Not brushing your teeth can trigger dementia and heart disease

Daily Mail ^ | June 1, 2015 | Christoffer Van Tulleken

[rickmichaels]

My dental health is something I have always taken seriously — and as a gadget fan, I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on the latest high-tech electronic toothbrushes and expensive toothpastes, gels and mouthwashes.

But then I had to go without brushing my teeth for a fortnight.

This was for a new two-part series on dental health for the BBC, and what we discovered was truly eye-opening, with implications not just for me, but for all of us.

My wife was anything but keen on the no-brushing experiment and there was a lot less kissing during that fortnight. And she was right to be worried about the outcome.

For two weeks, I wore a gum guard on one side of my mouth whenever I brushed my teeth, so that side didn’t get cleaned.

At the end of this time, I brushed my teeth without the gum guard on and my gums bled a bit and there was pink, blood- spattered spit in the bathroom washbowl. I had developed mild gum disease. Carry on like this and not treat the problem and I could theoretically lose some teeth.

[Swordmaker]

Okay, but I would like to see the info. I just know most of those children, or their mothers while the kids were in utero were sick (as in vomiting, indigestion) when they tried to take the iron fortified supplements of formula.

I question the claim of "most or those children or their mothers . . ." because I do not believe there is any case studies to back that.

Look, I founded and ran a Food Bank for over 26 years, and I know the best thing for infants is their own mother's breast milk. I know a lot about nutrition. I would have heard about such a problem if it were a major issue. I've been out of that field for over 15 years, but I still don't see it.

[kruss3]

Hey Dr. Swordmaker,

Step away from the nitrous oxide. I have not made any statements about a diet thesis. You are getting your rants confused. I simply stated that the oral bacterial infections might be a comorbidity with Alzheimer’s/Dementia. Iron loading in the tissues impairs insulin signaling associated with the hypometabolic brain and the gray matter shrinkage. This progressive pathology has been identified in clinical trials with human infants and as the underlying cause of the gray matter shrinkage in human, murine, and in vitro models. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and MS are all recognized as iron loading pathologies.

[Swordmaker]

Step away from the nitrous oxide. . . I have not made any statements about a diet thesis. . . You are getting your rants confused. . .

Yes, you have spoken about diet thesis. You mentioned it several times. You are now devolving to ad hominem attacks on me with hints of drug addled rants. You claimed that iron additions to diet lead to these conditions in infants. . . and your you posted articles are not at all about what you claim. They certainly do not establish the claim that 60 or more articles have been published in support of your overall thesis.

You have NOT provided any clinical trials on Human infants. . . nor would such experimental trials be approved. . . nor have I seen anything referencing "iron loading pathologies" as you claim. I agree there may be other factors, not necessarily "comorbidity" which is the presence of two or more diseases in a person suffering from disease. Most articles I find on iron and infant brain development indicate that brain shrinkage is linked to LOW iron, not excess iron.

[Chicory]

Thank you! I was worried about that :)

[Smokin' Joe]

This is purely anecdotal, about 10 families, all local people I know. Maybe it isn't a 'major' issue, and is only a localized thing. Heritage varies from 'Scandawhovian' to Chippewa and Sioux. Of them only one kid could hack the formula, the rest could not keep it down--the same child's mother could take the vitamins while the child was in utero, the rest were ill (not morning sickness, because the bouts of nausea coincided with attempting to take the supplements).

They just stopped taking the supplements, and didn't use the formula. The WIC people insisted there was nothing wrong with either. When they quit using the supplements and changed formula the problem quit.

No one did a study, partly because no one would admit there might be a problem.

So, no, you won't read the study anywhere, and there is no link to post.

I'm a great-grandfather, and between grandkids and family friends someone is always bringing a new baby by for my wife and I to coo over. Any given day, between family and friends, there is a baby on the way or just out.

It may be by virtue of different genetic groups, a different lot of formula/vitamins, or different base diets, but these people were adversely affected while the group you dealt with was not. There appear to have been no lasting ill effects.

No argument, BTW on mom's milk. They all seem to do well on that.

[CGASMIA68]

thanks for all your info and help.Would it simplify things for some of us to use ounces vs capfuls?That way we could just go, OK 20 oz of h2o to 1 oz of Clorox which is what I cut in 1/2 in the private message.

Guess I need a new water pic as I cant have the one I now own with the hose leak spraying bleach on the bath room walls.

Thanks again very health and informative post

[Swordmaker]

thanks for all your info and help.Would it simplify things for some of us to use ounces vs capfuls?That way we could just go, OK 20 oz of h2o to 1 oz of Clorox which is what I cut in 1/2 in the private message.

That makes too much of the solution. The cap makes a convenient measuring tool. . . but I've found that you can mark the proper levels on a clear glass or jar for each fill level with a permanent marker or tape and use that.

You can buy a new hose for your Water Pik on Amazon for about $9 but the replacement procedure is a bit complicated, IIRC. Dismantling the tool is not as easy as it should be. I wound up buying a new Water Pik at Costco.

[Swordmaker]

Joe, as you indicate, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Some races are lactose intolerant from a very early age and Asians and many American Indians are lactose intolerant from birth, and should not drink cow's milk at all. . . and every pregnancy is different. As for formula, it is not unusual to have to try several before the infant finds one that it will tolerate well.

I don't know how long ago your anecdotal experiences were from, but most instances of such spitting up come about from ingesting too much air from bottle feeding. This problem was solved for the most part in the 1970s with the invention of the plastic baggie type "bottle" which contracted as the baby suckled the bottle and did not allow aeration of the furmulas so they did not get the gas that was so associated with burping and spitting the formula up.

What I found amazing was the number of women who had nothing but time on their hands who preferred to bottle feed their babies with VERY expensive formula instead of using what nature and God has provided in a convenient always with them means that is free and better for their babies. A week's supply of infant formula 20 years ago was $30-$40 added to a similar cost for throw away diapers. These women and girls were on fixed incomes of under $500 a month (with rent of about the same) and WIC would run out after six months of the year. No one was donating formula to the Food Banks, and you could not distribute out-dated formula. . . as soon as the sell-by date passed, even though it was still perfectly good, by Federal law it had to be destroyed.

[CGASMIA68]

thanks again.suppose after 20 plus years i can sing for a new machine

[Smokin' Joe]

Actually, it spans a couple of generations. Babies were well burped, if that's what you mean, and most started something other than breast milk (teeth!) and formula before they were 6 months old (pre-chewed or mashed up real food). Some took to cows milk, others did not, but all reached a point where milk or formula did not satisfy them, even breast milk.

These kids were often walking by 9 months...some even before they could crawl.

One of the reasons people are on WIC is that they do not handle money or financial decisions well. That is a learned concept, and not all have been exposed to people who have learned it.

Others involve job loss, marital dissolution, and to some extent an aggressive Social Services cadre looking to increase their caseload (and funding).

As indicated, this is anecdotal, and by no means a study (the sample is too small and limited). I was wondering if others had seen something similar.

[toothfairy86]

Bacterial plaque from your mouth is very different than arterial plaque in your blood vessels. Oral plaque is a bacterial biofilm that reforms within 12-24 hours of the last time it was removed through brushing/flossing/rinsing. The mouth will never be a sterile place. Plaque that is a day old is less harmful than plaque that has been in your mouth for a week or more. The “older” plaque produces toxins that sit around your gums and cause inflammation. When you go to brush and floss your teeth, your gums will probably bleed. Some of this bacteria does get into your bloodstream, but your body’s immune response clears the vast majority of it. Arterial plaque is mostly composed of fatty acids and cholesterol. They HAVE found oral bacteria trapped within the layers of arterial plaque. It creates inflammation in the lining of the blood vessel and can cause the fatty capsule of arterial plaque to rupture and create a clot. This clot can trigger a heart attack. There are cases of people whose blood vessel lumens seem completely open and unblocked from fatty deposits. It’s the layer of arterial plaque within the layers of the blood vessel that are the danger. Currently, most physicians only do tests that check if you have blood vessel blockages. There IS a test to see if there are fatty deposits within the layers of the vessels. Also, ask your physician to test your C reactive protein, which measures your inflammation levels. People with gum disease usually have high inflammation levels.

[eyedigress]

good post!

[Swordmaker]

I never said that the plaques on the teeth and the plaques in the blood vessels and arteries or elsewhere are the same, or even that dental plaques are caused by spirochete infection. They aren’t. Spirochetes along with many other oral fauna hide under dental plaques making them hard to get at when attempting to clean out without first removing the plaque.

As for the body’s immune system’s ability to handle these bacteria, we’ve watched a single oral spirochete invade a healthy leukocyte and over the space of a couple hours, kill the leukocyte, then leave to go on about its business. That doesn’t bode well for the normal mode of defense for bacteria.

Our head doctor, one of the top dental implantologists in the world, has more alphabet soup following his title than we can fit on his letter head, as do many of the other dentists, medical doctors, and medical and dental professors who have been signing on to these findings. Read the peer-reviewed papers cited by Dr. Judit McKlosky, M.D., President of the European Alzheimer’s Prevention Society, which my 2011 FreeRepublic post linked. There have been more since then.

[toothfairy86]

I didn’t mean to imply that that YOU didn’t know the difference between the types of plaque. I was merely stating that for the lay people on this thread to differentiate the types of plaque and how dental health can affect your overall health.

[Swordmaker]

I didn’t mean to imply that that YOU didn’t know the difference between the types of plaque. I was merely stating that for the lay people on this thread to differentiate the types of plaque and how dental health can affect your overall health.

Oh, OK. . . My original comment to which you were replying wasn't too well written. I wasn't implying that all those diseases were caused by plaques just on the Islands of Langerhans either. . . but plaques that form throughout the body in different localities. We need to find out why the plaques preferentially form sometimes in arteries, sometimes only in veins, sometimes on the islands of Langerhans, sometimes in the brain, sometimes in the heart, etc. . . yet when they look at them, they find the oral spirochetes. Are there specific sup-species that have these preferences? Is it something the victims have or do? Diet? Environmental? The real problem is the extremely long etiology and development of these diseases. . . and the disconnect between exposure onset and first appearance of symptoms that cause anyone to look. . . at which point the disease is well established and not much can be done to reverse any damage.

As to what plaques are in the body. . . yes, they are made up of fats and other materials, but the start seems to be a frame work of spirochetal coil structures from dead spirochetes that have anchored themselves into the location and entangled themselves. To this "skeletal" structure, apparently passing cholesterol, fats, dead cells, crud, anything in the flow of blood passing by, is snagged before it can be filtered out by the kidneys and added to the plaque concretions. . . and add more spirochete entanglements which are natural screw shapes.

Alzheimer Hippocampus Spirochetal Cyst form
invading the cytoplasm of a neuron.
(Cyst is the green round structure at 5 o clock position)
Molecular Alzheimer Organization

The green glowing images on he right are distinctive ultraviolet signatures of
the DNA of oral spirochetes in the plaques of Alzheimer's victims.
Molecular Alzheimer Organization

[Glad2bnuts]

The DAKINS solution recipe calls for baking soda within, also that you can save it for a time. Is that unnecessary for the swishing over your gums? Or did you just leave it out? Also, I could not find Clorox that was not concentrated 8% + a little. Is that OK?

[Swordmaker]

The DAKINS solution recipe calls for baking soda within, also that you can save it for a time. Is that unnecessary for the swishing over your gums? Or did you just leave it out? Also, I could not find Clorox that was not concentrated 8% + a little. Is that OK?

That Dakins solution is a newer formulation with the small amount of baking soda added as a buffering component agent. It adds nothing to the benefit of swishing over your teeth and may actually cut that benefit down a little bit because it dilutes the percentage of chlorine in the final mix. Not much but some. The pure solution is stronger.

We leave it out, and historically it's been left out. The baking soda in the formula merely allows the solution to be kept for more than a few minutes, but the problem with that is that you have no idea how long that buffering will allow the adequate strength to last! You may wind up using a solution that is too weak to be effective. It is better and safer to take the time to make your solution as you need it.

The best brand to use is the Clorox brand with the blue cap. That is the purest, without adulteration, and always a known, fixed percentage at the time of purchase that we know of. Other brands may be just as good, but none of the others are FDA approved to make Dakin's Solution. As you use it, it can only get weaker, not stronger as the chlorine component is more volatile than the water in it. You cut it to the 20 H²O to 1 Clorox ratio and you'll be OK.

[Glad2bnuts]

The pure Clorox burnt.....lol.. Just kidding, I mixed it 20-1 and it does leave you feeling like your gums are clean. After 15 minutes I swished Hydrogen peroxide, and there was no bubbling. I took that to mean there was little food or bacteria left after the cleaning. I am trying this for the next month and see if it results in better health. Of course once I get into it, it will just be another habit I won’t break. Thanks for the information.

[Chickensoup]

The pure Clorox burnt.....lol.. Just kidding, I mixed it 20-1 and it does leave you feeling like your gums are clean. After 15 minutes I swished Hydrogen peroxide, and there was no bubbling. I took that to mean there was little food or bacteria left after the cleaning. I am trying this for the next month and see if it results in better health. Of course once I get into it, it will just be another habit I won’t break. Thanks for the information.

_______________

So how has this worked for you? I am curious

[Glad2bnuts]

The only difference is cleaner teeth, they stay clean longer too. I cannot speak to killing of germs, spirochetes, or anything else. Definitely leaves your mouth feeling sterile the first few times, then just a normal clean. I like it, please don’t tell me it was a joke and that the reason my lips are peeling is from the bleach mix......humor off now......