The ultimate oral health episode: Mark Burhenne, DDS | mbg Podcast

Now we have research on fluoride 15 years of it on its effect on the brain it lowers your child's IQ by 4 to n points and a pregnant mother can affect her fetus it starts then I would like if everyone gets tested for the oral microbiome and that dentists and patients alike have respect for this oral microbiome have an understanding a comprehension of why it's the root of everything hey everyone before diving Into the episode I want to take a moment to invite you into to our mindbody green ecosystem where you can explore the infinite

possibilities of health and well-being all you have to do is click the Subscribe button to hear more thought-provoking interviews with leaders in the health space I am so grateful for all of you who have tuned in over the years and let me tell you it's only going to get better we breathe north of 20,000 times a day yet we're Not talking about breathing whether it's nasal breathing or mouth breathing in the context of oral health Mark tell us what's going on here Jason uh thanks um you're right I mean we all assume since we've been

doing it for so long from birth uh that we're good at it and we don't we take it for granted we have taken breathing for granted I think James Nester did a great job of uh illustrating that um in his book bre um There are I mean I'll just go right to the oral health implications uh other than a dentist being able to be a great person to be able to tell you very quickly whether you are a nose breather able to breathe through your nose properly uh whether you're a mouth breather but simply put

if you breathe through your mouth if you are a mouth breather breathing through your mouth um you are going to have oral health issues and complications and that's because if Assuming that if you understand the concept that breathing through your mouth is not a good thing for many reasons but in terms of oral health it is is affecting the pH of your saliva it is lowering the pH of your saliva it's drying out your mouth your mouth needs a certain amount of saliva to function properly saliva is the lifegiver in the mouth it supports the

oral microbiome and it helps prevent Decay cat tooth cavities gum disease it activates the Immune system it allows us to speak and swallow and Digest foods of course there are other op other uh reasons for uh the importance of saliva but Mouth breathing in itself if you are mouth breathing during the day but also at night I mean that's a six to eight hour stint of just sitting there breathing through your mouth also saliva flow drops normally while you sleep which is normal um that's a long stint of having to put up with a lower

pH in the mouth and a uh Kind of a dispos of the oral microbiome and unhealthy state of the oral microbiome because there isn't enough saliva so it's best to breathe your nose unless you're talking and eating so I I heard cavities in there am I am I hearing right that you are more likely to have cavities if you are a mouth breather it's funny um you know I figured that out about 15 years ago because it's not in the dental curriculum um and then I started making You know the association and realizing that you

know my kids that were mouth breathing they had a different consistency of saliva you could see the bofilm on the tooth we called it a furry bofilm or plaque layer on the tooth these were all mouth breathers uh and and now it's clearly known that that is an issue because of our knowledge of the oral microbiome ironically back to James Nester uh he sent me while he was researching his book he sent me a quote From a dental textbook from the late 1800s saying that mouth breathing is an issue when it comes to Decay and

then it was dropped and forgotten and now we we see it but but it's not it was not taught in dental school yes so your incidence of Decay gum disease bad breath anything to do with the oral microbiome not being well not being able to do its job a dis disbiosis it's like the gut microbiome uh that will lead to Decay gum disease it's it's it's a it's A immune response disorder um if the oral microbiome can't defend what's going on in the mouth you're these diseases will pop up and Decay is right up there

so if I think of the things we're doing every day breathing obviously need to bre breathe to live so that that's top of mine then I think about our our oral health routine there's brushing I I personally what I do I wake up I go go pee and then I brush my teeth and then before I go to Bed I brush my teeth and and floss shoot is is that correct should I be doing that well no that's that's great and unfortunately as the the profession has kind of um Amplified that message that if you're

not doing that all hell will break loose and that's true to an extent but it's not the only part of the equation you can still have a very poor diet you can still be mouth breathing for example and you can be the perfect flosser and brusher which is That's what I do I brush when I get up in the morning not after breakfast and then I brush before bed I've been trying to move that up a little bit especially during the winter we can talk about that on but and then flossing uh and flossing once

a day is fine sometimes twice a day is is is better for some but but I I don't know how many times you've heard when you've been to the dentist and you got a cavity and you're like most people will ask why or what can I do to prevent That and the dentist will or the hygienist and dentist uh will say you know you got to brush and floss more and that's the wrong message because there's so much more to oral health and that's the root cause uh that's discussing the root cause of oral disease

and its diet its epigenetics mouth breathing it's uh toxins um diet is the big one but brushing and flossing that's not the only thing that saves Us in fact just Doing that alone and not doing everything else correctly you're still going to have Decay so we're going to touch on all of that we're of course going to touch on diet but if I'm brushing my teeth the next question I'm sure everyone's thinking is well what should I be brushing my teeth with they toothpaste all sorts of toothpaste there's fluoride there's whitening there's natural runs the

gabit what's your let's talk about toothpaste what What should we look for in a toothpaste in your opinion you know we've done a really terrible job of that as as a profession the consumer is confused um we've let me go way back so toothpaste is a necessary evil and it's again based on diet so when our diet changed two 300 years ago it got particularly worse at the turn of the last century uh you know Cheerios uh cereals crackers all these processed uh refined carbohydrates and And I'm also including sugar and candy and all that

but but I want to enlarge that that picture it can be uh a Saltine cracker for example or Cheerios which often if you read the box is is um touted as a health product good for your heart uh these are products that increase the the incidence of DEC so much so that before I think it was World War II actually was World War I uh there was a real problem the gis had terrible teeth they were in a lot of Pain and GIS don't do well when they are in pain on the front line so

they actually uh invented toothpaste they introduced toothpaste uh there was a national campaign they actually hired a psychologist to kind of move the needle in terms of behavior how are we going to motivate people to brush and and the toothpaste that we developed Back Then basically came out of the back of a covered wagon snake oil salesman I mean it was soap it was a detergent and uh And that's the way it's been up until this point we still have those toothpastes and it's a huge Market a big profit maker and boutique Brands now are

beginning to change that fluoride is hopefully on its way out soon fluoride is a neurotoxin for infants and fetuses so what do use um I would use a fluoride free toothpaste that is surfactant and emulsifier free without essential oils in it now having said that most of your listeners will say well does that even Exist right tell me some Brands I'm going shoing I've formulated a toothpaste uh I've brought it to Market so I know how difficult this is uh I would say a clay based toothpaste is good I think Primal Organics has that our

toothpaste fig fyg which stands for feed your Good Guys is emulsifier surfactant free and EO free essential oil free all these Botanicals there's no data that it it supports the oral microbiome if anything an essential oil Is bacteriocidal and that's the last thing you want to do is disinfect the mouth which is where we still are and have been from the Inception of toothpaste formulation design uh it was designed to disinfect the mouth you do not want to disinfect the mouth in fact if you can't find a toothpaste that doesn't do that or it yeah

um it's better off not to use toothpaste uh I would just dry brush and floss uh because these toothpaste and Mouthwashes that that are designed to disinfect the mouth are taking down your oral microbiome which actually cause bad breath Decay uh gum disease and even high blood pressure so make sure your toothpaste is supporting the oral microbiome not trying to disinfect it why would you do that for the gut why would you take antibiotics for the gut I mean it obviously it's sets you back right you're hitting on a bigger issue which We're going to

come back to is which diseases other than gum disease are born in the mouth uh but but I'll segue there because mouthwash is something I've seen you take a pretty strong stance on let's talk about mouthwash while you're anti- mouthwash same category as toothpaste a little different it was kind of a it was something that came literally out of the back of that snake oil salesman covered wagon it was a a uh essential oil very strong it was meant to burn and and it Was a eucalyptus oil typically which is what lerine that model or

that formula is based on and people back in the wild west I mean they had rotting teeth their diet wasn't optimal it was difficult to get fresh vegetables uh they were eating a lot of meat which was good but there was a lot of decay in the wild west and that's what appeared this market for we can fix that if you have tooth pain uh I think tooth pain is shaped world history Wild West certainly uh especially if You're a gunfighter or or someone you know uh chasing criminals I mean this this was a difficult

job and if you're sitting there on your horse riding endlessly all day long and you're in tooth pain uh you're just not going to be very efficient at your job so so the mouthwash still is a disinfectant for the mouth and most of them are quite strong that kills a portion of the oral microbiome mostly on the back of the tongue these are bacteria that produce Or that break down the nitrates in vegetables into nitrites and produce nitric oxide and of course nitric oxide is this wonderful uh gas very short-lived that uh lowers our blood

pressure and it and it helps peripheral blood flow it helps with oxidative stress it helps with uh mood and as we get older we aren't able to produce it as much the one and most of that comes from endothelial cells and the blood vessels and other parts of the Body but by age 40 we've lost that ability but there's one mechanism that can still go strong to the to the end of our days and that is this oral microbiome producing no and there are plenty of products down the market you where you can test that

and see if you have the right oral microbiome for it but mouthwash we have plenty of studies they're over 20 years old uh mouthwash that is meant to disinfect your mouth which is what most mouthwashes are Designed to do elevates your blood pressure pressure by quite a bit and the reverse is true uh the the the effect of it is is is uh reversed in six to seven days of of of ceasing the use of mouthwash and concurrent with that there's a new study out now I think there are two of them where if you

tongue scrape you can actually lower your blood pressure so obviously I'm recommending at ask the dentist and and on our Instagram account stop using Mouthwash you can use saltwater if you want or baking soda and water or just water but the action of swishing really doesn't move the needle as much as brushing with a paste if you need to reduce bofilm and reintroduce minerals back in your teeth mouthwash is not going to do that if you have a strong bofilm swishing with something unless it's acid you're not going to dissolve and break down that bofilm

it's the mechanical action of Brushing adding some toothpaste to help boost your saliva mineral content of saliva saliva is a super saturated solution of minerals hydroxyapetite calcium chloride potassium Boron magnesium uh mouthwash doesn't do that it's a waste of your money at at best it's a waste of your money at worst which typically it is it's it's having systemic effects it's elevating your blood pressure so beyond blood pressure what other diseases or systemic Effects you believe begin in in the mouth with oral health yeah so specifically with mouthwash there's one other effect of mouthwash and

that is insulin resistance it it increases that as well but in terms of diseases in the mouth oral disease inflammation in the mouth essentially is a metabolic disease enhancer and it is connected and linked to many chronic diseases probably 70% of chronic diseases have some involvement with an oral bug and this all relates to The oral microbiome disbiosis so if your microbiome and your mouth is off maybe you're using the wrong oral care product maybe your mouth breathing maybe you're eating too many carbohydrates usually it's a combination of all of that uh your body mass

indexes affected blood pressure triglycerides are elevated your A1C and fasting blood glucose will again these are all the the elements of metabolic disease and if you have oral disease uh this will be enhanced U it is A amp it's an amplifier of other diseases if you have inflammation in the mouth it it it can make other diseases worse and then of course you've got the connection between Alzheimer's heart disease cancer let's talk about brain health I think brain health cognitive decline specifically Alzheimer's is is on the rise and many find absolutely frightening and that's not

one you know I think about gum disease okay got it You know blood pressure oh wow I'm kind of surprised that but then I think about cognitive decline Alzheimer's oral health wow you've got my attention now right and of course high blood pressure uh contributes to alzheimer's uh to that microvascular in the brain but um yes uh lots of data on that studies now for probably the good ones at least now for eight years uh there's a bug in the mouth called the P gingivalis bug which is associated it's one of the big Players in

gum disease and that unfortunately is able to cross the blood brain barrier it gets into the bloodstream via the gums uh we can talk about that if you want how that works but and it gets into the bloodstream and to the brain and when the brain sees that P gingivalis it lays down amid plaque uh there are 10 other reactions to the mitochondria of the brain the myene sheath uh it it the brain swells um There is a sudden and sustained reaction to the to the brain the immune system in the brain if someone has

chronic gum disease there's a it's the gingi pan there's a agent that uh has been studied I think it was discovered at UCSF in San Francisco the researchers and that already that research is now 68 years old and of course they're targeting that if they could suppress that with a pharmacological agent then they're hoping that they could probably reduce Alzheimer's by by a lot I mean uh so it's it's frightening and I think a lot of people are listening to this and they're wondering you know do I have gum disease or or if they have

been told that they have gum disease it's all reversible if you start today on reversing gum disease and improving other aspects that contribute to gum health uh sorry to gum health but also to uh brain health this this can be addressed but again mouthwash toothpaste That is designed to disinfect the mouth which causes a disbiosis of the oral microbiome pin jaalis bug uh a number Elevate that causes gum disease that crosses into the bloodstream to the brain I mean it could be that I mean we've had this wrong for a long time we've seen a

big increase in the incidence of Alzheimer's I would say one big aspect of it is Dentistry poor recommendations as far as oral oral care so you mentioned tongue scraping is Something everyone should do you know throw out throw out the mouthwash pick up a tongue scraper what does that look like is that something you do twice a day like walk us through how someone can integrate tongue scraping into their routine so tongue scraping is the uh the most underappreciated aspect of Oral Care um and I would I would not underestimate it uh and everyone should

be uh tongue scraping doesn't mean you have to tongue scrape forever but in the Beginning find a good tongue scraper you want you don't want something on the end of your toothbrush you know on the back side of your toothbrush head that's just not that would take too long and you wouldn't be able to cover the whole tongue you want a bow shaped instrument where you grab on both sides it can be a flexible piece of plastic with little teeth in it it can be a smooth piece of stainless steel and you would basically Reach

back as far as you can on the tongue stick your tongue out and you would drag this forward a few times along your tongue in the beginning you're going to see this uh I'm trying to it's a kind of a tan colored Solution that's typically what people will scrape off of their tongue uh and remember the tongue is like a shag carpet or it's like a carpet with little mushrooms that's how the that's how the taste buds are shaped and so You've got the heads or the Caps of the mushrooms and there's all that space

underneath that that is building up with uh just food debris and and especially if you're mouth breathing and and that needs to be opened up and cleaned out and that's what you're pulling off with the tongue scraping you're kind of uh agitating the Sea of mushrooms uh and opening it up and getting fluid in there getting saliva in there which is again that elixir of Health in the mouth and you're disturbing that and now if you had a perfect diet you wouldn't have to do this but so do that in the beginning you may even

pull a little blood off the tongue that's inflamation uh you're disrupting the bofilm on the tongue but you're allowing those bacteria that produce nitric oxide for example there other functions as well there's the taste bud ability to taste things there's a some new research out two Studies that just came out on satiety is not linked to stretching of the stomach receptors that's what I learned in Dental School uh it's based on the amount of flavor that you're getting on the tongue so if you're not tongue scraping you're probably overeating because you're not tasting your food

wow so you're breaking apart what's built up on your tongue most people when they stick out their tongue if they're not tongue scrapers I could tell them Exactly what part of the tongue are affected what kind of bacteria are growing there you can even see food debris in the tongue there are a lot of nooks and crannies in the tongue so you just want to sweep that and clean it out do that for a few months maybe a few weeks until that fluid is gone once a day or is that a twice a day thing

I would I mean I'm when I get information like this I tend to go at it and and almost overdo it so I would say two Three times a day until that fluid disappears and then check in every once in a while so I Tong scrape every third or fourth day or if I know I've been bad on my diet any kind of processed car refined carbohydrate will lead to a improper bofilm formation on the tongue interesting if anyone's everever gone to a uh TCM practitioner traditional Chinese medicine acupuncturist or you the they always have

you stick out your tongue and they look at your tongue Exactly you can tell a lot from the tongue and and if you have bad breath don't mouthwash actually makes it worse you smell good it's like deodorizing something with the spray it smells good for about 10 minutes and then the the odor the sulfur the broken down sulfur bonds sulfide bonds uh comes back and you get that dead fruit uh smell and taste so so scrape your tongue definitely it's easy to do once you get in the habit uh it's it's and plus it Has

other effects too with anything to do with nitric oxide I mean it can lower your blood pressure we talked about that study earlier it can literally lower your blood pressure why wouldn't you want to scrape your tongue I I think you've sold everyone you know I think I think you mentioned diet a few times and I think we've got an audience that believes you know food is medicine and so what's on H how do we eat better for our oral health what should be on our Grocery list right uh that's a pretty easy answer I

mean because the mouth is connected and part of the body and and we talked earlier about how uh I mean disease in the mouth is also is is part of that metabolic disease uh quotient and and if you have diabetes it's going to make things in the mouth worse if you have gum disease it it exaggerates it makes it more difficult to control your blood sugar levels it's all connected so whatever You're doing for uh a you know lowering your blood pressure keeping your weight your your BMI low BMI has been picked on recently it's

probably not a great indicator anymore but being lean uh having muscle mass uh keep keeping your your uh cholesterol and triglyceride levels well balanced not necessarily low it's all about the ratio of all the good and bad um or uh or fluffy you know ldls uh and also your A1C I I would say any food if You're wearing a CGM which a lot of my patients do especially if I'm treating them for gum disease uh because they're connected um you want to make sure your A1C and your fasting blood glucose is optimal any food and

again we all know what that is right that's a paleo diet ancestral diet lots of vegetables fiber stay away from crackers and goldfish and candies and cakes and even flour um and breads so you've mentioned eating meat also you mentioned that earlier and I'm Assuming there's a correlation with eating meat not only beyond the nutrients but jaw strength and chewing and am I is it fair to assume no no there's definitely um something to talk about there uh so our ancestors obviously they became good Cooks I mean it took chimps it takes chimps about five

to six hours to chew for what they need in terms of caloric intake and and and vitamins and nutrients U and we don't have time for That and if you read for example if you read the book sapiens uh which is a fantastic read one of the points that he made is that when we were able to start cooking our food and it took less time to eat and we were able to digest it more uh or better because it was cooked or broken down uh we became that much more of a superior species I

mean Superior is not the right word but but uh but if you look at today's diet even To cooked meat or certainly raw meat raw foods um we have lost an edge there in terms of development our Jaws are smaller they we've lost our width we've lost our depth of the jaw that vertical uh growth and forward growth which in turn has affected our Airway and made us uh very poor sleepers has increased the incidence of sleep apnea so chewing especially when the child is developing from age from from the first moment that they can

chew and that's sometimes Before the teeth come in and but baby Foods payed it's watered down it's mostly water and sugar uh breast formula certainly doesn't apply uh as a as a good food uh breast milk is something different the colostrum of course uh that's not a chewing food but as soon as the kid starts chewing you definitely want them chewing on solid foods and that doesn't include Cheerios or or bread or anything like that you want them chewing because That chewing actually does have many effects and that is is on stimulating proper facial development

and but also tongue posture and and other things that are related to this development so our our ideal of Beauty has changed with men and women these small little Angelic faces v-shaped small chins uh that's not how our ancestors looked we look different than our ancestors and is that something that Beyond age seven we can have an impact on teenagers adults Through tongue posture breathing chewing um you picked an interesting age there that's when most of facial development is done by age eight or nine 90% of the facial development is done so it would really

you'd really want to intervene earlier the problem with modern Orthodontics is that we're intervening after jaw development is done all the teeth are in obviously there's crowding the jaw didn't get big enough so the teeth that That come in the set number that come in they have no room so what do they do they start overlapping they try and they move tip forward tip backward to to stack up properly so really that intervention preventively first like M functional therapy uh deal with tongue ties mouth breathing obviously can affect facial development because we breathe differently uh

it even affects the development of our chest because we breathe not with our chest muscles Properly more diaphragm breathing these are all things that affect how we turn out muscular skeletally shape size Airway size so the 487 all that has to be addressed see your dentist as soon as possible I like to see my young patients within days of birth we're checking for a tongue tie then it's mouth breathing then it'll be facial development chew solid foods I know a lot of parents are nervous about that I saw that struggle with my grandchildren my daughter

Knowing all this obviously she would introduce solid foods more quickly than other moms did and she was very concerned about choking but they're fine as long as they are able to nose breathe in other words being able to breathe through your nose allows us to chew with our mouth closed but if you can't breathe through your nose you're it's like when you have a cold it's very difficult to chew food yeah you know we have uh we're big fans through James Nester we've had him on the show and James introduced us to Patrick mckuin who

we've also had on the show and he's got a great mouth tape oxygen Advantage it just goes around the mount myotape myotape yes fantastic we put it on our kid kids will use it occasionally it's really uh gamechanging because the idea of taping your mouth shut especially a child's mouth shut is horrifying right right but it works it does but it's it goes around the mouth This his tape goes around the mouth so the child can breathe or the adult can breathe through the mouth but it really for it really encourages it's like a a

great nudge to breathe through the nose I think it helps parents start that process and then they can graduate to regular tape uh I've seen I mean I've I would stay up late sometimes and watch my uh patients go through a sleep study at the clinic and I would observe them and we would try mouth taping on kids And if they struggled for air the mouth would open and the tape would peel off but mild tape is a great place to start and I highly recommend it for anyone under age five or six uh but

adults too but Mouth taping is wonderful uh and and Patrick is absolutely amazing yes uh so I think we we covered a lot of the day-to-day and and the way that I'm thinking about you know how how we cover all we want to cover in this interview you know there's the day-to-day then There's you know the two to three times a year trips the dentists uh and then we've got the somewhat non-invasive or or maybe very uncomfortable Allah braces Invisalign mouth guards then we've got the invasive you know the root canals the implants the you

know the I'm my my life is going to be disrupted for the next year or so but let's go with the the dentist you know I'm going to see my dentist maybe it's two to three times I'll start there how should one And understood I I have a feeling I know what the answer is going to be here but we we are unique but is there a rule of thumb in terms of what is the right frequency for you to visit your dentist right uh that's a great question um and and the typical professional answer

is is a rubber stamp kind of answer where you should be seeing someone at least twice a year I have a lot of patients that I see once a year sometimes every two to three years it you can customize That to the patient but that's not conducive to practicing and and then it depends on what kind of dentist you're seeing we can talk a little bit about that but there's functional Dentistry like functional medicine and then there's conventional dentistry and and so the answer the the immediate answer is twice a year the problem is is

that half of americ an are not seeing a dentist on a regular basis really yeah which is really sad and and it's for a Variety of reasons uh it's costly dental insurance really is not a true Insurance product Medicare doesn't have any dental coverage a lot of my elderly patients who were working at Apple or Intel for example soon as they retired they would come see me on an onmed basis and that's not what you want to do when you have gum disease and you're headed towards so is that let's just talk about that for

a moment and we're going to come back to the Dentist is that part of the big issue structurally in that dentists or there small businesses uh people have to pay out of pocket and I'll just stop right there whereas Insurance plays a significant role in what people value or choose to focus on on with their health and many people if you've got a dental issue you just blow through your deductible like that and It's all out of pocket whereas with traditional care if I've got something wrong with a limb or an organ most in most

good insurance has your back you're covered so is that a big part of the the why in your opinion I think it is uh I mean Ministry and Medicine separated in 1839 we kind of got kicked out of the club um for a variety of reasons um you some were well Justified uh funnily enough though they the physicians at a tooth AE would still Come see us but but anyway and since then medicine and Dentistry have been kind of uh have these uh kind of non-con converging parallel path feel like they don't talk to each

other exactly there's no connective tissue between the two and I think most physician Ians their education is that the mouth is well that's that's the realm of the dentist it's just hard tissue and there's no systemic involvement and unfortunately things are changing a little bit but but Because of that because of that one fact there are two different products uh Insurance products and one is dental insurance and one is medical insurance medical insurance typically is a true Insurance product where if you get into a car accident they they you know the insurance keeps paying out

until until you're better or if you have a chronic disease it keeps going where dental insurance it's not really insurance it's not an insurance product it's more of a Benefit it it only pays out maybe a, to 1500 maybe 2,000 there were some $2,000 plans uh per year and after that you're on your own and then but initially you pay deductible uh if you go see a dentist for that year and then maybe your cleaning is covered 100% but anything after that has very high co- payments 20 50 80% co-payments so and plus then you

max out so that is a factor in the poor oral health and I would argue poor systemic health because They're connected uh in this country and I've spoken to uh Congress uh about this and we really need to have a Medicare needs to cover dental and oral health 100% And that would reduce the the incidence of Alzheimer's and chronic diseases and it would impact greatly financially the outlay of cost of of money spent on Medicare so they you're right that is a big factor because the two professions operate separately in two uh parallel Universes uh

they have separate products and the dental product is absolute crap so so building off of the dental product I'll go we're going back to okay we're we're we're at the dentist and fluoride inevitably will come up is that why why does fluoride come up it seems like there's a developing let me let me rephrase this it feels like over the past couple years there seems to be more research coming out essentially Saying it's not necessary and it's potentially harmful but that doesn't seem to be the case the moment I step into the dentist chair if

it's here it is for for children adults and should we be thinking about children and adults differently so is your view this is a non-starter for for CH children and adults and then the part two of this question is well why is this the case yeah well you you put that very well um Into context where uh there are a lot of dentists that are not recommending or recommending against fluoride there is no research on fluoride back when it first came out again much like ped ped was pulled off the shells of CV S I

mean there was it it was approved in 1938 but there was no data same thing with fluide but now we have research on fluoride 15 good solid research 15 years of it on its effect on the brain uh it lowers your child's IQ by four to nine points Uh and a pregnant mother can affect her fetus it starts then so but you're right I mean and and this is what I get a lot on Instagram it's like I've been shamed by my dentist because I turn down fluoride I know better and I've read the research

it's it's on the web you have to dig deep for it because it is it doesn't pop up there's a lawsuit against the EPA which is going to conclude next week I'm going to be there uh in San Francisco at the federal courts this is Something I've been waiting for for 40 plus years maybe longer all my daughters were raised without fluoride from way back when the oldest is 36 uh and back then I didn't have the research but I just had a bad feeling it was a lesser of two evils argument but now we

have the research it's been approved by the the NTB uh National toxicology toxicology board uh 93% of the research has been approved um I think We I think that's needed two things are needed there needs to be something a national something that happens in the federal courts which I think will happen soon where uh Florida is exposed for what it is for Dentistry to change and then also you need to give dentists a way to bill for something else uh the fluoride treatment and the Fluoride Varnish that that is a big money maker in a

dental practice and it's the hygienist that does it it takes a few Minutes I mean I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that we need to keep our dentist in business and but not with flid we cannot expose our kids to flid there there's a mismatch with financial incent these are small businesses and I think every dentist goes into everyone who goes into the field of medicine wants to help people and become a Healer and if this is what they've learned in medical school and also financially this is something reimbursed for I'm going to Do

it until proven otherwise or there's another incentive because these are small businesses incentives need to be aligned uh what about some of the other things if I sit in my dentist chair I I think X-rays I think cleaning I think teeth whitening walk us through those briefly x-rays are a big deal a lot of moms ask about that as they should uh you know uh ionizing radiation uh it uh methylates DNA uh too much of it is is bad Uh some of it is okay A little bit of it is okay um but unfortunately dentists

have a protocol they take X-rays every six months every 12 months some offices are every two years it really should be based on what the dentist or hygienist SE so I would go to a a dental practice where the dentist sees you before the cleaning starts and makes an assessment uh rather than after most dental practices have the dentist come in later and of course he sees a clean mouth the Hygienist has done a great job right so uh and then the dentist the hygienist is recommending x-rays so there has to be a very good

reason to take X-rays and x-rays are definitely overused x-rays are not perfect we have newer x-rays we have digital x-rays if you do get an x-ray make sure it's digital not a film-based x-ray the dosage is much much lower there are some things your dentist cannot see but even an x-ray can mislead a dentist it's not perfect these are Little Shadows it's not you know you take you don't take an x-ray and then there's like a little x marks the spot that is definitely a cavity you definitely have to go in and and fix it

it's not that simple so it has to be nuanced it has to be done based on need uh I would do as little as possible on kids uh baby teeth you can use a very bright light I used to use a transillumination device very strong uh battery uh you know a cordless machine With uh powerful batteries in it was handheld and it would focus the down to a very small fiber optic tip and through baby teeth you can shine that light and baby teeth aren't as as beefed up as as thick they have thinner enamel

and they're they're more translucent you can literally see cavities with that so use transillumination there are alternatives uh but sometimes an x-ray is needed let's say you have a root canal that is you know tap sensitive and you're Feeling a little soreness you need a three-dimensional cone beam x-ray because the root canal is if that goes bad that's worse than the amount of ionizing radiation so again ionizing radiation you you got to I would keep a diary of how many x-rays you're getting and ask for the dosage and that includes your physician chest x-rays are

are are you know they just every time you start coughing and hacking and there's they think you have pneumonia they they tell You to get a chest x-ray so um what else a whitening uh whitening is bad for your teeth um I'm not saying don't do it certainly don't do it on your own at home make sure you know what you're doing uh if the dentist pulls out a special light and leaves the room and has painted your teeth with something that probably is not a good sign there's very good there's very little good data

on these LED lights especially at home uh the best way to whiten your teeth is To use a caride peroxide based gel about 10% in a custommade tray don't overfill the tray so that it touches your gums place the tray leave it in for half hour do that for a few weeks that is the safest way to whiten your teeth uh and that should be done the tray should be for example if you have invisaline trays that would be perfect but make sure you're getting it done or it's demonstrated to uh Professionally uh the Europeans

are very strict on whitening uh we're out of control here you can buy this stuff on Amazon up to 35% and the Europeans have capped it for children no whitening on children up until age 17 or 18 10% only after that uh it's it's it's it's a it's the Wild Wild West here when it comes to whitening in the US a lot of things are the Wild Wild West it's a strong oxidizer it's it's tough on the to Structure and it can cause pulpitis and so is there anything we should know about the the cleaning

process that we should be aware of or raise with our dentist so we got the memo on x-rays we got the memo on fluoride whitening hard hard hard po hard pass excuse me we're going to we going to Pivot to your method what about the should we make any requests with the cleaning something I found personally is I hate the machine so I always say do it by hand they don't Like it but they do it I don't like it well we used to do it by hand uh with carbon steel instruments which is still

a great way to go um you'd have to make sure that your hygienist is sharpening their instruments properly and has the technique and has the muscle memory it takes a lot of strength and and it's it's a different type of the ultrasonic the one that you don't like that has a it rattles up against the teeth it it does set off a lot lot of people it's Uncomfortable a lot of people can't even use a Sonic uh toothbrush for that reason kids are very sensitive to that Sonic uh and that's good at bulk removal of

Tartar and calculus um but when it comes to really cleaning the tooth properly it's typically a combination of ultrasonic or p Electric uh device and then that's the bulk removal hopefully you don't need a lot of that and then going to the hand instrumentation and good sharp Instruments uh and good Tech technique and someone who does it on a regular basis it is a it's muscle memory based and that's how I recommend and you do need to get your teeth clean some need to get it cleaned four times a year depends on how much Tarter

you build up and Tarter is a function largely you know are we mouth breathing are we eating the right Foods essentially yep you know you mentioned the different kind of schools of of Dentistry Obviously there's traditional Western and then there's there's functional there's biological holistic we were to to focus on those three what what are the differences between functional biological and holistic right um again our fault we've confused the consumer we have all these different names uh uh Dentistry is very even more fragmented than medicine medicine at least has these large Hospital umbrellas nonprofit organizations

group practices Where dentists are typically were more you know fragmented small businesses small businesses so Proprietors Mavericks Cowboys whatever you want to call it and and there's nothing wrong with that um and we have more control and the good dentists are the ones that are not their treatment is not determined by what's paid for by the insurance plan or what can the patient afford I mean they're doing the right thing um but When it comes to Conventional Dentistry which is what we all end up with when we graduate from dental school there's conventional Dentistry it's

a great education it makes us great clinicians uh we need good clinicians it's amazing what western uh Dentistry can do just like Western medicine in terms of fixing things and making us look great and curing the you know addressing the symptoms but it really should be more there needs to be more emphasis on that Functional approach that Upstream what is the root cause of disease so that we don't have to deal with any of the symptoms medicine's gone through that it's captured a small part of that market um Dentistry is going through the same thing

I've been modeling and and promoting that for at least now 20 years and the needle is beginning to move in that but what is a functional dentist uh I I like the term functional I thought about this for a long time I like the Term functional because it covers everything integrative biological holistic uh uh because holistic or for example uh biological only deals with safe materials it focuses on safe materials but it may not focus on Airway and facial development functional is a broader term so when I speak of a functional dentist it may be

that you're seeing a biological dentist and and that's a good dentist to see but maybe they're not Airway focused you would Have to then get a referral to an airway focused dentist uh in in that in that case and so where does one go about a lot of people are asking the question great where do I find one well we have a directory on our website and that kind of was happen chance because you know my daughter and I who have been doing this website now for 10 plus years we ended up we realized that

we ended up educating all of our followers and and that was great uh and you know they had Open minds and they had questions and and they wanted to know why am I getting so many cavities for example but then we spoke about the functional approach and then the comeback then what we were seeing is like well okay who do I go see and I couldn't I mean I was getting people from out of state and you know I couldn't handle that load so so so it was one of our staff members that came up

with the idea we should have a directory and we should vet these Dentists because they're out there there are functional dentists and so we built we only have about 200 maybe 250 worldwide um and most of them sought us out but we sought out some of them some of them we knew were were ones that we wanted on the list and they pay to be on the list they are vetted uh and we are beginning to and have already started providing them continue education they're hungry for this information they get it They've had their own

health issues whether it was systemic or even oral health related and they understand the functional approach they understand that's it's not just all about treating symptoms and that Modern Health care is about 15 20 years behind all the new research so so they're they're eager they're well educated and they have a good conventional Dental uh background they're they're great clinicians and so integrating that into a functional Approach is the kind of dentist that you want to see as a patient fantastic we will definitely link to that directory in our show notes so we'll move on

to the the somewhat non-invasive uh very uncomfortable treatments and I'll start with one I think is fairly popular Invisalign is that okay by you absolutely love the product uh worked alongside them in in Santa Clara which is where they started uh that is a great product very non-invasive it it makes More sense than conventional brackets and braces although invis line can't can't do all can't do the difficult cases although they've gotten better the material is is pretty safe pretty inert makes a great whitening tray and in a great night guard if you're mountain biking or

skiing I I always pop in my Invisalign in case I fall so great product what about traditional braces for for kids uh fine not a problem more difficult to clean around uh it needs a Lot of care and attention to prevent Decay or decalcification marks on the teeth which are difficult to remove cosmetically the problem with Orthodontic Care is that it should be done at age two three or four and how how willing is a small kid to get brackets and wires it's all about convenience when you go see a surgeon pretty much everything you

know getting knocked out completely that's that's all for the convenience of the surgeon Obviously you don't want to feel a lot of the pain but but surgeons make their life easier because they're doing surgeries all day and that that that's okay but it's the same thing in dentistry orthodontists are treating kids when they feel that they can intervene at 12 and 13 but that's you have an then you're dealing with a small jaw and you're taking teeth out to make room for the other teeth so it's really about intervening early and good Orthodontist functional orthodontist

orthotropic orthodontist there are all sorts of different names of course again very fragmented but ones that are enlightened they are treating earlier without the brackets and wires and they are expanding the arch with a device that gets placed temporarily or permanently the parent will uh at nightly turn a little screw on the pallet and and widen the arch promote proper facial Development so that when it comes time for all the adult teeth to erupt there's no need for brackets and wires or even invisaline interesting what about mouth guards mouth guards uh I made a lot

of mouth guards in my career uh because I saw a lot of brism then I realize that brism grinding your teeth at night or during the day now we have sleep brism because we realized that the ideology the reason for grinding there are many different reasons there's sleep prism Which is related to a collapse of the airway there's a theory out there that the muscles tighten up from complete being completely relaxed in rem no muscle tone to the airway collapsing you stop breathing for 30 40 50 60 90 seconds there's a sudden an arousal and

that moment of grinding your teeth is what literally wakes you up and stiffens the airway muscles and and wakes you up so that's sleep bruxism um the problem is is that the night guards so Dennis Would see I I can go to a party and I can just from conversational distance I can tell you and it drives my wife nuts but that's a different story I can tell you and I tell her I can tell you who is grinding and who's grinding at night just based on the shape of the teeth am I grinding oh

I don't know I have to see your teeth up close uh I mean it's really all the teeth are the same height and then they're wear facets and you can see that you don't you can just see that In a conversational let me expand the screen here hang on so if all if all your teeth are the same height you're grinding yeah exactly smile for a second no I mean you make clench but your your in sizers are longer than your laterals you have crowns those are crowns Crown this is a uh sorry crown and

I had an implant okay we we we'll touch on that as we get to the invasive the fun stuff yeah yeah but you know if you have wear facets on your Teeth which are visible on the front teeth uh that that is an indication that a dentist would want to protect those teeth so we start you know making all these night guards and there there are plenty of studies out there saying that you should first address the Sleep make sure that there is no chance of sleep apne because a night guard can make the sleep

apnea worse yes so be very careful be very careful so we'll move on to the Invasive and we'll start with one which everyone has unless they choose to remove it wisdom teeth what's your take on wisdom teeth I love them they're great I wish we could keep them in our mouths but again they're the last teeth to erupt uh and if you have a small jaw and you've had braces already these teeth erupt around College um or or right before military service and that's why the military Takes them out because you could be out on

the front lines and all sudden you get this paric cortis tooth erupts at an angle or it's impacted and it is absolutely mind-bending pain it'll shut you right down and it can get infected so we have this system in dentistry of prophylactic removal of wisom teeth because we know that there's no room for them when they come in we don't want them to mess up our orthodontic work but we're not we haven't really talked about Why this is the case it's because the Jaws are too small and when that last set of four teeth come

in there's no room for them so do take them out so I I I still have them they're they're in there I don't visibly see them I'm assuming I'm 49 has the has the ship sailed for someone like me who's in their in their 40s and they don't really have a problem and they're still there because the last thing I want to do my view is like I don't want to have a Surgery right well I mean it's um so your risk of taking them out is much higher as an adult U it's easier to

take them out before the roots are fully developed we can roll them out uh kids heal better their bone is softer but the good news is that you still have them and you've had no complications that means that your jaw developed to a point where they were able to erupt properly I'm assuming that your dentist would tell you they're fully erupted you don't Have Deep Pockets you don't have any gum disease or inflammation around them no Deep Pockets no gum disease you're great I mean that's the way we were designed to have all 32 teeth

so in other words for those listening if you start to have an issue this this is one where you probably want to act sooner rather than later and get it done with right so something I've had is a rot canal and I'll give you my history I there a lot of people have root canals uh in college Playing basketball took can Elbo and then it had to have a rot canal and about 10 years later it started to saw new dentist it looked like it was or actually like 15 years later now that I think

about it starting to go bad so we took did a I think an apico where they they went in apicoectomy yes yeah and then like essentially did another one and then about another 10 years later I never felt great about it and the more I learned about how you know functional Medicine your field how everything's connected like I don't like the idea of this like dead thing being in there and it always felt a little bit off not pain but like off tender so I decided you know what like let's and I went to my

very Western dentist at the time who who was very Western and I said you know what I don't feel great about this you know I I want to maybe consider taking it out and he said I agree I was like wow you've done a Weight at 180 on this and his view was you know what they they there's a good chance it will in his words remember blow up sometime in the future and you're still relatively young you're healthy I'd rather you do this now than later in life and so we went through the process

and it was a six-month process extracting the tooth and then I had to wear a flipper I think for six months and yeah you probably had a bone graft bone graph and you know I looked at this Is when I started to really dive deeper in your Fields I was like you know what I know a lot more like let's try to do this in a way that was more align with my values and belief system so looked at implants titanium ceramic I believe zironia I couldn't do ceramic or Z zironia because the the the

opening it wasn't a match and what I also heard which thought was interesting because it was so there was a chance that it wouldn't take and it would break And I'm like I'm so done with this process give me the titanium I'm not doing this again right but one of the things I struggled with um was you know in the big picture like w wow how is everyone else navigating through this should everyone just take the tooth out immediately if they need a canal and so like let's spend a moment there and talk about root

canals and subsequent implants and how people should be Thinking about both because they're related usually one leads to the other right oh it's a very often asked question um let's talk first about why we're getting root canals again maybe we're not seeing a dentist on a regular basis the decay the cavity gets too deep it grows it it infects the pulp the living tissue inside the tooth which has its own microvascular the tissue that's there is still living that tissue helped form the tooth uh it's mesenchimal Tissue um and it gets infected and because it's

in a closed space if there's any inflammation of that tissue which is inevitable we call that pulpitis uh it is excruciating because you know when you get inflammation in other parts of the body it's it can expand but inside the tooth it's constrained it cuts off its own blood supply it dies then it becomes necrotic and that tissue can become very very Infected so dentistry and this goes back to the Pharaohs in Egypt they invented a way of mummifying the tooth uh they would remove all the tissue the theory is that they would remove all

the tissue it's a hard structure it's a hard tissue and once it's empty and filled properly and no bacteria from any other area can come back in that this would be a great way to save the tooth and in in theory and in practice that has worked well most of the time now your tooth which Was from an elbow uh that reminds me of dental school we actually broke some Jaws we played basketball with all the instructors but anyway it was pretty rough uh but that happens a lot and small fracture occurs and over time

that tooth starts getting sensitive people fall off of horses they it's a car accident and the pulp takes years sometimes decades to die it can be within six weeks it depends but those small fractures to the teeth will lead To pulpitis where the tooth dies and that tissue has to be remove if done properly and the older methods were horrible the early method was putting in something uh putting in a compound called sentey paste which was toxic and it was fine inside the tooth until it leaked out bottom of the tooth you know at at

the bottom of each root there's a little area a little framan a little small hole where the blood vessels and nerves would enter the tooth so this Sentey paste would exit go into the bone and just kill all the bone and you'd get these large abscesses and then it could get into the bloodstream and and so that was outlawed that was before I came online as a dentist so it wasn't outlawed until maybe the 70s and then but today we use ozone we use laser ERS to go in it's a very technique sensitive uh procedure

if you can disinfect the inside of that tooth properly and seal it seal it off properly with Guta Pera And all these new heated uh pressure uh kind of um pushed uh or or uh applied methods of sealing off the inside of the tooth it can work uh root canals have a bad name because of the root canals that fail like yours did that needed an apicoectomy which is a heroic that's heroic Dentistry the success rate of that is 50% plus they're drilling through bone oh God yeah yeah right so um I think in in

summary root canals have their place the best would be to Prevent ever needing a r Canal uh if you do need a r Canal see if it's a tooth that can be extracted without needing a replacement there are two teeth in the in the body that I think that applies to a lot of people get root canals in those teeth and I think that's that's unnecessary if it's a front tooth or a a k9 get it root canaled make sure it's done by a professional uh by a specialist who does root canals all day long

he uses a microscope he uses all The right techniques laser to disinfect ozone inside the tooth and then check in with the tooth every two to five years get a cone beam get a three-dimensional x-ray tap on the tooth if it's tender as in your case if it doesn't feel quite right there's something wrong I wouldn't do the apicoectomy if it fails it fails uh root canals are difficult to do especially the upper first Moler uh lots of tortuous canals very complex uh kind of inside Chambers but if it's done Properly it can last a

lifetime and not give you any trouble if it gives you trouble take it out put in an implant and how do you think about implants implants aren't perfect um they came online when I was a young Dental student it was invented in Sweden the titanium implant I think he was a physician actually used for a long time in in medicine U for proses and Prosthetics um we used to think the body the osteocytes the bone cells loved titanium and would Glom onto it and integrate with the implant that does happen but the original story was

a little too Rosy titanium oxides do cause gum issues some people are sensitive to Titanium oxides the Cod ings and the byproducts of the titanium coating uh and that's why zirconia now is in place zirconia is a little bit more brittle although they've improved on it a lot I'm okay with implants it's more important to restore the function Of that tooth for longevity for quality of life for digestion making sure you're getting all your nutrients also Cosmetics I mean you don't want to be Toothless in front that's not a good good life right so I

I'm okay with it it just you just have to have the right practitioner a good clinician pick the right material and and for example with in the case of root canals you got to be willing to kind of cut it loose when it's not Working yeah and look I love your approach because it's practical and when I started to go down this path and I and I had this conversation with many respected functional medicine doctors who I will not name on this subject it was like when I look around anyone is holistic they seem a

little too kooky like I'm not trusting them they don't seem Bal and I I love a lot of there are a lot of great functional or Integrative Medicine docks where they are balanced Where it's like okay you need the surgery or you need that you need to take the pharmaceutical or you know you need to like take a breath or eat more kale or you know take a supplement and I was Finding on this subject it it was feeling a little out there and for someone who had been through their ringer with their mouth I'm

like you know what I I'm going to get a lot of information and and go this direction but I was and then I discovered you I Wish I lived in California and I met you two years ago but uh I get why people struggle with this one well there's a lot of cookie out there in dentistry absolutely yeah look at fluide look at that one look at the fear of Glycerin and toothpaste it it's all based on one engineer from Purdue that thought he when he was retired knew a lot about oral health I mean

there's and be wary of the person who bases it on old I I won't even use the word research but Comments that got transferred to the web or maybe from a small pamphlet The the fear of the ruk canal was a very small book uh and again that go with the science there's lots of science out there and if your dentist seems a little too kooky or a little too weird and won't site studies or support why or why not something should be done then you should move on and then the other option and this

is what we're doing at ask the dentist is the you know Healthcare has Been democratized it's it's on the web you can educate yourself very easily sometimes just by following someone on Instagram you may not be getting all the details but you find someone you trust that is talking about studies and being practical uh and then be knowledgeable before you go in and agree to a procedure I love that advice and you know something else where I think we're we're seeing a lot of in 2024 in the last couple years or veneers and crowns I

have cuz when I had to do my front tooth the dentist recommended he said one aesthetically you want the teeth to match I'm like okay but more importantly when you're doing the essentially the the we're pulling that tooth out the flipper is going to have more success if we grind this one down so that's stable I didn't love the idea of it but I did it uh so I have one and I remember when I had the flipper there were times where I'm like this Cheo that we grinded down is a little too painful right

now is that normal I felt like he's like yeah you probably have some trauma but I have one I know I'm not alone a lot of people get veneers and crowns let's talk about that you know I used I used to do a lot of veneers and and I loved doing it it was the artistic aspect of uh of my work and I was a history of art major before I was a BM major and it's sculpture it's color it's chromatism it's uh color Values it's shape it's interacting all that with a person it's their

identity their self-image I mean it's you know I've got tons of incredible stories of changing people's lives so but the problem with cosmetic dentistry is that it's oversold and so I would usually try and talk the patient out of it because it's expensive it's not covered under Insurance you know one veneer a good veneer will cost 1,700 to $2,500 uh and the last the lab fees are expensive and It doesn't last forever and they can fall out and you know and you get a bride coming in two weeks before the wedding and she's hot to

trot to or sometimes a groom actually and and they just want it all done it's that's not the time to do it uh and be wary and there are a lot of dentists that are overselling it and then they all fall off or the there's Decay underneath it so you have to be very careful it's a very expensive item but I do like Cosmetic um dentistry and the porcelain maner is amazing what it can do to someone's life in terms of interpersonal relationships work uh happiness all of that but again be careful and and as

a dentist I would say be careful who you're working on a lot of patients come in and think this is the solution for all their problems and their personalized and it can actually make things worse uh so be be very careful but it's a great it's one of the great Things that Dentistry can do for someone so in closing where do you see this field going or where do you want it to go what do you want to change I well ideally I would like it to go where I want it to go and I

think we're headed that way um it it needs to there has to I guess to make it simple there has to be more respect for the oral microbiome we need to do research we can now test for the oral microbiome we have this very simple test Broadspectrum uh shotgun genomic uh test that tests for all bacteria in the mouth do you have that specifically do you do you yeah oh amazing can we link to that in the show notes it's a cold bristle I'll give you the link it's wonderful uh it's only been out for

maybe a year and a half I would like it I would like if dentists and and they are but it's not mainstream yet where everyone gets tested for the oral microbiome and that dentists and patients alike have respect For this oral microbiome have an understanding a comprehension of why it's the root of there's that word again of everything uh when it comes to oral health Health but also it's the root for a lot the majority of things that happen in the body so if we can just start thinking and practicing that way and patients can

come in and pre-select a dentist that or a physician that thinks that way this would move the needle and it'll also help protect our children I'd Love to get rid of fluoride that's going to happen soon I think Federal lawsuit is going to end up uh hopefully uh he'll rule here in San Francisco and it'll probably be we'll probably hear something middle of February on that that's around the time this podcast will uh air it's going to be interesting and you know the EPA has done a doj has done a terrible job of Defending themselves

they've admitted on recorded depositions that they were wrong on this they don't Have research that it does cause inflammation of the brain the NTV has approved uh over I think it's 79 studies from Canada Mexico China the US that there is a correlation between lower IQ and mom's drinking of fluide and and it's also toothpaste toothpaste gets absorbed through the oral makosza so if you go in and get a a Fluoride Varnish let's say your kid gets that that yucky stuff at the end of their visit and they have to Keep it on for a

half hour they can't drink and they can't eat that's called the Fluoride Varnish that is loaded with fluoride I mean toothpaste has 15,200 parts per million that's up to 50,000 parts per million and that goes right to the brain within 10 minutes so we need we need a we need better Dentistry we need a functional approach we need to stop using and recommending all these terrible things mouthwashes toothpaste that are harming the oral Microbiome we really need to show the oral microbiome some respect agreed mark thank you so much thank you Jason that was fun