Hello Plinge, how are you? I thought of you when I saw this article...

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?s...ampaignId=17687

I am better than ever, thank you Teresa.

*

I am sure those dental wizards will make lots of nice money from their clever process. Their clients, however, might save themselves the expense by just giving up white sugar. In both cases, the idea is to provide the teeth with the chemical conditions for self repair. My version will not make anyone any dough, unfortunately, and so I doubt it will catch on.

Just rereading a all the essays on the mouth have solidified my thinking about food; or at least none of the ideas conflict with my thinking about teeth as they relate to food.

IF anything many of the essays reflect just what I have been thinking though without much scientific support.

Drinking milk was originally a short term food source for infants. ANd later in life in most cultures the milk was transformed into another produc like cheese and yogurt for storage purposes. And ther I think liew the benefit. Ithink of the Europeans that serve fruit and cheese for dessert after a meal rather than a cake.

My kids and I eat little sugar. I marvel at the change in our diet since I have introduced them to low carb cakes and cookies. and actually those foods are made when bursts of inpiration hit and then it fades.

I have been letting them drink more fluid milk lately, usually milk with blueberries or in a low carb protein shake.

My kids are hungry about every 2 hours-- given your observation about the less frequent eating, I'm not sure how to address this in the summer months when they are out of school and have more access to food at any given hour.

I would actually like my kids, one in particular, to eat more food, good food of course, and put on a little more weight. I will talk to his pediatrian on THursday and ask about his weight. I may just need to be patient until he his the growth of a teenager.

Always good stuff that you write!! I rarely eat toasted nuts now. lol

I think snacking need not damage the teeth if they are cleaned between snacks. I am a great believer in dental gum. Orbit is surprisingly good for a commercial product. It contains xylitol, which is the deadly enemy of plaque and of caries-forming bacteria. Obviously, it cannot dislodge a seed, or whatever, but it does a remarkable job of keeping the teeth clean. I shall write a post about the science behind that in a while.

Lovely to hear from you, Ms Arielle.

Mouth Piece 10. Gums

Is gum health different from tooth health?

Gum disease is different to enamel decay but similar to dentin decay, in that gums and dentin are both living tissues connected to the bloodstream. An example of the difference is the apple workers I mentioned in an earlier post. Their tooth enamel was damaged from eating too many apples while not cleaning their teeth, but they boasted fine gum health from the nutrients in the apples, such as Vitamin C. So, bad teeth and bad gums do not always go together. Nevertheless, they usually do, because bacteria in the mouth are determined they should.

Whereas the enamel which covers the teeth is an inert substance that mineralises and demineralises according to the tides of saliva chemistry, the gums, like dentin and the core of the teeth, contain collagen—I think of it as the cement of the body—which is mixed within the bloodstream. As long as the body’s collagen is healthy, the gums should be healthy. Therefore a good diet, containing plenty of vitamin C, makes all the difference. Bad foods cause bad gums.

*

Bacterial damage affects both teeth and gums in the following way. Plaque, which builds up after the bacteria ferment sugar into acid, starts to form at the base of the teeth. If the diet is not healthy, the gum tissue is loose there, allowing the bacteria to breed below the gum line, where their acid eats away at the teeth safe from the wash of saliva. As the bacteria multiply, their colonies swell the gums out from the base of the teeth, forming pockets. In this way, damage to gum tissue takes place in the same areas as damage to teeth. Once teeth are damaged under the gum line, the bacteria penetrate further below the teeth, triggering infection and abscesses around the roots.

Unlike enamel damage, the nature of gum damage is not unique to the mouth. It resembles infection in other bodily tissues. The same processes that heal a cut on a finger try to rescue an unhealthy gum. But when, as a result of bad diet, the quality of the gum tissue is poor, it cannot heal easily, meaning that bacteria pour into open tears and sores, causing infection. The wounds become inflamed as the body’s anti-inflammatory system fights the bacterial attack. And the gums hurt.

I lay this out to show—to myself more than anything—that there is nothing complex, unmanageable, or irreversible about gum damage. Its causes are easy to define and the solution straightforward. I say that glibly now; yet I long thought gum disease, gingivitis, periodontitis—all those daunting names—was some peculiar, inevitable, and intractable putrescent blight to which all aging people (apart from a mysterious few) were doomed. A moral punishment, it seemed, for those who had not flossed, scrubbed and neurotically flayed their teeth with dental products all the livelong day. What a surprise to find that good nutrition, and the resulting healthy saliva, reverses gum disease quickly, by cleaning bacteria out of pockets, sealing the pockets up, and sticking gum tissue back onto to the base of the teeth, reducing painful dental episodes to a rarity.

Another reminder to get a dental appt scheduled for a cleaning-- lol-- and get taking my vitamins again . . . ahhhhh, I"ve been slacking . . . .

Not necessarily. A little fruit, a little baking soda toothpaste: healthy gums, clean teeth, voila!

Mouth Piece 11. Tartar

A year after I started my diet, my mouth felt so pleasing to the tongue that I decided, for the first time ever, to take a proper look inside it and survey what was afoot. It was quite a step because till then I regarded my mouth rather the way Pandora regarded her box. Yet now here I was, armed with a two-bit dental kit from the chemist and a magnifying glass the size of a dinner plate, training a desk light on the mirror and peering into the orifice which is the subject of this post.

I did not know what to expect. I pictured my mouth as a ruined landscape, littered with pitted masonry, visibly teeming with vermin. Instead, the scene I beheld was surprisingly reassuring--merely a normal set of old man’s teeth. Yes, they were stuffed at the back with unsightly fillings, and there were gaps where dentists had made free with the pliers. But the gums in which my gnashers were set looked happily pink. I had feared I would see “gum disease” on them--spots, stains, bubonic blemishes, swollen pouches, oozing pus, and putrefaction.

The worst thing I discovered lay along the gum line behind my lower front teeth, a thread of discoloured crust which I guessed was tartar. (At the time, I knew little of tartar, thinking it a more advanced and grotesque form of plaque.) Disgusting though the tartar looked, upon modest scraping it fell away like old paint from a damp fence, exposing clean, undamaged enamel underneath.

I decided to read up on tartar. It turned out to be far less fiendish a substance than I assumed.

*

Tartar is another of those terms--like plaque, caries, periodontal disease--that sounded threatening and technical to me, without my understanding what it was. It is worth saying something about here—since these notes are a letter to myself, an attempt to systematically dismantle my previous helpless view of the aging mouth (and body) as an irreducible, unmanageable mess.

*

I said that till the moment of my great inspection I had never looked in my mouth properly before. That meant I had never observed my tartar before, since it mainly forms on the back of the teeth, particularly the lower middle ones, which get cleaned the least.

Tartar forms there in particular because it is the spot where most saliva enters the mouth. It might be thought--since saliva is good for the mouth and contains chemicals which destroy bacteria and remineralise teeth--that where saliva abounds tartar is less likely to form. But this is not the case, for an interesting reason.

When I found out what tartar actually is, I felt a moment of disgust. Essentially, it is crystallised gunk--in particular, the calcified debris of bacteria, made hard through reactions with saliva and the chemicals in toothpaste.* The millions of bacteria in the mouth do not live long. And when they die, their skeletons (I was surprised to learn dead bacteria have skeletons) mass against the teeth, solidifying into tartar. Living bacteria thrive on and under the surface of the tartar, which shields them from the wash of saliva that otherwise kills them. So tartar forms in the same places as plaque, along the gum line and in nooks and crannies of damaged teeth, but as a harder, more brittle substance than the living plaque that glues it to the teeth. Over time, tartar creeps up the teeth, cladding them in its pale-mustard sheath. So far, so bad.

Tartar is not all bad news, though. First, the reason tartar forms is that saliva mineralises not only enamel but any debris surviving in the mouth. So when saliva interacts with the minerals in the bacteria skeletons, it hardens them the same way it hardens teeth, with similar chemical reactions. But tartar is not as hard as enamel, because the foundations are less solid. As a result, though tartar seems hard at first, it is not intractable, and it can be removed with relative ease.

*

When I discovered the tartar on the backs of my lower teeth, it was already in retreat. By then my healthy, unprocessed diet had long improved my oral health, discouraging plaque. This must have enabled saliva to get between the surface of my teeth and the tartar, loosening it so it fell away. To my relief, I was able in one session to scrape the remaining tartar off with a curved dental scraper. Underneath, my teeth were smooth and clean. They felt shiny and new there to the tongue--which excited, gratified, and, above all, surprised me. Tartar, my old chap, is this all you bring?

The reason the tartar came off so easily is that by then my oral health was good. Without sugar and sugar-containing processed food, saliva becomes mainly non-acidic, and the plaque that glues the tartar to the teeth weakens its grip. The tartar then retreats not by dissolving but by fragmenting off, like ice from a car window when water is poured on it. I used to think the grit I felt on my gum line was crumbling teeth. Now I know that is impossible—tartar crumbles; teeth erode.

I was astonished to uncover a clean tooth surface under the removed tartar. But I have now read accounts of similar experiences. Even people with healthy diets sometimes form tartar, since mineralisation is an alkaline, protective process. They have it removed periodically by a hygienist or learn how to scrape it off themselves. In such cases, their teeth are in fine condition under the tartar. In the absence of heavy plaque, tartar—ugly though it looks—seems relatively benign. It is just the saliva’s way of neutralising any debris that survives in the mouth. Some people’s saliva does this more quickly than others, and rapid tartar formation is not always a bad sign.

I remain prone to small-scale tartar formation, despite my vastly improved oral health. Along my gum line, microdots of tartar still sometimes materialise, presumably where tiny pieces of debris eluded the brush. The result is a slight grittiness when I probe with the pick I use these days instead of floss. It is the matter of a moment to wiggle the pick till such grit is gone. By this method, I give tartar no chance to form a solid mass.

*

To sum up, I believe that tartar in itself is manageable and by no means the worst horseman of the dental apocalypse that supposedly spells doom in our mouths. In the company of low pH, plaque, and gum disease, however, it is problematic. It forms barriers under which bacteria breed and cause damage to teeth. It promotes discoloration and bad breath by restricting the flow of saliva.


***


* The crystallisation of fluids into solids is a basic chemical reaction that we all studied in school chemistry. The unwanted formation of solids (calculi, as they are called—which is Latin for rocks) in the body results from a too acid (or sometimes a too alkaline) pH. Calculi such as kidney, gall, and bladder stones and gout crystals may build up in this way too. Some people even develop salivary stones, which crystallise in the salivary glands and ducts. In my opinion, these problems might be prevented by a healthy diet. A healthy body chemistry can cause calculi to reduce--and not only in the mouth.

Sort of a rock and a hard place, there--excess acid damaging enamel, excess alkalinity maybe leading to excess tartar.

I don't know if you've heard of Milk-alkali Syndrome. I forget what it was supposed to treat, maybe ulcers... but patients sipped water with baking soda in it continually. It worked, they became alkalized--and it caused calcification of the arteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk-alkali_syndrome

Enough of me mis-remembering this.



Sort of reminds me of studies where potassium bicarbonate is given, and menopausal women excrete less calcium in the urine. Will we like it, when we finally find out where that calcium went instead? Use of calcium balance to show effectiveness of treatment against osteoporosis should be banned.

I agree with you. I do not think anyone should take things to mess directly with pH balance, unless they have medical reasons to do so. There is such a thing as the alkaline diet, which to me is based on an illiterate reading of the science. The body maintains different pH levels in different areas, and it does not need any help with that usually--just a good diet. The best medicine is healthy food, which will effectively prevent imbalances.

Since I suffer from gout and have had kidney stones, I do keep a little potassium bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate in the house, which are good for instant removal of pain. I would never take more than one quarter teaspoon of the first or one half teaspoon of the second at a time. But this is rare--I do not have full-on gout attacks these days, and I feel touches of it only about once a couple of months.

As I am going to mention in a future post, I did mix myself a sodium bicarbonate mouthwash to experiment with, but since my mouth pH seems naturally neutral these days there seemed no point. I do not believe in mouthwashes any more.

I think the reason it is foolhardy to mess too much with one's pH is that the ideal homeostatic state is neutrality. Which is very difficult to judge externally. PH rises and falls very steeply, and high alkalinity throws the body out of synch as much as high acidity, as you suggest.

Good writing on the tartar-- I learn more from you than the dentist.
Though now I am curious about the gout. My understanding is that is one of the many "diseases" resulting from the typical modern diet. SInce I know you dont eat that old way now, perhaps the gout will stay under control. My little knowledge is that it is a permanent issue ( the crystals stay put) but perhaps this too has not met your new way of eating and will respond like your teeth and gums.

I have not had a proper gout attack since my new way of eating, apart from when I did experiments with overeating salt or fruit. But I have had little touches of feeling that might predict one, and that is when I have taken the bicarbonate, which kills the sensation within minutes. I use that because I have come to the conclusion that my gout is sensitive to changes in uric acid level, and bicarbonate neutralises it through buffering. (Vast amount of reading and experimentation led me to this neat relief trick.)

You are right, it is odd that I should have even a touch of gout given my improved diet. I think it might be brought on by dehydration, because it seems sensitive to sodium. As you say, though, it may be that the old gout crystals are still there and play up from time to time. If so, from what I have read, it could be that they are coated in a shield that formed in a similar way to tartar. If a change in uric acid pH dealkalises that coating from time to time, then maybe the gout crystals start to cause pain. But it is possible the pain is a good sign, if it is connected to movement of crystals from their lodgements as they get smaller.

Isnt it wonderful what a bit of sleuthing can find?? lol SO many old ways of helping the body that are not well known, or even learned by medical doctors. For example, recently I have been using coconut oil as an anti-bacterial. DOes wonders as an underarm deodorant, so I have applied it to other issues too

OTHer than the pain as a symptom, is there any way to know if the crystals are decreasing?

I do not know, Ms Arielle. But the pain is the thing, so without that, life is markedly better. I will eventually have a lot to say here about gout, which I think is a fascinating condition.

I am also shortly going write a post that talks about coconut oil and teeth, as it happens. I agree that it is antibacterial.

Mouth Piece 12. Sensitive teeth

I have not mentioned tooth sensitivity, when you feel shooting pains in the teeth on eating and drinking cold or hot foods. From what I have read, this results from porous dentin—low-quality dentin caused by an inadequate diet.

I had thought sensitivity irreversible, as with my other dental problems. (In fact, I did not think of it as a problem but as a given.) Unlike them, it did not go away as soon as my diet improved. Nevertheless, from my reading, I now felt sure that it too would improve with time—and, slowly but surely, it did. The reason sensitivity takes much longer to resolve is that the strengthening of the dentin layer is a slow process, akin to the strengthening of bone. Healthy dentin, like healthy collagen, is tightly packed, relatively impervious, and forms a protective seal over the nerves that lead from the teeth into the jaw, face, and skull.

I did not monitor the reduction of my tooth sensitivity. After perhaps six months, however, I suddenly became aware that the issue was gone. I then began deliberately swilling hot and cold liquids over the three bad teeth where sensitivity had occurred, just for the novelty of not springing into the air shrieking like Cruella De Vil’s cat.

*

I was delighted. But I am not kidding myself. Those three ruined teeth—my three amigos--will never be right again. Since they are effectively dead and brittle, they are vulnerable to breakage; and they contain routes for pain and infection to re-enter my system the moment I relapse from my present diet and dental regime. Newly broken teeth are particularly hard on the nerves, which can find themselves touching against fillings.

On a couple of occasions, when a fragment of tooth has broken off, I have briefly felt sensitivity return. It subsided over a week or so, presumably as the newly exposed spot began sealing over. Now that my dental health is good, I trust nature to do its work, so I do not rush to the dentist.

It may seem perverse to keep three teeth in my mouth that I know to be hollow, dead ruins. The first thing a dentist would do is have them out, before replacing them with expensive false ones. But they still do a reasonable job of chewing and biting, and they cause me no problem as long as I eat wisely and as long as healthy saliva plus brushing keeps them clean. It seems all I have to do is protect the areas inside and around them where infection and abscesses could start. My teeth may be a ruin, but they are a well-preserved ruin, like Machu Picchu.

*

For dead teeth such as my three amigos, the danger comes, in my opinion, from poor oral and nutritional health—in particular from a sugary, refined diet low in nutrients such as vitamin C and natural oils, which are good for dentin formation. Nutritional insult surely caused my past extractions, one of which was a Boxing Day emergency, when I was home for Christmas from university. I woke with my face swollen like a football, the morning after a day I had spent, as traditional in our family, continuously eating sweets and chocolates, on top of mince pies, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake loaded with enough icing to plaster a small cow shed. At the time, I thought the abscess random and unlucky. We had to travel a long way to find a dentist on duty who could pry out the abscessed tooth. Fortunately, in those days dental treatment was free.

Before extractions, my face always puffed up from the abscess fluids. So the prospect of abscesses always terrified me. Apart from the pain, one hears anecdotally that their poisons can get into the brain and kill you.

Now I have learned how unlikely that is, even for someone with very bad teeth. Tooth pains spreading from rotten teeth into the face and skull are much likelier to come from receptors linked to exposed nerves. Nonetheless, nothing is more alarming than looking in the mirror and seeing your jaw blown up like you have an apple jammed in your mouth. It may be famous last words, but I am confident (if I stay on track) that this will never happen to me again.