The following is a guest blog post from a professional friend of ours, Dr. Al Danenberg. Dr. Al is a wonderful resource because he is a dentist who specializes in the treatment of gum disease AND has awakened to the foundational impact that diet has on our oral health. You can learn more from Dr. Al by visiting his site, DrDanenberg.com. With that, we’ll turn it over to Dr. Al…
I recently had a patient who had bleeding gums, but it wasn’t caused by dental plaque or poor oral hygiene. It was the result of unhealthy food choices and an unhealthy gut, which led to a compromised immune system, which led to a breakdown in his mouth. After changing his nutrition, he was able to resolve his bleeding and sore gums.
I am in a unique position. I am a periodontist who has been in practice for 40 years, but two years ago I had a paradigm shift. I learned about ancestral nutrition. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
Today, I incorporate cutting edge periodontal treatment using the PerioLase® laser along with the health benefits of ancestral nutrition. I have changed my personal health through ancestral nutrition, and I teach ancestral nutrition to all my periodontal patients to enhance their healing, to create a healthy gut microbiome, and to improve their overall health.
Human skeletal remains have been discovered as far back as 400,000 years ago. Dental remains from approximately 20,000 years ago have demonstrated that our primal ancestors hardly ever had gum disease or dental decay. How could that be? They had no toothbrushes, no floss, no fluoride, and no dental cleanings every 6 months. Then how could they have healthy mouths? The answer is they ate nutrient-dense foods and had healthy gut bacteria!
Here are 19 pearls for you to consider for a healthier mouth and a healthier body:
Foods to avoid:
1. Grains can initiate inflammation and a leaky gut, through which undigested foods and bad bacteria can leak into the bloodstream. Not good! This creates a cascade of events that can cause various chronic diseases and obesity. Our guts never evolved to digest grains completely, and they need to be eliminated from our diets.
2. Unnatural sugars contribute to unhealthy bacteria and chronic diseases as grains do. All added sugars like fructose, agave, and high fructose corn syrup should be avoided.
3. Polyunsaturated vegetable oils (like canola oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, and safflower oil) are unstable and break down easily as a result of commercial processing and normal cooking. Ingestion of these fats damages metabolic processes causing harm to individual cells. Also, chemically altered trans fats and partially hydrogenated fats are toxic to the body. All of these need to be avoided.
4. Legumes have anti-nutrients that irritate the intestinal lining and prevent the proper absorption of many minerals. Legumes are not essential for health and only offer a low level of nutrients per gram. These include beans, soy, peanuts, and lentils. They should be avoided.
Foods to include (organic is best):
5. Saturated fats that have been demonized are essential for cell membranes as well as many biological functions. We need to eat all forms of healthy fats, which also include many essential micronutrients. Healthy fats made up as much as 60% of our primal ancestors’ diets. Consider the healthy fats from avocados, coconut oil, wild caught fatty fish like salmon, organ meats like liver and brain from free-range animals, and butter from grass-fed cows.
6. The micronutrients in non-starchy vegetables provide essential building blocks for our individual cells. If you look at a plate of food, at least 1/2 of it should consist of non-starchy vegetables. A great way to “eat” your veggies is to “drink” some of them in a smoothie. Here is a link to my favorite green smoothie.
7. Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, full-fat plain yogurt, full-fat kefir, other fermented vegetables, and kombucha (fermented tea) offer healthy bacteria that can support a healthy gut. Include these with your meals as often as you can.
8. Grass-fed and grass-finished meats, shellfish and small fish like sardines and anchovies, free-range chickens and their eggs, and free-range hogs contain essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats that need to be included in your diet.
9. Homemade bone broth offers unique nutrients for your body and especially your gut. Here is my favorite recipe.
10. Sea vegetables are also unique because of their abundance of trace minerals. Here is my favorite recipe for seaweed soup using bone broth as a base.
11. Filtered water provides minimal toxins and necessary hydration. At least 6-8 glasses a day should be adequate.
12. Nuts and seeds provide healthy nutrients, but they also contain anti-nutrients. It is best to soak all nuts and seeds overnight to remove the anti-nutrients.
13. Fruits are generally healthy, but they contain fructose and should be eaten in moderation. The best choices are all berries (like strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries) and citrus.
Supplements you may want to include:
14. Fermented cod liver oil combined with high vitamin butter oil is anti-inflammatory and includes an abundance of naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K among many other nutrients. An online source is Green Pastures products.
15. Organic kelp powder provides many trace minerals including iodine, which is synergistic with the fat-soluble vitamins. An online source is Oregon’s Wild Harvest. (Note from Will and Susan… When considering sea vegetables, we find it really wise to know the quality of the source. We do not know anything about this company. We personally enjoy sea products from here.)
16. Probiotic supplements help increase available healthy bacteria for the gut. Soil-based probiotics provide a variety of beneficial microorganisms that are difficult to get with a regular probiotic supplement. Here’s an excellent primer on the benefits of probiotics, why they help, what to look for in a probiotic supplement and how foods can provide us with probiotic benefits too.
Oral Techniques:
17. Coconut oil is antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal. It is effective as a mouth rinse (called “coconut oil pulling”). Place 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil in your mouth and swish. After 10 minutes, spit out and rinse with water. You can use this as often as you want. (Here’s a link to an article that details the benefits of oil pulling)
18. Use an electric toothbrush dipped first into coconut oil and then into baking soda. (Instead of the baking soda, you could place 2-3 drops of OraWellness Healthy Mouth Blend® onto the brush head that has been dipped in coconut oil.) Place the bristles of the electric brush into the space between the teeth and gum on the cheek side and then the tongue side of the teeth. The idea is to let the bristles clean into the gum space between the gum and the tooth just like you would clean the angle where the wall meets the floor with a scrub brush.
19. To clean between the teeth, you could use floss. Another way to clean between the teeth is with a tiny-bristle brush that would clean like a bottlebrush cleans the inside of a bottle. A popular brand is called a Proxabrush® available online.
Remember how your Mom gave you chicken soup to cure all your ills? Just maybe the old ways were some of the best ways!
Aloha!
Alvin H. Danenberg, DDS
Periodontist
Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner
Dr. Danenberg divides his career into two periods: before and after the laser coupled with the dynamics of ancestral nutrition. The laser-based LANAP® protocol and the importance of ancestral nutrition, he believes, are revolutionizing the treatment of gum disease. LANAP is an acronym for Laser Assisted New Attachment Procedure and requires no scalpels or sutures.
Dr. Alvin Danenberg received his dental degree from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1972, and his Specialty Certificate in Periodontics from the University of Maryland, School of Graduate Dentistry in 1974. Currently he practices periodontics from offices in Bluffton, Beaufort, and West Columbia, all located in South Carolina.
Dr. Danenberg received advanced training in ancestral nutrition from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as well as The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in 2013. In July 2014, he received a CFMP (Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner) designation from Functional Medicine University and also launched his website, DrDanenberg.com, from which he can provide telephone and Skype consultations.
If you’d like to know what questions to ask to find a dental team who will work with you on your journey to greater oral health, feel free to download our FREE Guide to Safe Dentistry.
Cod liver oil can help to prevent serious diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, musculoskeletal pain, cancer, heart diseases, and so on. Share with you: http://www.healthdoyen.com/benefits-of-cod-liver-oil.html
PLEASE state in your information if your suggestions should/should not be used if you have an issue like hyper/hypothyroidism! I am SO confused about the iodine issue.
Agreed Debbie!
I’m currently reading a fascinating read from Dr Datis Kharrazian that he states this issue very clearly. As Dr K puts forward, iodine can actually exacerbate thyroid issues. It’s not as simple as ‘iodine supports thyroid’. As I’m beginning to grasp it, much of this depends on whether the possible thyroid imbalance is actually an autoimmune issue. If so, supplementing iodine can actually make things worse.
Thanks for stopping by to share your input!!
I started implementing a lot of these things including using the oralwellness healthy mouth blend and now my teeth are turning gray with white is disappearing what am I doing wrong?
Aloha Tonya,
It sounds like stains from foods/drinks are causing discoloration of your teeth to me. Please try using some baking soda on your brush for a few days and focus on the front of your teeth. This should easily resolve any discoloration caused by staining foods/drinks (coffee/tea are most common culprits).
We hope this helps! 🙂
This is the article just what I was looking for and finally come to know about these 19 Pearls for Overall Health and I think that such sorts of article will surely be handy for others. Thanks
i’ve been reading a lot about FCLO, and i’m really interested in trying FCLO & high vitamin butter, but my only concern is the high level so vitamin A. i read that most people get enough vitamin A from their diet. do you have any information about this?
Thanks for stopping by to ask your question!
While I don’t know exact amounts of vitamin A in various foods, what we do know is that Dr Weston Price found when he traveled the world studying indigenous cultures and their traditional diets is these peoples on average ate 4-10x the fat soluble vitamins as Americans in the 1930s. 4-10 times the amount of vitamins A, D, E, and K2!
Most nutritional sources confuse vitamin A (retinol) with beta carotene. They are not the same and beta carotene has to be converted by the body into vitamin A. So, unless a person is consuming very regular amounts of organ meats, I’m highly suspect when I hear that we have sufficient vitamin A from our diets.
Bottom line, I don’t think it’s a concern to get too much vitamin A in your system. 🙂
I hope that helps!
Dr Al is really amazing. His resources are truly beneficial. To improve my overall health and dental implementation I’m looking forward follow these 19 pearls. Great article and lot of information added!! Overall this is a better place to seek out dental health related resources… Thanks.
Thanks for stopping by to share your supportive words Michael!
Aloha!
Thanks for the wonderful blog and products! I especially appreciate the integrity and positivity with which you present your information on the blog: offering solutions and focusing on what works.
Just an observation from reading the above post: it mentions how fats have been demonized… and now it seems grains are being demonized with the above recommendation to completely remove them from our diets. Interesting, how we tend to go from one extreme to another. Also, it seems from what is known here, while our ancestors may have had better teeth and did’t eat grains, overall life expectancy wasn’t very high, or? It seems valuable to be able to look back and build on the wisdom of the past, and at the same time be open and in the flow of Evolution. Our ancestors didn’t have the same requirements, environments, or foods available. Our bodies as well as our skills, minds, life styles have evolved and changed… So, it seems it is about figuring out what works for today’s world vs. just going back to the “good” old times.
This perspective does not devalue the many good points in the article… Just wondering about a slightly different angle, from which to view the solution… Appreciate Your work, Will and Susan!
Aloha Irene!
Thank you so much for stopping by to share your perspective here (and for your kind words of support! 🙂
I completely agree with everything you state here. Essentially, each of us has to find what works for us. Plain and simple. What works diet wise for one person won’t for another. In fact, when we interviewed the late Dr Hal Huggins, he shared with us that much of this comes from our genetic ancestry. So, looking ‘upstream’ to our ancestral heritage can provide each of us clues and a good starting point as to what foods may better support us. Interestingly, a person of Japanese heritage eating their traditional foods will have balanced blood chemistry just like a person of Scandanavian heritage eating their traditional foods. However, the diets may vary widely, the traditional diet for each will accomplish the same result.
Find what works for you and remember that even our personal needs can change over time. Truly, finding our way to optimal health is a moving target! 🙂
Be sure to smile plenty during the journey. Remember what our friend and hero, India Arie, says, “It doesn’t cost a thing to smile”! That’s what helps keep it light and fun!
Thank you and Aloha!
Hi Will!
One good thing about all our New England snowstorms…is now that I am really, really snowed in, I have plenty of time to catch up on my reading! So here I am, soaking up all your wonderful info! Thank you so much for your amazing, helpful site!!!
I’m 71, pretty much have at least one filling in every tooth, with many extractions, in addition. A few root canals, which are fine, no problems. I am immediately implementing many of your techniques and tips to salvage what teeth I have left!
I am wondering about hydrogen peroxide…Off and on, this past year, I’ve used the food grade version for brushing and as a mouthwash. It is a very weak solution, no fizz at all, but I’m aware it is in my mouth. Also occasionally using coconut oil pulling.
I’m on a fixed income. Wondering if I can use these materials, since I already have them on hand, and when I’m able, I’d love to buy your products. I think mostly, just the bad eating/hygiene have been my problem, so hoping getting back to my greens juicing and carrot, etc juicing, plus what I’ve learned from you just now, will at least get me motivated to stay with it! I know what needs to be done and what to eat, etc. It’s the follow-through, LOL!!
If you could please advise me on the peroxide and coconut oil-pulling for now, I would be so grateful!!!
Thank you in advance! Kristina
I found that eating less carbs has aided my oral health much more than I could imagine. Additionally, I have started to eat and drink a lot less sugary drinks, but at the same time, drinking my drinks not sipping. Not too sure if that is a myth, although it seems to be working! Thanks for the 19 pearls Will – will be looking more into the tips!