Woke up to read this article in NPR (Mark’s Daily Apple also linked to the same research on today’s post) about how our modern diet that is high in processed foods and carbohydrates has actually lead to worsened oral hygiene, despite all the modern advancements in mouthwash, tooth paste, toothbrushes, flossing, etc…
Turns out the modern diet promotes the growth of bad bacteria in our mouths (which is also considered part of our digestive system) as well as in our intestines… and these bad bacteria cause cavities and other problems with our teeth.
This doesn’t even touch upon what goes on further down our digestive system in our guts, which is currently a hot new topic with a lot of research is looking into the effects of probiotics, prebiotics, and fecal transplants.
I haven’t had a cavity in over 8 years (when I made a conscious effort to floss every day and use one of those mechanical tooth brushes)… but have only been low carb in the past 2 years, so I can’t really tell if being low carb has had any discernable effect on my own teeth.
This was highlighted ages ago by Stefansson. He studied numerous skulls of these ‘low-carbers’ and didn’t find a single cavity.
Thanks for that! It made me curious to look it up and found some posts about it. Here’s a pretty interesting account.
You should read the entire book if you find that interesting. Even though some parts of the book are 100y old Stefansson is surprisingly ‘modern’ in his writing and has a lot of interesting observations on the inuit/eskimo lifestyle.
Good idea, I think I will look into it. Just need to get through a few other books in my reading queue. Always good to go old school!