Recipe for Dental Health

Holistic Dental Health

Your overall health and the health of your mouth are more connected than you realise, remember the same blood that travels through your teeth and gums travels around the rest of your body. The whole body is interconnected, and that is the essence of holistic healthcare and holistic dentistry.

If you want to look after your whole body then it is essential to care for your mouth properly and visit your dentist regularly.

To prevent dental disease it is vital that you brush and floss and don’t eat sugar. However, as I have shown you through my many blogs this is not the full story. I feel that dentists need to focus more on assisting patients to have optimal nutrition and balanced lifestyle and less on brushing and flossing alone.

Dental disease is a sign of systemic illness and imbalance and no amount of good oral hygiene will fix that. Yes a healthy mouth is crucial for having a healthy body but the two go hand in hand.

The Basics for Health

The basics of healthy living are not mysterious and are the same for virtually all of us:

• Healthy diet
• Stress reduction/management
• No smoking or recreational drugs including alcohol
• Regular exercise
• Satisfying employment
• Unpolluted air, water, and environment
• Strong, positive connections to family and community
• Expression of spirituality (whatever that may be for each of us) Despite improved oral health education and controversial water fluoridation programs tooth decay, gum disease and oral health issues are on the increase.

Fluoride Is Not The Answer To Tooth Decay
Excessive carbohydrate and sugar consumption along with stressful lifestyle lead to acidity and the leaching of minerals from teeth and bones which in turns creates an increased risk for tooth decay and gum disease. Fluoride is not the answer.

The answer is to rebalance the body, create an alkaline environment and increase mineral uptake and absorption to be able to remineralise and strengthen tooth enamel naturally and in return reduce the number of bacteria present in the mouth.

This can be achieved through diet and lifestyle.

The Keys to Dental Health

Stress, diet/nutrition, sleep quality, hydration, tooth brushing and flossing are the keys to dental health. It has to be a total body package, aimed at achieving balance and harmony throughout the body as a whole.

Reduce your stress:

• go for a walk
• meditate
• take a bath
• spend some quiet time with yourself
• get into nature
• have a massage or healing session
  
  

Diet:

• No not calories but nutrients
• Eat real food, avoid processed
• Cut out the sugar and refined carbohydrates
• Eat more good fats – avocado, olive oil, oily fish, coconut oil
• Lots of vegetables, not too much fruit
• Only eat what you need
• Only eat when you are hungry

Quality Sleep Not Quantity:

• Go to bed rested
• Wind down from your day
• Switch off that mobile device, laptop or iPad, turn down the lights and let your body know it is night time
• Too much blue light at night and not enough sunlight during the day confuses the brain and reduces melatonin production – the hormone which controls sleep

Hydration:

• simple, drink water and lots of it

Oral hygiene:

• Brush twice a day and floss once a day – thoroughly and gently, be methodical and take your time.
• Use a tongue scraper and clean your tongue every day
• Use an alcohol-free mouthwash

Love Yourself:

• Be kind to yourself and to your body

A large contributing factor to dental decay is diet.

If you:

• Have perfect blood sugar
• Have balanced ions of Calcium and Phosphorus in the body
• Consume fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K
• Minimise sugar and carbohydrate intake
• You will be at a much lower risk for developing cavities!

Add to this a natural mouth rinse containing ingredients like vitamin K, Tea Tree Oil, Aloe Vera, and Myrrh that naturally decrease inflammation and fight the bacteria that cause tooth decay. And, you have a perfect recipe for great dental health.

Also, make sure to see your dentist regularly.

Tooth decay with age is NOT normal.

Nourishing vitamin-dense foods have been replaced with modern, convenient, chemically-laden and factory- made foods that lack vitamins. Without food-based sources of fat soluble and water soluble vitamins, your body decays over time and so do your teeth decay because what you are eating does not support good health.

Tooth decay risk factors depend on:

• The mineral content of the diet, particularly calcium and phosphorus
• The fat-soluble vitamin content of the diet, chiefly vitamins D, A and K2
• The availability of minerals for absorption, determined largely by the phytic acid content of the diet – phytic acid from grains prevents mineral absorption.

Sugar alone does NOT cause dental decay. Cavities occur as a result of imbalances in calcium and phosphorus metabolism and too much acidity in the body. When the calcium and phosphorus ratios in our blood go out of balance, you get tooth decay or gum disease.

Correcting the levels, primarily through a change in diet and lifestyle will help you resolve the problem and greatly reduce your risk for dental disease. It can even halt the progression of tooth decay and reverse small cavities.

As a holistic dentist, my aim is to help make people like you more aware of their overall health and guide them toward preventing or managing diseases – it is not just about drill and fills, floss and brush and don’t eat sugar. There is much more to it than that – and I hope my blogs and videos will support you to understand the keys to your dental health and take charge of your dental destiny.

Book your consultation with Dr Rachel Hall by contacting us here.