The #1 Mistake in Your Oral Health
It’s not what you think. It’s what you think…
It’s not “not flossing”. It’s not “forgetting to brush”. It’s not “your diet”.
Nope. None of those.
In fact, it’s not what you think it is…
But it is what you think.
You think sugar causes tooth decay. But you’re wrong. However, it’s not your fault. The mistake lies (subliminal meaning) in the dental profession.
The dental profession thinks you can’t handle the truth because you’re too stressed at the dentist to understand the truth, you’re not interested to know, you won’t comprehend the truth, it’s too hard to explain, you don’t pay attention, you don’t listen, don’t follow advice, etc.
I’ll tell you the biggest mistake through a story because I think it’s the best way to explain it.
The backstory of the #1 oral health mistake
The first time I learned of it was in September 1982. I had recently quit my 2nd year of a master’s program in biology to begin dental school. It was my second week of dental school and I was reading a couple of chapters ahead on the subject of cariology — the study of tooth decay.
I read that:
- sugar does not cause tooth decay
- tooth decay is a microbial, infectious, transmissible disease
- you can prevent 80% of most common dental problems on your own without a dentist
I was so shocked I dropped my book. Just like you probably right now, I couldn’t believe what I’d just read. I suddenly felt betrayed. I began to wonder if dentistry was some sort of secret society. But it couldn’t be a secret society because I had just read the information in a textbook that anyone else could read. I also wondered why, at age 27, and with a bachelor's degree in biology and one year of a master’s biology program under my belt, I had never learned that tooth decay and gum disease were actually “diseases”. And worse, I was angry with myself that I hadn’t deduced it myself when studying biology. Such is the power of marketing and advertising always about “sugar this” and “sugar that” causes cavities.
The second time was at dental school the next day after reading the aforementioned shocking information.
“Why don’t most people know that tooth decay and gum problems are diseases and that they can be prevented?” I asked one of my dentist/professors. “I’m 27 and been to the dentist a few times. None of them ever mentioned the disease aspect. The media always promote that sugar “causes” decay. Everyone is misinformed. The disease aspect should be worldwide common knowledge. It’s like knowing the cure for cancer but not telling anyone!”
The dentist/professor replied, “Well, you graduate dental school with all this knowledge and you try to educate people. But all they do is roll their eyes, or ignore you, or ask you how much longer it will be, and they tell you how much they hate the dentist, and they never floss, and they don’t listen, and they are lazy. So — to keep from going crazy and banging your head against a wall, you just tell people to avoid sweets and then knuckle down and fix teeth like we teach you to do here at school.”
And then he walked away. Mike drop.
At that moment I realized I was going to be in hell for the next 4 years just learning to be another dental cobbler hack. I mean, I thought I was going to learn to be a doctor, solve problems, prevent problems, etc.
Right then I decided I would be different and not just fix stuff all day. I would educate my patients about the truth behind dental problems. I would invent preventive solutions to dental problems. I would help my patients to avoid dental problems instead of just being a cobbler focusing on dental “production”. Those thoughts motivated me through dental school. My dental school patients encouraged me to pursue those dreams.
When I got out of dental school, I hit a wall. My professor had been right. Few, if any patients and dentists cared. But I never gave up. It took quite a while to achieve some of my dreams, partly because the public and the dental profession weren’t ready. But now the time is right. The COVID pandemic has made everyone more aware of microbes. Nowadays, many people are learning about probiotics.
So, here you go:
The #1 mistake in oral health is thinking that sugar causes tooth decay and not understanding that tooth decay is an infectious, transmissible, microbial disease.
The truth is that four bacteria and one fungus (so far as we know at this point) collaborate to cause tooth decay by feeding mostly on carbohydrates that you eat. These five microbes ferment certain carbohydrates into acids that dissolve minerals from your teeth until the microbes reach organic tooth tissue. Then they create enzymes that digest organic tooth material until there’s too much mineral. And they repeat the acid/enzyme process until they destroy your teeth if they are not stopped. Sugar does not “cause” decay any more than gasoline “causes” fire. The ‘spark” for decay is dental pathogenic microbes. In fact, if your mouth didn’t have decay microbes, you could not get decay any more than you could get anthrax without Bacillus anthracis. Germ-free test animals do not get tooth decay no matter how much sugar and carbs they eat — until — the tooth decay microbes are added to their environment. Then they can start getting decay in about 3 months.
“But, so what?” you say. “How is that significantly different from simply avoiding sugars or sweets or carbs?”
Well, the difference is subtle but extremely significant.
Consider Isaac Newton’s law of gravity versus Einstein’s field equations. Newton’s law is good enough for shooting cannons and tracking the trajectories of cannonballs. But if you want to launch satellites and shoot for the stars, you need Einstein’s equations. If not for Einstein, GPS would begin failing after 38 microseconds and accumulate errors of over 10 kilometers per day:
Thinking decay is caused by sugar versus knowing and UNDERSTANDING that tooth decay is an infectious, transmissible, microbial disease is like the difference between thinking Earth is flat versus knowing and understanding that Earth is an oblate spheroidal ellipsoid.
It’s the difference between thinking Earth is the center of the universe versus being a tiny mote of dust in the multiverse.
The point is that when you really understand the mistake and the truth, you can truly begin to correct things. You can start making tiny oral health corrections of only 1% per day and within a year you could be as much as 38X better off, dentally.
For example, many of my new patients ask me why they still get decay despite avoiding sweets and sodas, going on a keto diet, and brushing and flossing twice daily.
I explain that the infectious decay microbes can eat mucoproteins, dead cheek skin cells, leftover carbs (you gotta eat some carbs), and they like an acidic environment, thus, many acidic foods and artificially-sweetened drinks with citric acid and phosphoric acid will also support their growth. In addition, they are like machines that are always on and ready to go. They can and will attack you 24/7 for your entire life. And especially while you sleep, because overnight, your mouth is like a warm, moist incubator. The microbes really go to town overnight when left undisturbed and without a tsunami of saliva to flush them around and bother them. So, the standard advice to do oral hygiene twice a day is pretty much useless and barely works. It’s like staying in dental kindergarten versus getting an advanced health education.
Anyway — again, so what?
Well, if you REALLY start to think about the infection truth, you begin to realize that it’s essential to understand the disease, the microbes, the life-cycles of them, what they eat, what they do, how to control them, etc. It’s a lot more than just hygiene twice a day. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually easier than oral hygiene. It’s just a little bit different perspective.
In other words, Earth still looks basically flat, but because you know and understand it’s just really big, then it seems flat from your perspective. In addition, you can suddenly understand physics and extrapolate the truth to the cosmos. You don’t need to make up nonsensical myths nor crazy contraptions to explain the solar system, for example.
Likewise, you still do “oral hygiene” but from a “dental fitness” perspective.
It basically boils down to a concept I call Dental Fitness instead of oral hygiene.
Dental Fitness involves:
· Education
· Motivation
· Supplementation
· Nutrition
· Personal training
· Exercises
· Professional dental care
Basically, you Learn the Why, How, and What through education and personal training.
You Do the motivational stuff, supplements, nutrition, and exercises.
And you get Professional dental care for whatever cannot be prevented. Noice that the dentist is last in the dental fitness perspective. Education is first.
Somewhere in there is brushing and flossing, but there are alternatives. Also, if you’re a fluoride phobic, there are safe alternatives for you in the supplement section. If you hate flossing, can't floss, etc., no worries — there are alternatives that are even better.
Just as in fitness, it’s not all about barbells and dumbbells. It’s about whatever gets the job done safely, effectively, efficiently, and fun, while still adhering to principles of exercise physiology, sports, offense, defense, strategies, tactics, goals, targets, actions, programs, regimens, etc. You can still be in shape if your goal is to be a dancer instead of a powerlifter — the fitness programs will just be different. Your shower becomes your dental fitness gym. You set up dental fitness stations around your house, cars, workspaces, briefcases, purses, etc. If you were ever a smoker, you would understand the need for keeping your “stashes” always handy. You learn about the natural sweets that you can eat that actually fight decay. You discover probiotics that seek and destroy dental pathogens while you sleep. You become a dental-disease-fighting dreadnought. This also helps your entire body by breaking the oral/systemic link. (If your dentist hasn’t told you yet about the oral/systemic link, then bad on your dentist — it’s been known for over 20 years)
Dental Fitness is supercharged oral hygiene that takes the fight back against the bad microbes as bad or worse, and as often or more often than they attack you. In fact, it’s so easy you can even shower or sleep your way to supercharged oral health and systemic health.
By the way, now that you know decay is an infectious microbial disease, you might be asking, are there microbes that stop decay? The answer is yes. There are also friendly oral microbes that create alkaline products instead of acids. The foods you eat and supplements you use can begin to select for those types of organisms. The more you know, the more interesting it gets and the more options there are. It’s waaaaay better than “brush, floss, and avoid sweets”.
If this appeals to you, and you want to supercharge your oral/systemic health and control your dental destiny once and for all, just look up RENUzORAL.
Otherwise, billions of your oral microbial pathogens will be attacking you microscopically every day like GPS being off by 38 microseconds per day, the rest of your life.
Thanks,
Steve Edwards, DDS