in the enamel, when it hasn't created an actual cavitation or a hole, you can fill that back in with minerals, specifically hydroxyapatite, or some people choose to use fluoride, which our teeth don't have fluoride in them naturally and we can get to this later, but that's where remineralization can come in. Now if the cavities are a little bit deeper through the enamel into the next layer of the tooth, which is called the dentin, it's a lot harder to reverse, but sometimes you can arrest it, which means just freeze it in time.

And this is a great strategy for kids because pediatric teeth fall out. They are important. I don't want to, you know, say we can ignore them, but to me, putting kid 150,000 children under anesthesia a year for teeth that do eventually fall out with the risks of anesthesia, and we're learning more and more about the potential risk to brain health, and also there are negative outcomes. Anesthesia generally is very safe, but I think we need more research about what it's doing to the brain, the developing brain.

but I think we need more research about what it's doing to the brain, the developing brain. And we just normalize just putting children under a sedation. So these are great strategies, in my opinion, to try to just delay, you know, kick the can until these teeth eventually fall out. I've been dying to have someone like you to explain. And I know you guys were, do you remember the story I told? So I made a big, so years ago I made a big stink on the podcast that I believe that dentistry is a big scam. And I told you the story. You said the same thing about chiropractors. That's a true story.

This happened to me and I feel like you can explain this. Like I'll, so growing up, we were very lucky if we got to see a dentist once every few years. Okay. And I went to the dentist. I'm young at this time. I'm probably 12 years old or so, give or take. Go to the dentist.

Dentist tells my mom that I have seven cavities. We don't have the funds to pay for that time. So mom says, well, that sucks to be you. Deal with the type of deal. Two years goes by. I don't see a dentist or anything like that As far as I know, I don't know what put potentially happened in my diet or what happened in the next two years But I go see a dentist two years later and I have zero cavities

So I that was the moment all of a sudden all this disbelief come in that this must be some sort of a scam Because I know I didn't go try and fix anything. I just went about my life and two years later, I eliminate seven cavities. How was that possible? Yeah. Ooh, lost my pack there. I'm not offended with your comments about dentistry.

So I will say, you know, dentists, I believe overall are a great profession while in tension, but even I think my own profession could be a bit of a scam too. I think we very much over treatment plan and part of this is our training. I don't blame the dentist, I blame the teaching institutions and the way we're educated because we're educated to only

deal with end stage disease. You need a cleaning, you need a filling, you need a root canal, you need an extraction, but what about all these metrics upstream to help the patient, you know, learn what happened, what went sideways, how can I heal this without you? Now I will say part of my practice is I get a lot of second, third and fourth plus opinions. And I will make a generalization that I think

a lot of dentists over treatment plan, especially in kids. So there are cavities that are really small, we call them incipient. And we could watch those, we could try to remineralize those, we could talk about changes in diet, hydration, eating frequency, breathing. I see cavities heal all of the time and remineralize in my practice. So also, I wonder if you truly had seven cavities. That would be my argument.

You may not have. And very often I have, I mean this is true, I have patients come in with a treatment plan. I see the actual physical printed out treatment plan and it's eight crowns, this is baby teeth, eight crowns in the baby teeth, they need crowns in the front or extractions, the child needs anesthesia. And there have been times I look at the x-rays and I look at the sheet and I look back and forth

and I ask my assistant, are you seeing what I'm seeing? And there's maybe a couple watches. Oh, gosh. So this is how I felt because I remember my mom at that time, I think if I was in pain or complaining, she would have done something about it. But I remember telling her like, I feel fine. I don't notice anything, I don't feel anything.

So it just seemed odd. It's just- Right, and I think we take ourselves a little too seriously. I mean, there is a difference too with adult teeth. I think we need to prioritize adult teeth if there is a cavity into the root canal system. If you get an abscess in adult tooth, that can lead to facial cellulitis, hospitalization, potentially death.

But when we're talking about baby teeth, I have never seen any of that, nor have there been case reports. And we have to think how many kids are walking this planet without access to care. Think about in Southeast Asia and Africa, all these places that just don't have routine dentistry like we do here in the United States. These kids probably, they're eating a Western diet. I'm sure they have cavities, but they eventually do fall out.

So you have, it's time and place, you know, if a child's in pain, um, if, if it's infecting, if it's affecting other things downstream, yeah, we should treat that. But I also believe we should treat that. But I also believe we should be giving patients an option. And this is where Dynastry fails also. You know, you're supposed to present treatment options, get informed consent.

So treatment option one, no treatment. I don't recommend that, but that is an option. Treatment two, we can take this conservative approach. We could try to arrest and remineralize. We could try to make shifts in hygiene, nutrition, et cetera. Treatment option three, we could just do fillings. The fillings may fail, but you know, do you want

to try them? Three, crowns. You know, like there should be tiers so a parent can decide or a patient if it's an adult. But dentistry tends to be like, you have to do this. You need a root canal. You need this, you know. So I do believe too, if you see 10 different dentists, you'll get about 10 different opinions.

Yeah, that's crazy. And not to be cynical, but there, there is a lot of insurance fraud out there. I mean, there is. I've worked at offices where it's been going on and, and that's not to say every dentist is practicing this way. Those are outliers. However, trust your instincts and there's a lot of wonderful providers out there. So if you just feel uneasy, trust your gut, go get a second opinion somewhere.

So I had another thing that happened to me, which again led to this attitude that I had towards dentistry, which was I, and this was in my adulthood, this wasn't even that long ago. I was drinking two rock stars a day in the morning when I was training these boot camp classes back in the day. This was like 10, 15 years ago, about 15 years ago now. And I actually, it started to get enough of a cavity where I could see the hole burrowing down. Went in, saw the dentist, dentist said,

"'Yeah, absolutely, you have that. And I said, okay, well, what could be some of the things causing it? And then I told her what I was doing. She was like, oh yeah, you probably should lay off the rock stars. So I said, okay, well, I'll come back, we'll fill this, I don't wanna do it right now,

it's not bothering me yet. And again, I'm still skeptical, so I thought, what happens if I just cut these out, really start flushing my mouth with water and stuff like that and avoid it for a while. And sure as shit, I did that and they healed themselves. I didn't have any problems anymore. Yeah, it probably was still in the enamel.

Okay, so that's a case where it hasn't penetrated deep enough. You took away, so rock star is extremely acidic. This is what we forgot. We think it's just soda, sugar, but it's acidity. Even sparkling water has a lower pH. So just being mindful of these things. Drinking with a straw can really help. That was actually her suggestion. If I couldn't break the habit, if you go back to it, at least use a straw.

Use a straw, yeah. It's not like super tough to drink water with a straw. However, your teeth- I avoided it all along. I did that for a while just so you know. Well, yeah. It will help with erosion, dental acid erosion and things like that. She also recommended, let's say if I was still doing it, she goes to drink, I think, a pH balance water in between

and flush. You could rinse with alkaline water or just baking soda and water. Okay. Cheap. So I remember, as a kid, I would say I was a teenager, they recommended that I pull out my wisdom teeth. Now as a kid, I'm just naturally rebellious, and so I remember thinking, this doesn't make any sense.

Why is everybody getting these teeth pulled out? How the hell did we do this before we pulled out wisdom? So I never got my wisdom teeth pulled out, which by the way, didn't bother me, I'm totally fine. What's the deal with that? Is it necessary? And if it is necessary, what happened to our mouth where wisdom teeth have become a problem? We've had them since, well, forever.

That's right. Great question. So this is part of functional dentistry too, is focusing on growth and development, facial development and airway. Okay. So you were right. Ancestrally, we had wisdom teeth in our jaws. They look great.

If you go to that Natural History Museum, look, count the teeth, you'll see wisdom teeth in there. They're perfect. This helped with mastication. You know, we were hunting and gathering and foraging. We needed to be able to chew properly with these big, big strong wide jaws. So what has happened in the past 12 to 10,000 years?

Well, the agricultural revolution happened. So we started farming corn and soy and wheat, okay? And then we moved away from hunter-gatherer to agrarian. And then the industrial revolution happened where we started milling and processing foods and adding sugar and adding flour. So this has so many health issues, you know, including cavities, oral microbiome changes, but we stopped chewing.

So we used to chew, we estimate about four hours a day and now we chew four minutes a day. Gogurt, Slurpees, Rock star, you know, just mushy. Yeah. Nuggets. That dramatic of a difference? Yeah. Over 12,000 to now.

This is what the anthropologists estimate. Holy smokes, that's a big difference. So chewing, it strengthens the jaws. It creates lateralized forces outwards. The same with breastfeeding. And so it grows the face, it grows the palate, grows the mid face, it grows the jaws wider. So form follows function, okay? In a battle between muscle and bone, muscle always wins, all right? So we're not chewing. And this isn't just our generation, this has been epigenetic, okay? So our jaws are shrinking. This is why we have so much

crowding. This is why we have so many airway issues. So if the jaws are small, it's just surface area, the teeth can't come in. They come in all crowded and rotated. Your wisdom teeth have no room to come in because your jaws are small. So to answer your question, do wisdom teeth need to come out or not?

It really depends on the individual. Do you still have optimized facial development and jaw development or do you not? Now, part of functional dynastry is to catch this early in kids. I can tell as young as a one-year-old that they're probably going to have jaw discrepancy issues and we intervene early. There's a phrase now fixed by sex. We want to start growing the face. We only have one opportunity to grow a face. And so if you intervene early, generally with retainer therapy,

sometimes myofunctional therapy, which is like physical therapy for the face, the mouth, the muscles of mastication breathing, you can course correct and you can get these kids optimized to technically how they should have been ancestrally. And so maybe they still won't have room for their wisdom teeth, but it's the best

shot, you know. And so the problem with wisdom teeth, you know, if they come in horizontally or impacted, they can get infected. They can cause resorption of the adjacent teeth. And sometimes if you're really stubborn and you're like, I'm never going to get my wisdom teeth out, they can take out the tooth next to it too. So just make sure you're seeing someone you trust

and this is a case to get a second opinion. Maybe work with a functional dentist or someone who looks at things differently. So my wife was really big, so she's really big in functional health and with our two little ones, with kids, with babies, you're constantly encouraged to give them mashed up food, never let them chew.

And my wife's like, no, no, they need to chew on things because it's good for their jaws. So she would give, and my kids are a little older now, two and four, but even when they were younger, she'd give my son or my daughter a lamb chop. And they would just chew on it. And I'd freak out because I'm like, you're gonna choke. She's like, they're not gonna pull anything off. And they would just chew on it. And I'd freak out because I'm like, you're going to choke.

What if they, she's like, they're not going to pull anything off. And they would just chew on it. So that's essentially what you're trying to do, right? Through that process is allow the, give some resistance so that it could grow properly. Well imagine what we know about the human body and muscle and skeletal system, what we know. Imagine something that was four hours a day going down to four minutes, how much that would atrophy any other part of your body that we're familiar with. If you reduced exercise and movement from four hours to four minutes, that is like-

Forget it. Yeah. So she had the right strategy with that. Serious atrophy and everything else. Oh, she's right. She's spot on. Thumbs up. I totally approve that message. So there's something called baby-led weaning, and that's when you're mostly introducing whole foods to your babies instead of purees. Some people do a blend.

I'm not in one camp or the other, but you want to make sure you're not presenting things that could be choking hazards. There's all kinds of books and blogs and things on this. But yes, I mean, introducing whole, real foods, getting away from the rice puffs and the go-gurts and the you know squeezy pouches can make a big difference. Unfortunately we are battling generations of this so you can throw everything you want to at it and your child may still have crowding and need interventive orthodontics, but at least you're trying to optimize it as best as possible.

Is this also the cause of braces? Yes. Okay. But the difference with braces, time and place for braces, but a lot of cases, and this is definitely contentious, so there's kind of functional orthodontics now and then conventional.

Functional orthodontics, I mean, we wanna start treating kids while they're still growing. Okay? Okay. functional orthodontics now and then conventional. Functional orthodontics, I mean, we want to start treating kids while they're still growing, okay? So we can manipulate and change the way they grow. And that's often again with retainer therapy. If you wait too late, most facial development is done around the age of 10, 11, 12. Well, traditional orthodontics, you usually wait

for all the baby teeth to fall out, it's adult teeth. You're not gonna change the face or the jaws. You're. For all the baby teeth to fall out, it's adult teeth, you're not going to change the face or the jaws. You're just moving teeth around to make them Hollywood aesthetic. And this is where you hear of people having to have their permanent teeth, like premolars, extracted. They call it four on the floor.

Wow. Four. And that makes a small jaw smaller. So while the teeth, yes, they line up and fit, the architecture of the jaws are even smaller. So we the teeth, yes, they line up and fit, the architecture of the jaws are even smaller. So we really want to try to find a dentist or an airway focused dentist that's helping your kids grow and start early. And it's very controversial at our dental conferences, but I will tell you the kids, my own included, both of them, we

started really early around four or five with retainer therapy. You can see it in their face. They just, they have more of that Hollywood aesthetic, the chiseled jaw, if you will, because we grew their face wider and their jaws wider, their teeth all fit. They're not getting any braces. They're nine and 11. So early intervention.

You know, again, upstream. This is functional. Yeah. So the first time I ever heard of anything like this was reading Dr. Weston A. Price and his observations. Now he talked more about diet, so he definitely contributed to some of this in his findings. He would go to these third world countries and he just noticed such strong straight teeth

and he's like, what's going on here? They don't have dentists. And no decay. And it was all about the diet. Yes, fat soluble vitamins. So A-D-E-K, which we're all deficient in because of our ultra processed food diet, minerals, magnesium, trace minerals, organs, organ blends, micronutrients.

We're just deficient in all of this now because our food, it's big food, you know, big food. Dentistry would be dead if big food changed. It is not a lack of flossing, it's not a lack of fluoride. I would argue, you know, it is so much about diet, everything, you know, and we need to be addressing it and that's the other thing.

It's really easy to blame the toothpaste or the fact that your patient's not brushing properly. But if you change the diet, if you eat a more ancestral diet, paleo, whatever, whatever you want it to be, less ultra processed foods, your decay rate, it almost becomes zero, truly. Wow. Wow. Because pathogenic bacteria feed on fermentable carbohydrates, that's sugar and flour. They don't feed on meat, dairy, vegetables, you could argue maybe a little bit of fruit, but I'm not going to villainize fruit. But our healthy bacteria like prebiotic fiber, just like the gut. So if you're feeding it those things, you're going to have a very healthy, robust oral microbiome.

If you're feeding it more pathogenically, like with ultra processed foods, flour sugars, that acidity preservatives, the food dyes, what are all those things doing at the oral microbiome? You know, they're shifting it, absolutely. And so I wish dentistry focused more on nutrition, but just like medicine, we don't get any nutritional training. And it's a nutritionally driven disease, essentially. And I'd say airway health too. You mentioned fluoride.

We just recently found out that fluoride in water looks like it lowers IQ. It lowers IQ, yeah. And you mentioned fluoride along with hydroxyapatite for remineralizing. What's the difference? Is one better? Should weineralizing. What's the difference? Is one better? Should we avoid fluoride?

What's the deal? Okay, buckle up. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna go back. I was trained traditionally. Every dentist is trained. Fluoride, fluoride, fluoride. You get fluoride, you get fluoride.

Don't even question it. Everybody gets fluoride. Everyone gets fluoride. Put it in their water. Put it in the water, put it in the toothpaste, put it in their rinses, varnishes, you need it. You need so much question it. Everybody gets fluoride. Everyone gets fluoride. Put it in their water. Put it in the water, put it in the toothpaste, put it in their rinses, varnishes. You need it. You need so much of it.

Supplements. And I used to practice that way. And I live in Portland, Oregon, where we do not fluoridate our water. And in about 12, gosh, it was almost 15 years ago now. I was involved in the campaign that was pro water fluoridation. And I was picketing and like handing out flyers and buttons.

And I admittedly had not picked up any journals, never questioned it. It was just fed to me in school and it just, it was the Bible to me, fluoride. I'm a total hypocrite because I wasn't using it personally, because I had read that it's a neurotoxin, potentially can affect my microbiome, my thyroid health. So I wasn't using a fluoride toothpaste, and I was filtering my water when I lived in other communities. What a hypocrite.

So anyway, I sat in a debate, pro versus anti-fluoride, okay? And I was sitting on the pro side, and I was looking at the anti-fluoride, okay? And I was sitting on the pro side and I was looking at the anti-group, like tin hat brigade, woo woo caucus, pseudo scientists, and I actually listened to them. And I was floored. I had never heard of the connections

with potential systemic issues, that fluoride is extremely electronegative, it's very reactive, it can compete with iodine and the thyroid cause endocrine issues. Even then, this was almost 15 years ago, they've been talking about this for decades, the controversy, what it does to brain health, etc. So I felt shamed and I went home and I did my due diligence and it didn't take long to go through some of the research to say, oh my gosh, we need to take a closer look at this.

Okay, so I've been speaking out against water fluoridation now for quite a while. And you need to separate topical fluoride from systemic fluoride. Right, one you drink, you swallow, the other one you just put on your teeth. Correct. And fluoride really has been shown to work

more topically anyway. It's more efficient that way. It doesn't have to go through the gut bypass system, et cetera. But it really works topically. You just need to put it on your teeth, spit it out. Okay. But systemic fluoride, so it's really become popularized now. Finally mainstream media is talking about it because of all the political association,

which is really frustrating because we're ignoring the science. So back last fall, the National Toxicology Report came out. We've been waiting for this for almost seven years. And that was a report under the Division of Health and Human Services. And it said, increase levels of fluoride, absolutely, systemic fluoride, absolutely can lead to neurocognitive issues.

At that same time, there was a federal trial going on. It was the People vs. the EPA. It's called the TASCA trial. There's a great website from the Fluoride Action Network which will break down the entire trial. This trial also had been going on for years. It was the first time a judge said, I don't want to hear from you dentists.

I know you guys love fluoride for the teeth. I want to find out what it's doing to the rest of the body. Okay. Cause dentists try to be so zeroed in on the tooth because dentistry is here and medicine's here, but it's, the mouth, the gateway to the body is all interconnected. It's still part of the human system. So endocrinologists, epidemiologists, neuroscientists, et cetera, testified,

and they're very powerful. There's over 70 studies that show some sort of link to neurocognitive issues. Some of them are not great studies, but when you decipher it down, there's at least 18 really high quality studies, which to me, I think you only need one or two to question this.

And so the judge saw the NTP report and then finally made his verdict after seven years of deliberation and testimonies and said, there's an unreasonable risk to our current water fluoridation practices, EPA, you're responsible for regulating this better. The American Dental Association, a lot of dentists are still saying, well, those articles aren't high quality, that's only an extreme excess of fluoride, but right now we fluoridate our water in the United States

at 0.7 milligrams per liter. But there are studies that show even at that amount, there are concerns. And the IQ concerns are on par with lead. And it's a five point IQ reduction. Yeah. The other thing people don't speak about is fluoride is antimicrobial.

So if you're drinking it and ingesting it, what is it doing to the gut microbiome? The other issue is the halo effect. So yes, okay, let's say it's at 0.7 milligrams per liter, but that's per liter. So are you only drinking one liter of water a day? Pregnant women are supposed to drink three liters of water a day. So are we regulating what pregnant women are consuming? And the most vulnerable are pregnant women and young infants, and infants who are getting formula mixed with fluoridated water. So that's where we're seeing the biggest issue.

So the other thing is, it's a medical consent issue. And so many don't realize that 97% of the world doesn't fluoridate anymore. This is a very United States centric issue. And they've removed it from their water. They either neither, they either never put it in their water or they removed it from the water due to medical consent issues. You know, we're not getting, we're mass medicating without consent or concerns with health.

Okay. The other downstream effects of water fluoridation, but the halo effect is, so it's not only how much water are you drinking, are you cooking with it, are you boiling your pasta with it, are you making your soup with it. Ultra-processed foods, you know, your rock star was made with water. It wasn't filtered. They're not using reverse osmosis in these factories, so it probably had fluoride in it.

Ultra-processed foods have fluoride. Many pharmaceuticals now have fluoride, especially SSRIs, antidepressants, have fluoride in them. Many natural foods, you know, we find it in trace amounts in natural foods, black tea, green tea, and I'm not saying don't drink those things, but just know it compounds. Like how are you calculating it? How are you titrating it?

How are you really dosing it based on body weight too? And how do you metabolize things? Different people will have different vulnerabilities as well. So I think we're just oversimplifying it. And the other issue is we don't have cavities due to lack of fluoride. Fluoride's not an essential nutrient. No system in the body depends on it. We are getting cavities because of our diet,

you know. So we're masking the issue. To me it's like I get a headache every day, so I take ibuprofen. Well, fluoride may topically make your teeth more acid resistant and lower your cavity risk, but if it was really working as well as it says, as we think it is, why are cavities still the number one

chronic disease globally? And the United States, a majority of people are exposed to fluoride too. So I just think it should be removed from the water. It's also a risk thing, like I'm a low cavity risk. Why should I be forced to drink fluoridated water when someone else is a high risk? And maybe they do need more fluoride.

And I'll get to hydroxyapatite in a moment, but, you know, and some dentists will say, well, people can just filter their water or buy bottled water. Well, many people can't afford reverse osmosis systems. And now we're talking about microplastics and bottled water. You know, like it just should be a choice. Is any of it absorbed through the skin, through showers? Do you worry about that, like baths and showers?

I do, I haven't seen any solid science on that, but I mean, of course, it's just what is the cumulative effect. We don't know. But I would like to see more studies on this, and I'd like to see more studies on the microbiome too. What is it doing to the gut microbiome particularly? So I think it should just be a choice. If you want to use fluoride, go to the store,

buy fluoride toothpaste, use it on your teeth, spit. This is what they do in Japan. Japan has one of the lowest cavity rates in the world. They don't fluoridate their water, but they do a lot of oral rinsing with fluoridated mouth rinses. Okay. Aren't they one of the highest protein consumption too?

Hong Kong. Oh, Hong Kong. Well, and they also have a very clean diet. They do. You know. So that matters. So hydroxyapatite, hydroxyapatite has been around since the 1970s. It was actually NASA that first developed it because when in this space program they realized when astronauts went out anti-gravity, they lost minerals. So their teeth became mineral deficient. So they were like, well, let's create this hydroxyapatite compound.

Japan came in actually, scooped it up, patented it. And so hydroxyapatite, which is calcium and phosphorus, has been used in Japanese toothpaste since the early 80s. So your enamel is composed of hydroxyapatite. About 90% hydroxyapatite crystals. Our bone is about 60%. So this is a naturally occurring compound in the body. And it now is becoming more popularized in the United States.

So it's been used in Japan, South Korea, Italy, many European countries for decades, but it's kind of newer on the US scene and everybody's very skeptical of it. But I will tell you, my patients who use it, I've seen such tremendous improvements in their oral health. And I think not only is it more biomimetic, mimicking nature, but it doesn't have that antimicrobial component to it too. But we're all different, you know, and you might do better with fluoride, you might do better with hydroxyapatite, there's microhydroxyapatite,

there's nanohydroxyapatite, but it's not just that. When you look at oral health care products, what are the other ingredients? So just like you need to read labels for your food, you know, there's oral microbiome disruptors in a lot of oral healthcare products. There's emulsifiers, surfactants, foaming agents, essential oils, which we think are good, but they're antimicrobial. So we're so used to carpet bombing the mouth,

you know, kills 99.9% of germs. That's not a good way to be behaving. You know, we want to nourish and preserve our microbiome, so less is more. You really want to be mindful of the products that you're using. Just like you are with we now with our makeup and our shampoo and our deodorant, it's the same with shoe. I saw they were putting triclosan in toothpaste. Gross.

Antibiotic. How bad is mouthwash? Good question. It depends on the type of mouthwash, but traditional conventional mouthwash like your Listerine, your alcohol, your astringents, you should not be using it. Or hexadine. It's banned in many countries in Europe, but it's still used here. It's just carpet bombs the mouth.

And it's because of the alcohols, the astringents, they're not selective. And there are studies now that show people who use chronically, repetitively use these alcohol astringent-based mouthwashes have high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues. Why is that? Nitric oxide. So there is bacteria on the dorsum of our tongue that are responsible for the nitrate-reducing pathway

and help contribute to nitric oxide formation. So if you're carpet bombing the mouth, you can be impacting nitric oxide formation too. So you're not going to get good pumps? Not going to get good pumps. That's the first thing I do. That's the first thing I do, I ruin my pumps. Yeah.

Sexual health, like all kinds of things that comes from the mouth and interesting. Paranasal sinuses, when you breathe through your nose, nitric oxide is created there too. So mouth breathers tend to have more cardiovascular issues, more rectal dysfunction. A lot of that is just how you're breathing. So it's microbiome. Are there any applications? What was that one you mentioned, cyclo something compounds in mouthwash?

Chlorhexidine. Are there any applications for that where you might want to use it? Yeah, great question. I, yeah, I would say if you have active periodontal disease, I mean, work with your doctor, but let's say you have really virulent pathogens, and this is where oral microbiome testing comes in and we should speak to this. You may want to have some more heavy hitters,

whether it's antibiotics or stronger, you know, agents, but temporary, like just for a few weeks until you see stability, not repetitively. I think of these mouth washes as like deodorant or perfume, like it's just masking the issue. So if you find you always need mints or gum or you always have bad breath, there's something else going on.

You are not in balance, you know, so you probably have dry mouth or oral dysbiosis of some sort. It could be coming from the gut too. So plaque and tartar and stuff that you talk, you know, these help remove that and you go to the dentist. Is that a normal thing that should happen

or is that caused by microbiome? Like plaque buildup? Yeah. So that's the biofilm. It depends on your diet. Okay. So if you eat more paleo vegetables and meat, you really won't get much plaque accumulation. You'll have some, but when I see kids come in and they just eat Takis and Doritos and things, their plaque is so thick because they've just been feeding those pathogens all day,

every day, and then you add maybe not the best hygiene on top of it. So going in regularly to your dentist, getting cleanings is very important. That's what tooth brushing and flossing is. It's removing the biofilm. That's all you're doing. You're shaking the rug. It comes back, it sticks.

And the longer it sticks there, that bacteria can release acid. Okay. It's the acid that's leaching minerals out of your teeth eventually to the point where it can cause a hole or a cavitation. So what you're doing is just getting that sticky biofilm, the plaque off, so it doesn't sit there

long enough to create that acid attack that can leach minerals out. The bummer is it comes back and how quickly it comes back and how thick it comes back all depends on your diet and how you're breathing. Things that are good for the teeth that you mentioned, are those also good for the gums? Like what about people who are like, I don't

have cavities, but I have gum issues or bleeding gums when I brush my teeth. Like is it all the same kind of causes or solutions? Different bacteria. Yeah, great. I'm glad we're talking about this. So gum disease, about 80% of the population has some form of gum disease.

80%? Mild, moderate or severe. Wow. And that can be not only from hygiene and diet in, or our breathing, but also nutritional deficiencies. So vitamin C deficiency, think scurvy, zinc, B vitamins can impact our gums.

There's some genetic predisposition as well, but if your gums bleed, that's a sign of inflammation. Inflammation doesn't just stay in the mouth. And if your gums bleed, now that's a vector, that's a way for bacteria in your mouth to get into the circulatory system. And this is where the oral systemic connection comes in. So these bad bacteria in our mouth

can end up in our brain, can end up in our heart, in our uterus, it can affect fertility. They just connected it to Alzheimer's. Yes. Yes. Yes. So P. gingivalis is the bacteria responsible for that.

So not only can it travel to your brain, but it also, these bacteria can release toxins, specifically ginger pans for the brain that can create inflammation. And the ginger pans are these enzymes that can create neuron degradation and brain tissue degradation actually. So they did a study where they tested the brains of patients who had passed from Alzheimer's and 96% of them had P. gingivalis and ginger pans in their brains and compared to people who had passed for other reasons without Alzheimer's and dementia had none. Now the concern, the question with some of

these studies as well, oral hygiene tends to drop when you have Alzheimer's and dementia. Oh. But I mean, it's worth exploring whether, you know, it's correlation or causation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What would be the, I guess, the route of action

for someone who's listening? It's like, oh, my gums bleed. What should I do? Yes. So I would ask about your hygiene practices. So I think flossing is more important than brushing for this reason. I've heard that.

And I'm not saying don't brush people. Please don't misinterpret that. However, a lot of people brush their teeth, but not many floss. So keep flossing. I compare it to when kids go to the playground for the first time in the spring and you get calluses or you start lifting weights and your hands are tender, but you guys don't have that problem now, right? It's the same with your gums. So you need to work them out. You need to strengthen them, make them tough. So give it some time. Like is it-

You do that, right? I was going to say, I feel like every time I've ever been inconsistent with flossing, when the first time you come back, they bleed. They bleed. And then a couple times they spawn. That's common, but some people are like, it's happening every time. Bleeds all the time and people normalize it. But imagine if your arm just bled, every time you touched it. So people normalize that, we call it pink in the sink. It's a definite marker, red flag that you have inflammation and gum disease.

So if that gum disease, it stays with you and it becomes chronic, that can lead to periodontal disease. That's when you start having collagen breakdown, ligament breakdown and bone breakdown. That's when teeth can get loose. You know, you go to the dentist and they're like three, four, three, they're probing. They're testing your periodontal health. How is the attachment health? And it's

the periodontal pathogens that are gnarly. And so they can impact fertility. So, you know, these pathogens can impact sperm ability, sperm motility. Women who have gum disease can take two months longer to conceive. So if you're having fertility issues, one of the first things I say is, what's your oral health like? Let's do some oral microbiome testing. The cool thing with oral microbiome testing, just like gut mapping, you may say, well, my mouth's perfectly healthy. And this happened to me actually personally, a few years

ago, I did a salivary analysis and I was really high with F-nucleotum and that is a bacteria that's now associated with breast cancer, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. Whoa. It was through the roof. I have no idea how I have it, why I have it, but I did a very targeted approach to reduce it and it involved antibiotics and some stronger rinses and things like that. And then I retested three months later and it was, it wasn't zero, but it was less than to a normal range. Wow.

Yeah, so it's important to test. So the treatment would be flossing often and changing your diet and? Yeah, I would, if you keep getting bleeding gums, you know, there can be certain gene snips that make you more prone, but I would be interested in your nutritional status. So doing like a full workup, ideally probably with a functional medicine provider who's going to test what is your micronutrient status, your vitamin C status, vitamin D can

impact gum health too if you're deficient. Do we see benefit of taking a probiotic, like traditional probiotic pill with oral health? Yes, absolutely. There are probiotics targeted to the oral bacteria. So a really nice protocol is, I like tongue scraping. That's to get some of the bacteria off the dorsum or the surface of your tongue. Floss, brush, probiotic. And is it in the mouth that you keep the probiotic or do you just swallow it?

Yeah, yep. It's just a little, usually they're mints, there's some more drops. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so they're targeted to the species of bacteria, the healthy bacteria in the mouth. Oh, interesting.

So it's separate than the gut. Now, I really believe you can't have a healthy mouth without a healthy gut and vice versa. You gotta work them together though. Because the mouth- It just feeds it right back. The mouth is the gut. It's all one tube.

And we swallow 2,000 times a day. So if you have pathogens, you're swallowing that bacteria and some of it can survive the stomach acid and cause problems downstream. And this is maybe why we're seeing colorectal cancer with certain species and things of that nature too. I have to ask you to, I know there's so much to cover with the mouth in general, but also to like grinding. And this has been a chronic thing for me that I've been trying to figure out. And I heard somebody had had tied it in with parasites and some connection there.

And like, is there any other connections and you know, what have you found with people who grind their teeth? We just think it's unresolved anger that you have. you found with people who grind their teeth. We just think it's unresolved anger that you have. All the tension. Oh, no. So let's unpack that. So grinding's hard. I need therapy in.

OK. So the first thing I think is potentially an airway issue. OK, so when you get into deeper stages of sleep, if your tongue falls back into your, your pharynx essentially, what are you doing with grinding? You're moving your mandible forward to try it, like think of CPR, you're opening the airway or like this, okay.

So it could be an airway issue, you'd need that evaluated. Um, it can be assigned nutritional deficiencies, so mineral deficiencies, magnesium. So a lot of patients report when they up that become more optimized, again, in functional medicine ranges, not conventional medicine ranges, they see an improvement.

There's a genetic component to it too. So it can run in families. It can be absolutely stress, stress induced, um, anger management issues, as your colleagues are saying, but parasites, a little bit of that. But parasites, yeah. So they don't fully understand the mechanism, but parasitic activity does increase during

the night nocturnally. And we do see an uptick, especially in kids who are grinding, they test, they do stool tests and they can show really high for parasites too. And you clean up the parasites and then the grinding does stop. It's pin words, right? Wasn't that the one I think I'm wearing? Pin words is common, yeah. And it's up the parasites and then the grinding does stop. Okay. Right. Wasn't that the one I think?

Pinworms is common. Yeah. And it's really common in kids. Think how often kids are putting things in their mouths and yeah. My youngest has it too. And I just, I, I see a little bit of a genetic link there as my mom had it and my brother has it.

And so, but yeah, I mean, I'm going to explore all those options because it's just been this chronic issue. Are you using now, uh, because now we see the world of peptides really exploding, especially there's peptides for gut health like BPC and I would imagine they would probably help with mouth health too or gut health as well. It's just blowing up right now. So there are remineralizing products that have peptides in them too to help boost with cavity arrest modulation.

So there's some brands that are out that the dentist has to apply though, you know, so that comes with cost. They're being used now in root canals to regenerate on pulpal tissue, just help with gum health, things of that nature too. So this is a conversation I'll have a lot more to share probably in a year or two, but for sure dentistry is exploring peptides.

Absolutely. Interesting. Yeah. Tell me now we can get to why it's such a bad idea for me to be doing Toms this whole time that I thought I was doing good by my mouth there. So what's the deal with Tom's? I'd have to look at the ingredients again.

That's marketed as healthy, good toothpaste. I mean, the enemy of good is perfect. Perfect is good. You know that phrase. So it's better than aqua fresh. Yeah. Better than my strong flavor. What's so interesting, I grew up in Maine,

and so I remember going to farmer's markets and seeing Tom's Maine at Booth. Like it was teeny, teeny, teeny, mom and pop. And it was pretty legit then, but then Colgate bought it out. I didn't know that. I can't remember the year. 2008, 2010, I don't know.

And they definitely changed the formulation. Yeah, they added, yeah, they did. So Tom's still has sodium lauryl sulfate, which is a foaming agent. It basically is a derivative of like a floor cleaner. So your toothpaste really shouldn't foam or burn and this is a mindset shift. That's so funny. We all like that. Everybody's like, oh it burns. I know, I know because you feel clean. And some people can't get past it and that's fine, but it really shouldn't because it's carpet bomb in your mouth. That's why I don't love essential oils in toothpaste. It sounds good,

but we want to be mindful of what we're doing to our healthy bacteria. So the foaming too, it can disrupt the mucosal integrity. It's just like we now aren't using shampoos and things that foam, you know, it's the same for your mouth. So I also, oh gosh, I'd have to look at the ingredients. I, they might. I have Doug pulling it up right now. 2006, they bought them and it was from Maine. Toms of Maine is where it originated. Wow, for $100 million.

Yeah. In 2006, by the way. Yeah, that's right. Well done, Toms of Maine. Yeah, wow. Yeah, good Toms. They did a good job. What about brushing your teeth like baking soda

or activated charcoal? Yes, on baking soda, no on charcoal. Okay. So baking, so there's something called the relative dentin abrasivity index, RDA. Oh. So how abrasive is it to your enamel? Charcoal will trash your enamel.

It's going to do the opposite. So it's going to wear down, yes, it's going to wear down your enamel. It's gonna do the opposite. So it's gonna wear down, yes, it's gonna wear down your enamel. The layer, the dentin layer underneath your enamel tends to be more yellow. And so if you're wearing down the nice white enamel, you'll have the opposite effect. It can make your teeth over time more discolored, but also sensitivity.

So I give a thumbs down to charcoal, but I love baking soda, I really do, because it will neutralize and buffer, it actually raises the pH, and it has a low RDA too. And it's essentially no cost, low cost thing that people can use. What about oil pulling? That was a thing for a while.

Yeah, I still like oil pulling. I think people think it fixes everything. I'll do it occasionally. It feels good. What it's doing is disrupting the biofilm. And then coconut oil does have some really nice properties for balancing the oral microbiome. Teprosylic acid is that something?

Yeah, and linoleic. But it is antimicrobial, so I wouldn't overdo it. It's very mild but again if you want to be a purist here I just think less is more so xylitol is that's probably what's the best what's bad in here I love xylitol okay so there's there's the there's the ingredients carrageenan what carrageenan oh that's not good that isn't the best. And then peppermint oil. Yeah, OK, so if I'm going to be, I would just say the SLS and the peppermint oil.

But again, it could be worse. OK, I just say, so it's better than the, you know, the. Brushing your teeth with the name of it. But I would be interested to. No, with like Crest or like any of the other ones that are like the main, main. That are gross. I can't even put those in my mouth anymore.

They like hurt. They physically hurt my mouth. Yeah, I haven't even put those in my mouth anymore. They like hurt, they physically hurt. Yeah, I haven't had that kind of toothpaste in forever. But I'd be, try this over here and just see if you know if there's a difference in a couple weeks. I can't wait. No, no, I'm super excited to try that. And I mean, I get questions all the time and like I don't have, I've never had, the best

brand that I've been recommended before I thought was Tom's. So how, how, how developed is this field of, of functional dentistry? I remember functional medicine. So I had a wellness studio a long time ago. I sold it about maybe 10 years ago. But I remember 15, 18 years ago, I had somebody in there, she was ahead of everybody, and she would talk about functional medicine.

And then I remember us trying to find a functional medicine practitioner, and it was very difficult. Now you can find them all over the place. Is it like that with functional dentistry? Like someone's listening and they're like, cool, I'm gonna go find a functional dentist. Are they like very difficult to find?

So we are where that was 10 years ago. We're creating that right now. I mean, if you're on social media, it will seem like there's a lot, which is great. People are talking about it. And I get messages, DMs from dentists saying, I want to practice differently. I hate dentistry because it's so, it really is. It's a challenging career.

If you think bigger, if you think outside of the box, if you want to look at the oral systemic connection, traditional dentistry, it's really hard to go in every day when you're just feeling like you're not moving the needle at all, just, you know, putting out fires. But people don't know where to get trained. How did you get trained? And so how did I get trained?

I flew all over the place. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on courses. I read books, you know, I extrapolated all of this information. I looked at Western Price. I looked at other colleagues who are paving the way, but it's just a handful. So we really need a standardized training program.

Have you considered building a course? Well, the Institute for Functional Dentistry is a course. So we're launching this summer. And so the concern I have is that we need to get the mouth back into the body. And so dental curriculum is really focused on really oral health.

We focus on the teeth, how to fix the hole, how to do the root canal. Very little in medicine and nutrition and the oral systemic connection. What's missing from dental curriculum is medicine, you know, hormone pathways and, you know, immune function, the oral systemic connection, the oral microbiome, environmental toxins. And so our program, they will get functional medicine training, which is foundational to then build up to their functional dental training.

So we're very excited for that. And I'm hoping it helps. There are, you know, databases out there where you can find functional dentists. I just argue, you don't know what you're going to get because there's just no certification. There's no standardization. You could say, oh, I screen for airway health argue you don't know what you're going to get. Cause there's just no certification. You could say, Oh, I screen for airway health or I don't use mercury.

I'm a functional dentist. And I'm like, you, you're, you're different. You're looking at things differently, but it's, it's very involved. Now you will have to be a dentist already to then go through this process. Dentists and hygienists will be able to, too, cause the hygienists are very important for all of this as well. and go through this process? Dennis and hygienist will be able to too, because the hygienist are very important for all of this as well. So typically when I talk to someone like you, there was some crisis that motivated them

to move outside of their, where they were. I mean, you were already a dentist, you were picketing for four-eyed. Was it the four-eyed that did the debate? By the way, you gotta use that as like a picture in your speeches. I feel like you should start with that. I wish I had a photo.

Like here's on the old slide. Because that would be great. I need AI to help create a photo for me. I feel like you should start with that. Like here's on the other side. I wish I had a photo. Cause that would be a great like. I need AI to help create a photo for me. I don't have any photos of it. What was it that motivated you to move outside of what you were doing? Cause you were already a dentist, you were practicing. Yeah, well that's such a great question.

It's so layered. So I lost both my parents very young to preventable disease, cancer, lifestyle factors. So that's when I personally shifted into doubling down on longevity and health. Even from my teen years though, prior to their passing, I just was really interested in nutrition science and human optimization, but I just

never applied it to my career because no one was doing that. You know, it's like I lived two lives almost. But then I got out, I actually was a general dentist for many years and I hated it. I was gonna move to like Costa Rica and Sur for like New Zealand and snowboard. I couldn't stand it, I hated it.

Because it's disease, disease, disease that comes in. And the way the system's set up right now, you don't have time to educate your patients on true prevention. Do nutritional counseling, run labs, like let me help you. It's really turn and burn, which is why dentistry, I think, deserves to be the brunt of the joke sometimes. I mean, we're just putting out fires, right?

So I was really dissatisfied. So I thought, gosh, I'm gonna get more upstream. How do I get more upstream? Kids, right? Education. So then I went back and got board certified in pediatrics. And then I got out and I realized, oh, it's the exact same thing,

except now it's even more turn and burn because pediatrics is faster. You know, you see more patients a day. And I just said, there has to be a different way. And I thought I was practicing differently. I wasn't doing mercury fillings. I was not judgmental if parents came in not wanting to use fluoride.

I was trying to talk more about the oral systemic connection but I didn't have enough training. And this dad came in and called me out one day. And he was like, you're not a holistic, at the time it was like holistic dentistry. You're not a holistic dentist. Do you know who Western Price is? I was like, I don't.

Again, this was like 12, 13 years ago. And so I went and read more about Dr. Price's work. And then Dr. Stephen Lin is a dentist out of Australia. He modernized Price's work with the book called The Dental Diet. And I just noticed, gosh, if I just spent a little more time in my patients and talk about nutrition and show them

how to brush and floss and why it's important and talk about the microbiome, when they come back to see me, they're healthier. They don't have these repeat offenders, like cavities keep coming in, their gum disease improves. And I was like, this is so subtle and really easy, but it just takes a mindset shift and I just kept building upon it.

So it was really coming from dissatisfaction in my career, you know. So strengthening bone in the body, strength training really helps with that. Is there anything that we could do with the mouth? Like you've seen people come out with like jaws or size, like chewing gum, like we don't chew. Is there anything we do exercise wise

for our mouths to strengthen our teeth and our jaws and all that? Yeah, so out of the gate, if you can breastfeed, that's the best, the best thing to optimize the airway in your child is to breastfeed if you can. Not every woman can or does it resonate, but if you can, baby led weaning, chew on lamb bones and bam bam type of stuff.

Introduce real foods, crunchy foods, carrots, apples, meat through childhood, less processed foods as much as possible. There's something called a myomunchie. It's a myofunctional appliance. It's medical-grade silicone that you can chew on. I actually have one of those jar-sized things. It hurts. I don't feel the angle is right. I think it could cause a lot of temple mandibular joint issues. But yeah, in theory, these are muscles. And our tongue is is a muscle and that's where myofunctional therapy comes in. So there are different exercises.

You can use that myomunchy. With our kids, we talk about doing clicks, pops. There are things that you can do to strengthen the muscles too. But just having a whole food diet and chewing, we tend to inhale our food, like actually chew, because that's going to help with digestion and just have profound benefits too.

This might be a weird question, but do we notice any differences in languages and their effect on, you're talking about moving the mouth, and I know different languages require different mouth movements, is there any data to show? I don't know, That's a great question. Yeah, like especially Thai. There's a connection to healthier teeth

with people that talk a certain way. Just learning different languages with exercise your mouth. I mean, I grew up in an Italian household. Oh, you mean being like bilingual or something? Yeah, yeah. I thought you meant like different languages, like they have better teeth

because they speak Russian. Or just exercising the mouth. Like I grew up in an Italian household and Italian words, they. Or just exercising the mouth. I grew up in an Italian household and Italian words, they use different parts of the mouth pronounced than English words and I'm sure the first... I understand what you're saying. I think that'd be fascinating. Yeah, I don't know.

But it would make sense because it is... Speech is a red flag, delayed or challenges with speech is a red flag in kids if they have a myofunctional imbalance. We usually don't make that call. And I'm not a speech language pathologist by any means, but generally they make the call between six, seven, eight years old with certain sounds. So that'd be interesting. I'll dig into that for you.

Well, since we're asking weird questions, I was waiting for an opportunity to ask this question because it's so in left field that didn't feel right anywhere. Do you remember when I talked on the podcast about my roommate that had weird questions. I was waiting for an opportunity to ask this question because it's so in left field, but it didn't feel right anywhere. Do you remember when I talked on the podcast about my roommate that had the chronic bad breath? Yeah. So what is the connection between somebody who

does cocaine and chronic breath? Yeah. Probably their sinuses, like post-nasal drip, and they probably just have pathogenic sinuses. That can just re- That was the worst- That can put a hole in your septum. I mean, they might have infection up there.

I bet they have chronic sinus infections, probably. Okay, that's when you were starting to talk about the sinus, I was like, I bet it has something to do with that. Yeah. It was the worst breath I'd ever smelled. Yeah. And I remember it was so bad that this is before I knew he had this habit. I didn't find out about his habits until after he was no longer my roommate and I found all the

paraphernalia. And I remember we get in the car together, go to work and his breath was so bad, it would stink up the whole car. So bad that I remember, I got to see if he's brushing his teeth. That I remember the next morning, like watching him scrub his teeth going like, this dude's brushing his teeth. How is it possible his breath could be that bad? Okay, I have theories, now I'm thinking about it. Okay, so he, there's probably a few things. He probably has chronic sinus infections. He also has dry mouth,

because that's what cocaine does, okay? So think of methamphetamine addicts too, their teeth are just jacked up. Right, right. Part of that is from losing the integrity of your saliva. It is dietary choices too when you're on these drugs, but also mouth breathing.

So if you have chronic sinus inflammation, cause he's snorting it up there, it's all stuffy, he's mouth breathing. So that's going to change his microbiome, drop the pH, he'll lose his saliva. He probably has like tonsil inflammation, you know, you're swallowing the cocaine. It's messing up your gut microbiome.

So yeah, he's probably not flossing. Poor guy, if you ever listen to our podcast. Sorry. I'm okay with shaming this dude. I found razor blade marks on my window seal and half straws all over the place. It's kind of fair game. I should have known, I mean, I was a young,

I was in my 20s, so I was still a little naive and you know, didn't connect the dots of the guy playing video shoulda known, I mean I was young, I was in my 20s, so I was still a little naive, and didn't connect the dots of the guy playing video games till four o'clock in the morning. With his jaw like, talk about working on your jaw. So what about with parents when they give their kids juice all the time? My wife has a younger brother who, when they were little,

they would give him, in his bottle, apple juice all the time. A lot of people do that. And all his baby teeth rotted out. They all got totally, so that's terrible. Totally, that's terrible. Well, you ever seen apple juice compared to like soda? It's like damn near the same amount of sugar.

Yeah, so, yes, and I mean, this has to do with blood sugar too. So how many apples does it take to make six to eight ounces of apple juice? It's a lot, it's way more than you could eat physically with a real apple fiber. Yeah, I'm not a fan of juice. I mean, my patient population, I'm lucky,

they, I just don't see a lot of juice drinkers, but I know it's still a thing. It's the fastest way to destroy teeth. Think of it like soda. So if your go, if your child needs juice, let's say they're constipated or your pediatrician wants, that's a whole other conversation, but if your pediatrician wants one juice, just dilute it.

Just try to give a little bit every day, dilute it in water. But our kids just get too much sugar. I mean, we need to, they need to learn to love water. The beautiful part is if you actually as a parent, and this is for the parent that has a kid on the way, if you discipline yourself not to do it, I mean, my kid's five now, and you couldn't get him to drink juice. I know. He don't even like the taste of it. Mine are the same. Yeah. He just,

well, he wants water. If you're expecting or going to be a parent out there listening, be super strict in those first formative years. It pays off in spades. My girls are nine and 11. They're starting, I'm starting to lose control. They go over to friends' houses and they're after soccer games. They're getting exposed to this food that I normally, I would never bring into the house and they're usually just not interested in it. You know, and they're very adventurous eaters and

you may feel weird at first and you know, say, oh, we're good with the goldfish or we just eat, you know, seaweed snacks or fruit and veggies and meat and cheese, but it will pay off. I always feel bad for the parents that are trying to reverse this after five, seven, eight years, but if you're new and you're just starting, I can't stress enough how by not introducing it,

they won't know any better. And then when it's inevitable, it gets introduced to them, they don't like it. I've had adult clients that thought they would say, and I used to get, I had a few of these. It happened more than once where they'd say, I don't like the taste of water. You know?

It's because they were so used to drinking. It's conditioned to flavor. Yes, something with flavor. And you developed that as a child. You developed that preference. Well, if you form the, those first thousand days, those first three years of life are so important for microbiome development, oral and gut,

but also palate. You're shaping the palate. And so if they're getting sugar, sugar, sugar, children are drawn to sugar. This goes back ancestrally too, because in the forest, foods that were sweet, mother's milk or berries were safe. Foods that were bitter, poison.

Okay, so there's a reason for this, but you need to control it. mother's milk or berries were safe. Foods that were bitter, poison. Okay, so this is, there's a reason for this, but you need to control it. So I do say, I agree with you, give water. Your kids don't need juice. They don't need soda at the party. That's one thing, we're hard no soda at my family because it's acidic, it's sugar.

I just don't want my kids developing that palette. Do you see any connection between any non-nutritive sweeteners, artificial sweeteners or stevia with any oral health issues? There's some research on some of them with gut microbiome dysbiosis and there's some studies maybe. Xylitol I really like for in toothpaste because it will modulate the microbiome, it reduces plaque formation, it can act as an anti-inflammatory

agent, it's like a prebiotic too, but swallowing a lot of these things, baking with it, cooking with it, drinking drinks with these things, it can affect affect that microbiome maybe increase uric acid There's some studies on that too. So Just be cautious, you know and milk is milk when we grew up in the 80s Milk was good for your bones. Is that still true? Do the raw milk conversation That's what we give my kids my kids drink my daughter I should say I'm like, please. That's what we give my kids, my kids drink,

my daughter I should say, because my son can't tolerate dairy like me, but my daughter can, and we only give her raw milk. So why raw milk? Less processed, you know, higher in nutrient density. This gets controversial very quick. I can't even get it in Oregon, I have to like mafia it in. I'm serious, I have patients that like,

come from Washington state and they'll bring me raw milk. Have you seen the videos of like the agents going in and like, it's like a meth lab? Yeah. Well, I mean, the Amish were apparently incredibly impactful in this election because of what was happening to their milks. I read that somewhere. Oh, I didn't know that. Which makes sense, right?

Like they came out and droves voting because they want to be able to supply raw milk. Anyway, yeah, milk is great. It has vitamin D and healthy fats and as long as you can tolerate it. I think quality dairy is very important, calcium, phosphorus. I'm very pro.

I tend to lean more towards the least processing of things as possible. In general. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. What's the biggest pushback you get from your community talking about this? I can't imagine too much, but... Oh. Oh, there's a lot.

Yeah, there's got to be some dentists... Oh, I get some gnarly, gnarly messages. Really? Yeah. What is it? Is it the fluoride talk? Just disrupting the industry, dude. Disrupting the industry and money and and that's always going to be... What's the biggest one?

My tell-all about dentistry, my book coming out. Oh, I'm just joking. Oh, good. It's on my list of things to do. No, most everyone's very supportive. And if they spend this time talking to me, they realize I have really good intentions. We're all on the same page.

We want healthier patients. We're trying to the same page. We want healthier patients. We're trying to help our patients. But from the outside, it is that I think that people feel threatened. And it's hard to say what I say without attacking the individual. I'm not saying dentists are bad. Again, it's the institutions that need to change, I think.

It's a mindset shift. But I would say the number one thing is my stance on fluoride. You're the type of person who's a great person though to do it because you admittedly were on the other side of the fence. Thank gosh I have that story. It is. It's a great story because you know, I feel sometimes you people are very skeptical of these charlatans that come in

and decide they're going to create this space. And it's like, no, I was on the other side advocating for this. And then I woke up and realized what was going on. And so, Yeah, I just want to touch on that again. So, you know, the argument is, well, fluoride helps teeth and I think most of us, we're not arguing that even topically, like systemic is different, but what is it doing to the rest of the body? Like, why are we only focused on teeth? And that's the difference. The pro water fluoridation group, in my opinion, has the same intention than I do. We care about patient health. We want to optimize our, you know, the health of our, our brothers and sisters, but they're

just focused on teeth and cavities. The scope is too narrow. Yeah. What about the brain? What about the thyroid? What about the skeletal system and the gut? Um, because it is all interconnected. So, but I would say water fluoridation, I, it's

not frequent, but when I get it, it's nasty. It is really nasty. And it's usually very misogynistic and yeah, it's crazy. Oh, it goes, they go wild. And one in particular who trolls me. I don't know, how could you be misogynistic with fluoride? Because I'm the fluoride action artwork's darling and they just put me up there.

Oh wow. They just put me up there. They just put me up there for like candy, whatever. It's just so dumb. And he, he'll say things like it's a fear porn, he loves to say porn all the time in emails he sends me. This guy is on the, on the board of the water.

Oh, it's one dude. Well, he in particular, there's a lot, but there's one guy in particular, he won't leave me alone. I block him, block him, block him, block him. Oh, it was one dude. Well, he in particular, there's a lot, but there's one guy in particular. He won't leave me alone. I block and block and block and block him. I'll share more details offline of who this gentleman is, but there's a reason that he, I think, is so upset.

Is there any truth to the part of the fluoride, just all the information? Was there any truth that it was an expedient way for companies to get rid of fluoride, was to dump it in our water, so it was a cheap way to get rid of fluoride with the dump it in our water. So it was like a cheap way to get rid of this chemical byproduct. Is there anything, there is. Yeah, so it is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry.

So back in the day, okay, so the history of water fluoridation. So in the early 1900s in Colorado Springs, there was a dentist there, Charles McKay, I believe was his name. And he noticed his patients all had fluorosis, which was modeling of the teeth, which is the first sign of too much fluoride. Okay.

And they estimate up to 40% of teenagers now have dental fluorosis. What's modeling? What do you mean by that? Like white, brown spots in the teeth. Oh, okay. Maybe we can show it up there. Yeah, so. Oh, look at you.

Yeah, that's, that's my institution. Um, so he made an observation that he felt maybe their enamel was more acid resistant. They were getting less cavities. And so some people did some very preliminary research on this and basically kind of went wild with it. And they put it in the water in Grand Rapids,

Michigan in the mid forties without any long-term safety data and not really much substantial efficacy data. So the phosphate fertilizer industry to get rid of this fluoride, it was very expensive. It had to be shipped out. It was considered a biohazard, but what they did instead is they packaged it up and sold it to municipalities to put into the water.

And so if you look, and this all sounds like conspiracy theory until you really start learning about it and realize, well, it's actually true. You know, if you look at how does fluoride come, it comes in like cement bags. It's hydrofluorosilic acid. So it's acid, skull and crossbones on the front. Oh, wow.

And you have to wear a hazmat suit to pour. And I've spoken to the people working at these water plants that are doing this. And if you speak to most people that work at these water plants, they are absolutely opposed to water fluoridation. And they're the ones putting it in the water. The other thing too, it's very important. So we keep saying 0.7 milligrams per liter is perfectly safe. That's assuming you just drink one liter of water and don't get it from any other sources.

But if you test different municipalities, you'll see it's not always exactly 0.7 milligrams per liter. It's really hard to keep it at that level. And so I've worked on campaigns where we've tested water and I've seen it as high as 2.2 milligrams per liter. Which is, that is shown in the data to be too much. Wow.

So again, I just think it's antiquated. I think it was well intentioned at the time with the science we had at the time. This was before evidence-based medicine. And it just conveniently was a cheap way to get rid of this chemical byproduct. They thought they were helping the cavity epidemic. So you guys can take your tinfoil hats off.

It's not trying to make the society dumber. That was not the intent of it. No. There are people that say that. There's absolutely that. The conspiracy theorist is like, this was all intended to make us dumber and more controllable. And he had lead and all these things happening

at the same time. I think it was well-intentioned. but when you know better, you do better. And again, it should be a choice if people want to use it, use it in toothpaste. But we, I just think it's very antiquated and we need to minimize risks or kids are getting sicker. This is not up for debate. Fact. Fact. So let's get rid rid of some easy, low hanging environmental toxins or not even things that we're adding.

Yeah, stop putting acid in there. Let's start with that. Can we create programs to educate on nutrition and diet? Like let's get our pediatricians on board. Let's get OBGYNs talking about how moms can optimize themselves during pregnancy so their kids' teeth come in healthier.

You know, vitamin D optimization and movement and sunlight. I mean, I could go on and on. By the way, Adam, it's 2025. Conspiracy theorists are like 10 and 0. I'm just saying. They are winning right now. There are still some crazy ones out there. There are.

There's still some crazy ones. And I do find them because I speak about this, they come to me and I'm like, whoa. Wait a minute, you think the lizard people are putting... We have to be science back, so this has to be evidence based. I'm with you. I think generally speaking, I'm not saying at all, that I think most stuff is well intended. And then I think what happens a lot of times is the well intention ends up being a huge industry of money and then it's hard to reverse.

Well, yes. Somebody's buying millions of dollars worth of those bags to put it in that and there's a business out of that and they certainly don't want it to go away. Absolutely, you know, you're right. And also it's important to know late, you know, the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, these can be pretty pay to play organizations. You know, the ADA does take money from 3M, Henry Shine, Colgate, Palmolive. Those companies all make fluoride products.

Like half of their product line is heavily fluoridated. So. Speaking of which, it's always four to five dentists. I want to know who that other dentist is. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean? So are you hopeful with...

Because you're somewhat involved with this kind of movement that we're seeing with Making America Healthy Again, you spoke. Are you somewhat hopeful for the direction? I mean, from my perspective, I've never been hopeful with government policy on... It's always been the opposite of healthy. But for the first time ever, I'm hearing things and going, oh, maybe we're moving in the right direction. Yeah, I was involved in the Kellogg's rally

where we went and petitioned, there were 400,000 petitions. It was with Vani Hari, the food babe, to talk about getting food dyes and the BHC preservative out of our kids' cereals. And people say, well, that won't move the needle, but it has to start somewhere. And it's just, it's the movement. Why I'm so hopeful is people are talking about it.

Yes. And also people are talking about water fluoridation. Do you know what a dream it is to have that on like the front page of the Washington Post or the New York Times for me, who's been reading these studies and just thinking I'm crazy because no one else is talking about this.

My colleagues, blinders are up and they just go with what the ADA says and into their defense. We're so busy, medical, general providers are so busy, it's really hard to dig into the science and the literature. It's also really hard to go against the grain. Like I took a lot of, I lost referrals. I still get hate mails and hate emails because of how I feel about water fluoridation, for example, or just practicing dentistry a little differently

because people do get offensive. They feel they're defensive about it and offended. They feel they're defensive about it and offended. But I'm hopeful. I am hopeful. I just, we need to clean up our food system. We need to fix the chronic healthcare crisis that's happening, figuring out the whys, you know, and these come with just conversations. And I think we're at a point, it's just contentious because change, that's what happens in change. There's a lot of turmoil right now, and people are biting heads.

What's a bummer is that it's become political, which maybe you could argue it had to, I don't know. Yeah. Everything has to be these days. What are the top five holistic approach, like I've even heard things like brushing our teeth is like a new thing. If your diet and your water intake was right, we probably wouldn't even have to brush our teeth is like a new thing. If your diet and your water intake was right,

we probably wouldn't even have to brush our teeth that much. So if you were to list like number one, number two, number three, number four, holistic approaches to having a healthy mouth, healthy teeth, what would you rank one, then two, like how would you do that? Yeah, I mean, I see this online with some influencers. They'll say, I'm carnivore, so I don't brush and floss.

And in theory, they're right. However, I don't recommend that because no one is really eating that way. It's such a rare percentage. But based off that, wouldn't that make diet become higher? So I would say diet is number one. OK, number one. Absolutely diet.

Eat a rainbow, whole foods, high quality protein sources, hydration, you know, what you put on your fork matters tremendously. Number two is airway. How are you breathing? And those are a little interchangeable, I think, but how you breathe, you know, kids with sleep disorder, breathing or airway issues, there's a link to ADHD. Okay? So if your kid has ADHD, has anyone screened for their airway health?

And you would say, I'm going on a tangent here, but why is that? If you're not getting into deep restorative sleep, you're also very likely not having a proper hormone release, and hormone can be very regulating. You might be in fight or flight constantly, sympathetically overdriven. You're also not getting enough oxygen. The brain is actively developing in childhood, so when you breathe through your mouth,

you get 20% less oxygen. So breathing is really important, not only for behavior, mood, growth. Growth hormone is released in deep stages of sleep, but also oral health too, which we spoke about earlier. So I'd say nutrition, airway, I'd say, you know, hygiene practices matter, particularly flossing. So again, most people aren't, a lot of people brush, but people aren't flossing. So you would even put flossing over brushing?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, okay. Let's see, that's good to know. I would even maybe not even have brushing in the top five only because if you're eating a clean diet Your tongue does clean the outside surfaces of your teeth a lot. Yeah, but I'll just say oral hygiene. So flossing brushing How problematic is it to be like a hard brush? Can you calm down like you know how they have the bristles.

I feel it's all like this. Yeah. Paint brush strokes. Twice Justin's toothbrush like this after two times. I'm just normally brushing. Very light, like Bob Ross, like paint, lightly. Well, baby trees. So you're brushing too hard.

Because you're wearing your enamel. I've heard like, so the electric ones are good for that, so it regulates. It can, yeah, and like just lighten your grip up a little bit. I'm just being honest, dude. I'm so glad you're on. A lot of people- I'm sure you're not the only guy-

I know for a fact that do too hard. I'm sure you're not the only guy out there that does everything hard. I can't help it. A lot of people brush too hard. They do, they really do, and they wear their enema when they have sensitivity. So just floss, I'm gonna move over to you.

Floss, yeah, and if you can't floss, water picking is a decent substitute sensitivity. So just floss. I'm going to move over to that. Floss. Yeah. And if you can't floss, water picking is a decent substitute too. Oh yeah. Okay. So water flossers.

Okay. Number four, oral micro-, I say supplementation, oral microbiome and just nutritional supplementation, but tests don't guess ideally, but most of us are vitamin D deficient or vitamin K2 deficient, Weston Price stuff, and mineral D deficient or vitamin K2 deficient, Weston Price stuff and mineral magnesium deficient. So when the kids come in, I kind of just like everyone on a vitamin D3K2 and a magnesium blend. And I know the purists out there are like, we

should be able to get this all from our food and sun, but we're in modern society. We're inside, we're not optimized. So be open to it. I would just say why just be optimal. Number five, and prebiotics, probiotics with that too. I guess I'd say hydration. I was just going to ask you, were you including water in the tube?

Yeah, I'm going to throw it back. I mean, hydration. I mean, these are interchangeable a little bit, but if you have dry mouth, you will be more prone to cavities and the quality of your saliva too. So is it mineral optimized? Do you have enough calcium and phosphorus in the diet? Your saliva is this golden elixir of your body. It protects your teeth, but it is what helps

with the remineralization exchange. I just thought of something. Love it. Can you catch cavities in that case? Can you make out with someone? Cavities, yes! So cav, yay, I'm glad you brought this up. Cavities, yes, bacteria is transmissible.

Especially if you make out hard. Like, French style. So, there's actually a study that says you need to kiss 11 times a day to, like, exchange enough so it sticks. Okay. So, anytime you kiss, let's say you have a first date or one night stand, there will be an exchange, but it's transient. But bacteria is transmissible.

So most babies are born with pretty neutral oral microbiomes. They get it from their moms. Um, but it's someone, it's a caregiver that inoculates them with either strep mutans. Um, but also Candida is really, really well documented now to influence early childhood cavities too. So you'll find families tend to have the same microbiome.

So let's say you have terrible periodontal disease and you have F-nucleotide, which is linked to cancer, we should test your spouse, I bet she has it too, even though she's asymptomatic. So we usually need to treat both people together. Because exactly, because you're just gonna get it again, because she's gonna re. So we usually need to treat both people together. Because like, exactly, because you're just gonna get it again, because she's gonna re-inoculate you.

So, yeah. I didn't need to know that. Anytime you put your mouth on me. Yeah. Well, this has been incredibly lengthy. So good, so good. Yay! Who would have thought?

So, so good. This is so great. I wish people like you were easier to find. Oh, tell us where we need to do. Tell us where everybody can find your toothpaste. I know I haven't tried it yet, but I'm a believer. You're differencing your toothpaste, yeah. So because I look at things differently,

I just couldn't find the toothpaste I really loved. There were some good ones out there, but I still felt so many of them were disruptive to the oral microbiome. So I partnered with Dr. Mark Burhenna, who's on social media as well. And we founded FIG, which stands for Feed Your Good Guys.

That's cool. Yeah. So it's oral microbiome. That's the premise of it. So we took out all the emulsifiers, the surfactants, the essential oils, the disruptors, and we added in prebiotics and amino acids that target oral microbiome modulation and it can affect plaque accumulation too.

So it's in their arginine? Uh huh. Yep, all arginine and prebiotics and then we have nanohydroxyapatite for re-mineralization. And we have some pretty cool products launching later this year too that will be one of a kind for more. What about oral probiotic? I've never heard of that before. Yeah, we have one. So we've partnered with Bristle, like Toothbrush Bristle,

which is the oral microbiome test. So they're the salivary analysis, which is direct to consumer. So you can go on Bristle's website. I think it's bristlehealth.com and order an oral microbiome test. You spit, you mail it out. Two weeks later, you get your results.

Now the problem is what do you do with the results? They are pretty good about giving you guidelines and protocols, but this is where we need more functional hygienists and dentists to help patients. But this is how I found out I had F-nucleotide through the roof, and that's cancer prevention. Or if you have P. gingivalis through the roof, that's gonna be Alzheimer's prevention. So I think we should be testing our oral microbiome

just like we do blood work. But Bristol has a oral probiotic and the founders of Bristol they're oral microbiome researchers so they're in it they're in the lab like studying these microbes and they created a probiotic and so we we've partnered so you can get it on our website too, Fig.com, yeah. Awesome, that was great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Absolutely, thanks for having me you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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