The Dr. Hyman Show - Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Functional Medicine Deep Dive: Functional Dentistry Part II

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Hey podcast community, Dr. Mark here. My team and I are so excited to offer you a 7 Day Free trial of the Dr. Hyman+ subscription for Apple Podcast.  For 7 days, you get access to all this and more entirely for free!  It's so easy to sign up. Just go click the Try Free button on the Doctor’s Farmacy Podcast page in Apple Podcast.   In this teaser episode, you’ll hear a preview of Part II of our latest Dr. Hyman+ Functional Medicine Deep Dive on Functional Dentistry with Dr. Mark Burhenne.  Want to hear the full episode? Subscribe now. With your 7 day free trial to Apple Podcast, you’ll gain access to audio versions of: - Ad-Free Doctor’s Farmacy Podcast episodes - Exclusive monthly Functional Medicine Deep Dives - Monthly Ask Mark Anything Episodes  - Bonus audio content exclusive to Dr. Hyman+ Trying to decide if the Dr. Hyman+ subscription for Apple Podcast is right for you?  Email my team at [e-mail] with any questions you have.   Please note, Dr. Hyman+ subscription for Apple Podcast does not include access to the Dr. Hyman+ site and only includes Dr. Hyman+ in audio content.  Learn more about Dr. Burhenne at askthedentist.com and on Instagram @askthedentist.

Hey podcast community, Dr. Mark here. I'm so excited to offer you a seven-day free trial of my revolutionary new platform called Dr. Hyman Plus. For seven days you get special access to all the private content included in Dr. Hyman Plus entirely free. It's so easy to sign up. Just go to Apple Podcast on your phone and click try free button on the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. You'll get exclusive access to ad-free Doctors Pharmacy podcast episodes and functional medicine deep dives where a practitioner dives into topics like heart health, muscle health, insulin resistance, and more to help you understand the root cause of specific ailments and walk you through the steps to improve your health today. You'll also get access to all my Ask Mark Anything Q&As,

where I answer the community's biggest health and wellness questions. Because I'm so sure you're going to love this platform, I'm offering you free access to all of this content for seven days and a teaser of my brand new functional medicine deep dive episode, diving deep into one of the most important topics in health. Head on over to the doctor's pharmacy podcast on Apple podcast and sign up for your free trial right now. Okay, here we go. So nasal versus mouth breathing. This is extremely important. It is a, it is a, a aspect of dentistry, a functional dentistry that it's very exciting. And it's, it is one of the root causes of all diseases, most diseases. And the good news is that dentistry can recognize it. And I'm speaking more about sleep apnea, but it's associated with nasal breathing. But when it comes to nasal breathing, as opposed to mouth breathing, your dentist probably will do a better job. They can recognize it earlier. Chances are you're seeing your dentist more often than you are your physician. And dentists are coming online now with this important aspect of healthcare. And

one of the things I like to talk about a lot and people are very interested in is mouth taping. And I initially used it, well, I still use it as a differential, as a diagnostic differential to let me know if the patient is able to nose breathe as opposed to is being forced to mouth breathe. And why is that important? Well, because every time I ask a patient, can you nose breathe? They're like, oh, of course I can nose breathe. My nose is right there. It's fine. All right. So why do I need to know whether my patient is mouth breathing as opposed to nose breathing. This is really important. We've touched on nitric oxide production, but really, and again, why is a dentist talking about this? Because a lot of nasal breathing or not being able to nasal breathe is associated

with facial development and crowding of the, and improper formation of the lower face. And to keep things simple, I'm, I'm just going to give this analogy when, when we're born, uh, and, and by the way, uh, the oral microbiome comes from your mom, from the vaginal, uh, from being born vaginally from the, the, the birth canal. I just had to say that because I know I will forget that, but, but as we're born, you know, our face is, is shaped and in such a way it's, it's designed to be very, uh, flexible so that it can get through the birth canal. And then after we're out of the birth canal, things start popping out and growing and developing and the lower face develops and it's pretty much done. Well, 90% done by age six or eight. And we want that jaw to grow fully in terms of width and forward growth. And so the analogy I

like to use is that there are three very important boxes that have to develop correctly, uh, in from being newborn to, to a 10 yearold or a 12-year-old. And those boxes are the airway box, the nose box, and the mouth box. And if the mouth box does not grow to its full width and shape, which is a broad arch, like a horseshoe, instead of a V-shaped arch,

then the other two boxes, the nasal box and the airway box are small, smaller. They get constricted. And this is the bone I'm talking about. And then you put the tissue into the equation. And if the tissue, which can collapse as we get older, it can relax at night because it loses its innervation, its tone. If all that tissue is closer together because the bone boxes are smaller, then we have breathing issues. We can't breathe through our nose. We suffer from sleep apnea. So this is a dental issue.

In other words, dentists need to be on top of this. Again, dentists can recognize sleep apnea and breathing issues, most breathing issues decades before a physician can. So for example, if someone has breathing issues and is suffering a lot from pneumonia or has a lung disease, they may be an adult when they're being treated, but if they had been seen by a functional dentist that recognized certain things by age one, or even in a newborn, in terms of facial development, that all could have been averted. So the other thing, the other important aspect of, and this is brought up very nicely in a book by James Nestor, I mentioned that earlier, I have a picture of all the books that I would like everyone to at least look at and refer

to, but it's very well for anyone, for a practitioner, the lay person, James really portrays it very nicely and makes it a very exciting topic. Why is nasal breathing so important? Well, that's where a lot of our nitric oxide production comes from. If we mouth breathe, then we get this oral dysbiosis, pH changes. We get a lot of oral disease, but we're not able to produce this incredible gas, which is called nitric oxide. And again, as I said, after age 40, the oral source becomes its predominant. It becomes the predominant way of, of, of producing this gas. Um, and you need a balanced oral microbiome food is the source. Well, actually a balanced oral microbiome and the right food is the source. So beets, leafy greens, pomegranate,

one of those wonder foods, not pomegranate juice with 32 grams of sugar per serving added sugar. Pomegranate makes a great prebiotic. That's something I swish with and ingest for my gut microbiome and oral microbiome. No surprise that it makes a great prebiotic because it's feeding those bacteria in the mouth that create the nitric oxide. Beets. I mentioned beets. Beets is a good go-to food. Everyone likes beets, right? Hopefully. I like the orange ones the best. What else? Chocolate, dark chocolate, meat, red wine in moderation. I've seen that appear here and there. I'm not recommending you drink red wine. And if you do in moderation, but dark chocolate, that's great news. Get the chocolate that has two ingredients,

a little coconut sugar and cacao. Don't get the other chocolates with cacao solids and emulsifiers and lecithin and all that. That's not chocolate. Get something that's 75% or higher and snack on that daily. Yes, it's a calorie rich food. Just eat as much as you think you should in terms of calories, but that's a great food for nitric oxide production. But again, what I just read to you is pretty much the paleo diet, except for the chocolate. Our ancestors were not eating chocolate. It was invented by the Dutch in, I think, the 1600s. We first had to find it on the silk routes, and then we sat on it for a little bit. We drank hot chocolate, and then we figured out how to make it into a bar. Anyway, this is very important. Nose breathing is one of the major ways your body produces nitric oxide.

And this is the stuff that provides oxygen to your bloodstream. And we all know we need oxygen, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. So nitric oxide is what oxygenates your blood. You need oxygen to reduce your risk of disease. And of course has a host of other benefits. It's also very well, nitric oxide is

well known for its role in heart health. It's a potent vasodilator and regulator of blood pressure. It improves digestion, immunity. It's actually was a big factor in COVID. People with very high levels of nitric oxide did well with the COVID virus. Memory, an effect on the brain, other behavioral disorders. It's also widely considered to be one of the most important molecules the human body produces, even though it's only there for like a half a millisecond. And a lot of it is made in the nose and the sinus cavity, back of the tongue from the bacteria, but you really need to nose breathe to be able to get this production up. What else can we say about it? Here's what I'd like to say, what's important to me. And, and I learned this after dental school. It's really, we were told actually in my getting my biochemistry degree, my pre-dent degree before dentistry is that CO2

was toxic. And, and really it's the mixture of O2 and CO2 in your blood, because we're always exhaling and inhaling both. But if you exhale too much CO2, it's really the base of your brain, which is an autonomic function. You don't have control over it, that part of your breathing. It's not checking the amount of oxygen in your bloodstream. It's checking and looking at as a marker, whether you're breathing correctly or not, the amount of CO2. And so really to get the correct CO2-O2 mix, because you need CO2 there for the uptake of oxygen and actually for the release of oxygen from the red blood cell into the bloodstream. So you can be breathing and picking up oxygen, but if you're not releasing it to all the organs and brain and parts of the body that need oxygen,

then what's the point in breathing? So that CO2 O2 mix is key. It's that ratio. Again, it's always complicated with the body. And here's, here's the take-home message. Nasal breathing optimizes that ratio automatically. You don't even have to think about it. You can't over-breathe CO2 when you're breathing through your nose. And if you are mouth breathing, your respiratory rate goes up. Your body is looking at that CO2 level and it's telling you to breathe more. And then your breathing rate is shallow. And then you get that bagel, not that bagel, that, um, that sympathetic response. You're nervous. If it's, if kids are mouth breathing, they get a little edgy and agitated. ADHD is, is connected to mouth breathing, um, and other sleep disorders as well.

So, so nasal breathing prevents over-breathing of CO2. It's so important to be able to breathe through your nose. And, and I think nasal breathing is having its moment now, finally, and it's really a big part of dentistry and facial development. So I just wanted to back to mouth taping. So do I think mouth taping, and I've been talking about mouth taping for 10 plus years now, I was ridiculed for many years, especially by ENTs telling me that it was dangerous and other dentists as well. But finally, I think mouth taping, thanks to TikTok and social media is taking off. And so again, back to how I started this conversation, I use mouth taping,

and I should probably give you a quick demo because everybody wants to see what that's like. Mouth taping for me began as a differential. Patients, I would ask them if they were mouth breathing, nose breathing, did they have allergies, deviated septum, any trauma, accidents to the face, and I never got a clear answer. And I needed to know that because part of my routine protocol to treating cavities and gum disease was to make sure there was no oral dysbiosis. If you were a mouth breather, that was a given. All that dry air, especially at night, because saliva flow drops off at night. That's normal. The body doesn't shut down.

It lessens saliva flow because it's not needed. That creates an oral dysbiosis, which means you're more likely to get oral disease. So I needed to know. So I asked people to mouth tape. I use the 3M micropore tape. It's very comes off very easily, but I would ask my patients to try that. There was a lot of trepidation. A lot of people that do mouth breathe and can't breathe through their nose are automatically instinctually fearful of the whole concept because deep down they know instinctually subconsciously that that's not going to happen and this is my airway this is how i get my air it's not i don't have two systems or a

backup system and and so the result would be you know either they can or cannot mouth tape that would tell me a lot then i would refer to a ear nose and throat and throat surgeon and try and get that nasal breathing online. There are a lot of people that would fall between the cracks, people that can mouth tape, you know, they're overachievers, that tapes on in the morning, but they had a very fitful sleep. And that also was very helpful to me as a dentist, because it tells me that even though they could nose breathe, it just, that they need help, that nasal, they need more, more patency in, in the nasal passages and they

were struggling. So, and again, it affects your sleep as well. But for me, it was more about this nitric oxide formation and the effects on the oral microbiome. And again, near the end here, I'm going to talk about the four major causes of oral disease. And one of the big players is whether you can nose breathe or not, or whether you're mouth breathing. And I can go on on that. That's a whole nother presentation. It's actually quite fascinating and a big part of not only just functional dentistry, but overall health. And again, dentists are on the front line in that regard, because if your face doesn't develop properly in terms of, you know, in other words, if you need a lot of braces, teeth taken out to get the teeth all in line, in other words,

your jaw didn't grow to its full potential. So the same number of teeth always come in. It's like moving from a big house to a small house and expecting to put the same amount of furniture that you had in the big house into the small house. That just doesn't work. And that three box analogy, I hope, explains that if the mouth is small, your airway is small. I hope explains that if the mouth is small, your airway is small and that, that can lead to, it determines your health destiny in so many ways, not being able to sleep properly. Uh,

and again, seeing a good dentist and having, having early intervention or at least early, not diagnosis, but screening for that, uh, before the face fully develops, when you can make changes, that is so important. So see a dentist. I always recommend that when mom and dad have their baby, that they go see the dentist right away. The dentist can check for tongue tie. That has a lot to do with facial development as well. That's another whole topic.

So anyway, I hope that was of some help, very important part of functional dentistry. Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of some help, a very important part of functional dentistry. Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of exclusive content that you get every single month with Dr. Hyman Plus. If you want to listen to the full episode and get access to ad-free podcast episodes, plus Ask Mark Anything episodes, plus monthly functional deep dive episodes, I guess that's why we call it Dr. Iman Plus, then head on over to the doctor's pharmacy on Apple podcast and sign up for your seven day free trial. Hi, everyone. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical

professional. This podcast is provided on the for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it

comes to your health.