Few people seem to get too excited about dental care.

If you haven’t developed the habit of regular flossing – chances are, you dig your heels in by saying, “Meh. I’ve never gotten into that so much – it’s not for me.”

BUT…

What if I were to share with you some things I am just learning about good teeth through the eons, good teeth today, the cheap way to improved teeth, and … what new research has found in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims that goes back to their mouths!

This is shocking!

Let’s start with A BOOK I’m reading by a Canadian author who reveals the results of Dr. Weston Andrew Price’s quest to answer the simple question, “Why were his patients experiencing so much dental decay?”

Dr. Price traveled the globe studying people who were not exposed to the influences of modern civilization. Good thing he was doing this in 1899, because the spread of modern civilization today is so complete, there are hardly any corners of the world left untouched.

The bottom line of Dr. Price’s investigations is that once introduced to a modern diet, patterns of change result, predictably, causing dental caries (cavities), gum disease, heart disease, crowded teeth, smaller jaws, infections, and more.

The patients of Dr. Price were not living on Mountain Dew and McDonalds. What was modern about the diets of North Americans in the late 1800’s? This was the time when a major shift to white flour, white sugar, white rice, vegetable fats, and the introduction of canned foods, occurred.

What was missing in the late 1800’s from previous diets were vast resources of minerals, water- soluble vitamins (B and C) and especially fat-soluble vitamins – all sacrificed in the name of longer shelf life, and in creating filling foods that easily survived unrefrigerated transportation.

While Dr. Price could not pinpoint the exact identity of his dietary activators, (later identified as Vitamins A and D), he knew that restoring certain elements to his client’s diets would transform their dental health better than merely filling and pulling teeth.

He started prescribing diets high in fish eggs, egg yolks, some organ meats, and – especially –    butterfat from cows grazing on rapidly growing green grass.  

Fast forward to 2007, and another element Dr. Price had called Activator X is identified as Vitamin K, which is a group of K vitamins K1-K7.

Vitamin K, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, and even chlorophyll, all does an intricate dance with each other that facilitates processes mandatory for our strong bones and teeth, healthy heart, arteries, and other things.

Turns out, Vitamin K2 is needed to put the calcium into our bones and teeth. A diet low in K2 results in the calcium getting put into the linings of our arteries – that’s called atherosclerosis. Bones without a supply of calcium equal osteoporosis.

In fact, K2 deficiencies are also associated with:

• Increased risk for breast, prostate, liver cancers
• Diabetes
• Varicose veins
• Wrinkles
• Dental caries
• Chron’s Disease

Bottom line? We can gulp all the calcium we want, but without proper levels of K2, that calcium will be routed away from the bones and teeth only to land in the soft tissues and linings of our arteries.

That’s the Calcium Paradox.

I had drastically cut back my calcium supplementation that was supposed to help with my bone issues because I feared clogging up my coronary arteries.

Another tidbit to consider is oral hygiene and what we are feeding our bodies to enable unusual bacterium in our mouths. It’s all being studied further after what scientists found HERE and I quote:

“Scientists have previously found that this species of bacteria, called Porphyromonas gingivalis, can move from the mouth to the brain. Once in the brain, the bacteria release enzymes called gingipains that can destroy nerve cells, which in turn can lead to memory loss and eventually Alzheimer’s.

In this study, researchers looked for evidence of this process in human brains. They examined the brains of 53 deceased people who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and found high levels of gingipain in almost all of them. They also noted that the amount of gingipain tended to rise over time, which suggests there may be a tipping point when dementia symptoms first begin.”

The take-aways from this week’s post are:

By eliminating sugar, white rice, white flours, vegetable fats, and processed foods from our diet we will not only boost oral health, but also general health.

Consider supplementing with Vit K2 by reading Rheaume-Bleue’s book to get the full scope of how seriously our modern diets are causing a host of preventable diseases and conditions.

Brush and floss those pearlies, folks.

In health and personally taking 100-200 mcg K2 every day –

Deidre

If you found this post helpful, please share by clicking the MORE button below.

To my European readers, Rheaume-Bleue’s book, Vitamin K and the Calcium Paradox has been translated into Italian and Polish.