Duh. You’ve only been hearing that since you were too small to really understand what it meant, but the importance of daily brushing and flossing can not be overstressed. Even as adults who should know better, we often skip flossing because it’s too painful, time-consuming, or boring.
Why are brushing and flossing so critical to your health? Every day, bacteria grow in our mouths. During the day, saliva washes away much of it, but at night it happily multiplies in the warm, moist environment. At night, you produce less saliva, so the bacteria are less likely to be washed away. The more bacteria you allow to settle on to your teeth and gums, the more likely you are to develop cavities (which is why those bacteria are so often called “cavity bugs” by your friendly dentist), halitosis (bad breath), and gum disease.
Brushing twice a day for two minutes at a time – in the morning and before bed – is a way of removing the bacteria and keeping your mouth cleaner. Use a soft manual toothbrush or electric brush and gently scrub your teeth and gums in a circular motion, being careful to get all the way back to your back teeth
Flossing is just as necessary as brushing. Your toothbrush can remove bacteria and plaque from the outside surfaces of your teeth, but most cavities start as food decays between your teeth, and abscesses, other infections, and gum disease can be triggered by these unattended cavities. Flossing daily in the evening scrapes out bits of food that would otherwise feed the bacteria in your mouth. If you haven’t flossed in a while, your gums might bleed a little, but after a couple of days of gentle flossing, your gums will toughen up.
There are a variety of flosses available, as well, and you can pick exactly the type you like best and that feels good in your mouth. Not only can you choose from the old-fashioned waxed and unwaxed flosses, you can also select a dental tape, which is like a flat ribbon – perfect for sliding between close-set teeth – or single use flossing gadgets where the floss is already tightly attached to a Y-shaped handle, allowing you to easily maneuver the floss one-handed through your mouth. Floss also comes covered in mint to keep your breath smelling bright and fresh. It only takes about 30 seconds to efficiently floss your teeth by sliding the floss side to side and up and down along each of the inner edges between your teeth. Again, don’t miss the back edges of your wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth are often overlooked and under-flossed, and the neglect makes them prime candidates for decay and infection.
Fruits and vegetables in their whole form – with skin on, if appropriate – provide vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients vital to your body’s overall health. Crunching on apples and carrots also keeps your teeth in top form, as long as the apples and carrots aren’t also sticking around between your teeth at night. Eating deep, leafy greens such as kale, chard, and spinach also provide calcium, which is essential for bone mass. Bone mass and exercise help your teeth in a way we’ll talk about in just a moment.
You know you should stay away from sweets, as sugar is bacteria’s favorite fuel and it doesn’t do your body any good whatsoever. Since it’s nearly impossible to abstain completely, extra brushing after eating sugary foods can help you get fewer cavities.
It may be surprising that exercise can benefit your teeth and gums, but research has shown that exercise increases bone mass. When you begin to suffer from osteoporosis, or a gradual loss of bone density that causes bones to become porous and more fragile, your body will steal calcium, phosphorous, and other minerals from your mouth and jaw in order to maintain the support structure of your skeleton. You might notice that your gums are receding and bleeding during brushing. Your jaw can also become severely weakened.
Exercise and a diet that includes lots of the necessary nutrients – like calcium and phosphorous – that support proper bone density will also keep your mouth happy. Make sure you also get a good dose of Vitamin D, which you can either take in through sunlight or with supplements.
Visiting your dentist every six months for checkups should be a no-brainer, but getting wayward teeth into shape by visiting an orthodontist in Manhattan, Oceanside, or Duluth – wherever you happen to live – is also important. Teeth that grow in crookedly can be teeth that become unhealthy. Not only will the proper methods of straightening or correcting dental abnormalities help you love your smile, it will be easier to keep your teeth clean and healthy. Psychologically, if you love your smile, you are also more likely to be vigilant in keeping it white and bright.
Aside from crooked teeth, an orthodontist can help you solve other problems, such as tooth grinding and TMJ, both of which damage your teeth and jaw over time.
Tooth health doesn’t just affect your mouth. It affects your entire body. Keeping your teeth and gums happy also means you are less prone to other illnesses and infections, and keeping your body happy and healthy means your mouth is less susceptible to disease.
6. Brushing:
I get a lot of questions about dental hygiene and health, and for good reason. Dental records of our paleolithic ancestors show a fairly low incidence of caries when compared to modern teeth. Exceptions exist, but the general trends suggest that Grok
had better teeth than the average contemporary human. Of course, when
cavities struck back then, they hit hard and got really ugly, because
there were no dentists, drills, or x-rays to fix the problem, but most
never got to that point. Also, the adoption of agriculture is generally
associated with the emergence of poor dental health, so much so that
many researchers use the appearance of dental caries in a population as strong evidence for the presence of farming. Maize/corn is particularly bad, as is wheat, but the same relationship may not hold true for rice agriculture in Asian records.Okay – let’s take a look at a couple common questions I get about dental health:
Mark, this morning as a dental assistant was making my head buzz and my gums hurt with some sort of ultrasonic tooth cleaner, I thought, “what can Grok teach us about tooth care?” Something tells me Grok did not brush his teeth–did he do anything to take care of himself in that way? And if he survived just fine, what does that tell us about “conventional wisdom” that says we should adopt a routine, and buy a medicine cabinet full of stuff to take care of our teeth? I certainly don’t mean to convey that tooth care is bad–but rather am just thinking about what we can learn from the past to harmonize the present.
Thanks for reading this, and thank you for your dedication to better health!
Hey Mark! I’ve recently taken an interest in making my oral regimen more Primal. I’ve read up on a lot of the more natural toothpastes and toothpaste alternatives but I’m undecided. What have you and your wife found to be the safest and most effective way to keep your cavities at bay?? Thanks!Before resorting to anything reactive, whether it be brushing with homemade toothpaste, dousing your oral cavity with anti-bacterial mouthwash, bypassing the teeth altogether with an IV nutrient feed, or using a dental dam to chew, those seeking excellent dental health should establish a strong dietary foundation of the minerals, micronutrients, and other cofactors that play major roles in the maintenance of teeth.
7. The Vitamin D/A/K2 Connection
You’ve probably heard about how this holy trinity of micronutrients works together to promote proper bone and tooth mineralization, which means putting calcium and other minerals where they belong (bones, teeth) instead of where they don’t (arteries, dental calculus/plaque). Both Stephan Guyenet and Chris Masterjohn have written extensively about the synergistic interplay between the three nutritional factors, so I’ll keep this brief. Get adequate midday sun or take vitamin D supplements; eat grass-fed butter, hard cheeses, and organs (especially goose liver, apparently), or supplement with vitamin K2; get plenty of vitamin A from liver, egg yolks, and other animal products.8. Grain Avoidance
I probably don’t have to tell you to avoid grains, but for any newcomers who might be reading: ditch the grains, beans, and other legumes that contain high levels of phytic acid, which is known to bind to and prevent absorption of minerals critical for dental health. Nuts also contain phytic acid, but we tend not to eat as many nuts as grains or legumes due to the caloric load. It’s a lot easier to eat two cups of whole wheat than it is to eat two cups of almonds. If you do eat nuts on a regular basis, consider soaking and/or sprouting them to reduce phytic acid content.9. Nutrient Intake
It’s not enough to consume the holy mineralization trio and avoid excessive amounts of mineral-binding phytic acid; you also need the raw building blocks. That means getting plenty of minerals in your diet. Leafy greens, grass-fed meat, organs, nuts, roots, and tubers are all good Primal sources of calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, and other vital micronutrients – vital for general and dental health – so eat plenty of them.10. Hate the Toothbrush? Use a Chewstick
There are numerous examples of traditional cultures using chewing sticks from trees with medicinal or antimicrobial properties, like the neem in India, the miswak/arak in Africa, the Mid East, and Asia, or the tea tree, which I mentioned in a previous post. Here’s an example of a Masai “toothbrush” – it’s a whittled-down branch from a (perhaps medicinal) tree with the end frayed and the fibers splayed out to permit interdental entry. If you don’t have access to a miswak, neem, or tea tree, you can find chew sticks online quite easily. Toothpicks or floss will also work pretty well as a physical deterrent, albeit without any medicinal qualities.There isn’t a ton of head-to-head research on the subject, but one study from 2003 found that miswak chewing sticks removed more plaque and resulted in better gingival health than toothbrushes. The caveat is that chew stick users had to be instructed in the proper use of the implements, whereas toothbrushes are fairly straightforward (not to mention most of us have grown up using them, so we’re well-versed in toothbrushing). It’s notable that chew sticks do not require toothpaste, and they appear to be just as, if not more, effective than toothbrushes. Longer history of use, too. You just have to know how to use it. Miswak appears to be the most studied, so you’ll probably want to use that variety.
11. Toothpaste
Toothpaste use increases abrasion during brushing, while water alone produces less abrasive force. Interestingly, the same study revealed that softer toothbrushes actually cause as much abrasion (and sometimes more) than stiffer toothbrushes. While increased abrasive forces seem like they’d reduce more plaque, that doesn’t seem to be the case. A recent study found that the brushing is the important part, not the paste. In fact, brushing without paste was more effective at removing plaque than brushing with paste.
An herbal toothpaste made from herbs and plants traditionally used to treat oral disease in India was superior to a placebo toothpaste in the treatment of gingival bleeding and oral hygiene. Another study compared herbal toothpastes to conventional fluoride-containing toothpastes in the treatment of established gingivitis and found that both were equally effective.
In another study, a baking soda toothpaste beat an antimicrobial non-baking soda toothpaste in plaque removal and tooth maintenance. Most studies, in fact, show that baking soda is more effective at plaque removal than toothpastes without baking soda. It’s pretty common among older folks to just use straight baking soda to brush, and this seems to be an effective tactic.
If you’ve got all the nutritional and environmental cofactors under control, I don’t think obsessive dental hygiene beyond daily brushing (remember, even if the bristly toothbrush is a recent invention, cleaning our teeth with sticks or picking at them with fingernails is tradition), some toothpicking/flossing, regular dental visits, and/or maybe some chew sticking is necessary. It doesn’t even seem like toothpaste is necessary for good oral health. That said, I do use it – perhaps because I’ve just become conditioned to, or maybe because I need the artificially fresh feeling it provides – but I also don’t feel the pressing need to brush on schedule. I just don’t develop a ton of plaque if I go a bit longer than normal without brushing, nor do I get bad breath. And as anyone who’s been married for more than ten years will tell you, the wife will definitely let you know if things go awry in that area. If you want a cheap toothpaste that isn’t overly sweet, baking soda should do the trick.
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