{"id":3639,"date":"2024-01-19T11:24:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T16:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ragnarok83.com\/authwaternew\/?p=256"},"modified":"2024-01-19T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T16:24:08","slug":"fluoride-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ragnarok83.com\/authwaternew\/fluoride-friend-or-foe\/","title":{"rendered":"Fluoride, Friend or Foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mark Burhenne on How the Oral Microbiome Affects Overall Health<\/h2>\n

From Greenchildmagazine.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

Functional dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne<\/a> explains the oral microbiome, the dangers of fluoride, and why diet matters more than brushing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Mark Burhenne is a functional dentist, best selling author, and TedX speaker. At the core of his years of learning, practicing functional dentistry, and teaching is that the state of our oral microbiome directly affects our overall health. Known by his patients (and much of the internet) as Dr. B, Mark is also extremely caring, kind, and refreshingly optimistic about how our everyday actions can reclaim our health.<\/p>\n

The Relationship Between the Mouth & Immune System<\/h2>\n

The topic on everyone\u2019s minds lately is immune health. What is the relationship between the mouth and the immune system?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The immune system is very active in the mouth. It turns out that one of the great risk factors in COVID-19 infection rate (and even fatality) is oral health. The mouth has its own biome, just like the gut has its own biome.<\/p>\n

The mouth has a variety of micro-environments that host different bacterial populations: the tongue, the hard palate, the teeth, the area around the tooth surfaces, above the gums, and below the gums.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of permeability in the mouth. Oral pathogens are involved in almost every chronic disease. The mouth is the only place in the body that a biofilm exists by design. The oral microbiome is a unique system that is integral to your health, yet it has been largely ignored by the medical community for years.<\/p>\n

How we breathe (nasal breathing as opposed to mouth breathing) has an effect on the immune system. What happens in the mouth happens in the body.<\/p>\n

Taking Care of Our Oral Microbiome Health<\/h2>\n

When it comes to taking care of our oral microbiome health, which practices and products are necessary? Many of our readers live a low-waste lifestyle and want to know what\u2019s essential so they\u2019re not creating waste.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I applaud them, and I try and do the same. There\u2019s a lot of waste in the oral health category. Think about all the floss, toothbrushes, and tubes of toothpaste in our landfills. I\u2019m sure a bunch of that stuff is floating in the Pacific Ocean as well, and it doesn\u2019t break down.<\/p>\n

The good news is that a lot of the smaller companies are providing better solutions. I use a recycled toothbrush handle and replace the head because I really like the toothbrush. There are also wooden-handled toothbrushes so you can avoid plastic. You can also find biodegradable floss, made from silk.<\/p>\n

Bite tablets come in a recyclable glass jar. It contains hydroxyapatite, which is a safe alternative to fluoride, and it doesn\u2019t contain emulsifiers. The toothpaste I generally recommend is by Boka<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, toothpaste is only 10% of the equation. If you had a perfect diet and weren\u2019t mouth-breathing, you could get away without using toothpaste. And forget mouthwash. You don\u2019t need it, so that saves one product and one container from the landfill.<\/p>\n

Most modern diseases, which were nearly unknown to our paleolithic ancestors, are the result of a \u201cmismatch<\/a>\u201d between the environments we evolved in for the last two-million years (Homo habilis) and the new environments we have created for ourselves and live in now. This is the premise Harvard evolutionary biologist Dan Lieberman puts forth in his book, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, And Disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, our bodies are matched to the environment we\u2019ve had for most of our evolutionary history \u2014 not to the environment which we just recently created for ourselves. Natural selection has not been able to keep up with the rate of human innovations like farming, sugar, and processed foods.<\/p>\n

The recent changes in our lifestyle create a \u201cmismatch\u201d for the mouth, which evolved under vastly different environments than what our mouths are exposed to these days. Our mouths evolved to be chewing tough meats and fibrous vegetables. Sugar-laden fruit was a rare and special treat for our paleolithic ancestors. Now, our diets are filled with heavily processed foods that take hardly any energy to chew \u2014 smoothies, coffees, and sodas high in sugar, white bread, and crackers to name just a few.<\/p>\n

Mouthwash: Necessary or Harmful?<\/h2>\n

Can you clarify about mouthwash\u2026 It isn\u2019t necessary? Or it\u2019s harmful?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a lot of chemicals (alcohol, detergents, pesticides) in mouthwash. In dental school I was told that the mouth is a dirty place and you have to disinfect it. But it\u2019s actually a place that needs to be nourished.<\/p>\n

There are good and bad bacteria in your mouth, and as long as the population ratio is commensal, you\u2019re fine. Even natural mouthwashes with essential oils are bactericidal. One health influencer burned his mouth on a homeopathic mouthwash and lost his voice. One study found that if you use too much mouthwash, it actually elevates your blood pressure.<\/p>\n

It kills off a bacterium that produces nitric oxide. Again, this super organism \u2013 the combination of human bacteria and other nonhuman bacteria and viruses and E cells, fungi \u2013 is present in your mouth for a reason just like it is in the gut. Using mouthwash every day is like using an antibiotic on your gut every day.<\/p>\n

Fluoride in Toothpaste<\/h2>\n

Fluoride is in commercial toothpastes, and it\u2019s in our water. Drinking fluoride treated water has been shown to lower IQ<\/a>. What is your professional opinion on the safety of fluoride?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fluoride is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. They take this product which they would have to pay to get rid of because it is a toxin when it comes out of the smokestack, and filter it. Then they truck it to a municipal water supply and sell it, and then it goes into the water.<\/p>\n

When we raised our three daughters, my wife and I went to distilled water right away. They didn\u2019t get fluoride supplements, and they don\u2019t have any cavities.<\/p>\n

Your at home care \u2013 brushing with the proper toothpaste and flossing \u2013 should be enough. The goal is not really a removal of biofilm, but a removal of stuff that sticks to the biofilm that can produce an immune response like inflammation of the gums. Fluoride is a broad reaching kind of bandaid that has lots of implications for the health of our society.<\/p>\n

Mouth Taping<\/h2>\n

This one was new to us when we started reading your Instagram Stories. Can you share about the benefits of mouth taping at night?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using mouth tape forces you to breathe out of your nose (instead of your mouth). This is a simple way to reap the benefits of better sleep and improved oral health.<\/p>\n

When you breathe with your mouth open, you are a different person because your blood pH is different. Your heart rate is higher. Your sympathetic tone is greater. Your respiratory rate is higher.<\/p>\n

The big factor from a dental perspective is if you are mouth breathing, your oral posture is definitely altered. It\u2019s in a state of dysfunction because you can\u2019t breathe through your nose. And because of that, the tongue is in a different position, causing the lower face to develop in a different way. This lower face develops from birth to age six. If you are mouth breathing, you\u2019re going to have a narrow face. If you have a narrow face, that means all the little parts of your airway have been made smaller.<\/p>\n

Essentially, there are three boxes in the lower face. There\u2019s the mouth box, the nose box, and then the airway box. It\u2019s the mouth box that if it grows to its proper width, with that along goes the growth and width of the airway box and the nose box, meaning we can breathe better. But if the mouth stays narrow, vaulted arch, the tongue sits low in the mouth or back up against the airway, all of those things that we see in mouth breathers, that will determine who you are later in life.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say your child is a mouth breather, and what do you do? I have one and two-year-olds mouth taping. There\u2019s a product called Myotape that was patented by Patrick McKeown, a breathing expert and author of The Oxygen Advantage<\/a>. It\u2019s a tape that doesn\u2019t actually seal up over the lips. It\u2019s more like a frame. It\u2019s essentially what Native American women would do with their kids when they came off the breast. If the baby\u2019s mouth was still open after breastfeeding, they would pinch the lips shut.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want your child sleeping with their mouth open all night long, so this tape pinches the lips closed. If they want to open, they can. There\u2019s nothing blocking the airway. That means the nose will come online eventually.<\/p>\n

Now, if there\u2019s severe anatomical issues and they can\u2019t breathe through their nose, it\u2019s something beyond allergies and lack of using the nose over time, then you\u2019d need to see a paediatric ear, nose, and throat specialist.<\/p>\n

Is it possible to heal or remineralize a cavity?<\/h2>\n

Yes. I think a lot of people are shocked by that, but you probably will remineralize a small cavity in your mouth at some point today. Now, if you have a dry mouth and you\u2019re eating a lot of carbs, then the process of demineralizing will have too much emphasis where the remineralization can\u2019t catch up. It\u2019s happening to our bones as we speak. The more exercise you do, your bones get stronger. It\u2019s the same thing.<\/p>\n

But yes, teeth can remineralize. You have to give your teeth a chance to remineralize, and intermittent fasting is great for that. Instead of snacking constantly where your teeth are always demineralizing, try eating two meals a day that are six hours apart, and the rest of the time you\u2019re remineralizing your teeth. If you\u2019re developing cavities, I recommend intermittent fasting, and of course, modify your diet and eat whole foods and grass-fed foods. Make sure you\u2019re supplementing with K2, Vitamin A, D3, and getting enough sunshine<\/p>\n

Do you recommend oil pulling?<\/h2>\n

Oil pulling can reduce pathogenic bacteria, like the ones that cause cavities and gum disease, in the mouth. Rebalancing the oral microbiome is one of the key benefits of oil pulling. Scientific studies show it also reduces gum inflammation, among other benefits.<\/p>\n

Once when I was congested (which doesn\u2019t happen as often since I started mouth taping) and my mouth was dry because I couldn\u2019t tape, I would oil pull for three days for about three minutes maybe once or twice a day. That was enough to thin that biofilm without scrubbing it away and using caustic mouthwashes and preserving the oral microbiome because it\u2019s not that strong of an emulsifier and it doesn\u2019t have chemicals in it.<\/p>\n

Oil pulling is simple. Floss and brush your teeth, then place a tablespoon of oil (coconut is the most popular) in your mouth. Swish the oil around for about three minutes, and then spit it out in the trash can (not down a drain because it can clog when it hardens), then rinse your mouth with water. If your oral health is good, oil pulling once or twice a week is enough to get all the benefits.<\/p>\n

You can find a full list of Dr. B\u2019s product recommendations in his functional dentistry online store<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mark Burhenne on How the Oral Microbiome Affects Overall Health From Greenchildmagazine.com Functional dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne explains the oral microbiome, the dangers of fluoride, and why diet matters more than brushing. Dr. Mark Burhenne is a functional dentist, best selling author, and TedX speaker. At the core of his years of learning, practicing functional dentistry, and teaching is that the state of our oral microbiome directly affects our overall health. Known by his patients (and much of the internet) as Dr. B, Mark is also extremely caring, kind, and refreshingly optimistic about how our everyday actions can reclaim our health. The Relationship Between the Mouth & Immune System The topic on everyone\u2019s minds lately is immune health. What is the relationship between the mouth and the immune system? The immune system is very active in the mouth. It turns out that one of the great risk factors in COVID-19 infection rate (and even fatality) is oral health. The mouth has its own biome, just like the gut has its own biome. The mouth has a variety of micro-environments that host different bacterial populations: the tongue, the hard palate, the teeth, the area around the tooth surfaces, above the gums, and below the gums. There\u2019s a lot of permeability in the mouth. Oral pathogens are involved in almost every chronic disease. The mouth is the only place in the body that a biofilm exists by design. The oral microbiome is a unique system that is integral to your health, yet it has been largely ignored by the medical community for years. How we breathe (nasal breathing as opposed to mouth breathing) has an effect on the immune system. What happens in the mouth happens in the body. Taking Care of Our Oral Microbiome Health When it comes to taking care of our oral microbiome health, which practices and products are necessary? Many of our readers live a low-waste lifestyle and want to know what\u2019s essential so they\u2019re not creating waste. I applaud them, and I try and do the same. There\u2019s a lot of waste in the oral health category. Think about all the floss, toothbrushes, and tubes of toothpaste in our landfills. I\u2019m sure a bunch of that stuff is floating in the Pacific Ocean as well, and it doesn\u2019t break down. The good news is that a lot of the smaller companies are providing better solutions. I use a recycled toothbrush handle and replace the head because I really like the toothbrush. There are also wooden-handled toothbrushes so you can avoid plastic. You can also find biodegradable floss, made from silk. Bite tablets come in a recyclable glass jar. It contains hydroxyapatite, which is a safe alternative to fluoride, and it doesn\u2019t contain emulsifiers. The toothpaste I generally recommend is by Boka. However, toothpaste is only 10% of the equation. If you had a perfect diet and weren\u2019t mouth-breathing, you could get away without using toothpaste. And forget mouthwash. You don\u2019t need it, so that saves one product and one container from the landfill. Most modern diseases, which were nearly unknown to our paleolithic ancestors, are the result of a \u201cmismatch\u201d between the environments we evolved in for the last two-million years (Homo habilis) and the new environments we have created for ourselves and live in now. This is the premise Harvard evolutionary biologist Dan Lieberman puts forth in his book, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, And Disease. In other words, our bodies are matched to the environment we\u2019ve had for most of our evolutionary history \u2014 not to the environment which we just recently created for ourselves. Natural selection has not been able to keep up with the rate of human innovations like farming, sugar, and processed foods. The recent changes in our lifestyle create a \u201cmismatch\u201d for the mouth, which evolved under vastly different environments than what our mouths are exposed to these days. Our mouths evolved to be chewing tough meats and fibrous vegetables. Sugar-laden fruit was a rare and special treat for our paleolithic ancestors. Now, our diets are filled with heavily processed foods that take hardly any energy to chew \u2014 smoothies, coffees, and sodas high in sugar, white bread, and crackers to name just a few. Mouthwash: Necessary or Harmful? Can you clarify about mouthwash\u2026 It isn\u2019t necessary? Or it\u2019s harmful? There are a lot of chemicals (alcohol, detergents, pesticides) in mouthwash. In dental school I was told that the mouth is a dirty place and you have to disinfect it. But it\u2019s actually a place that needs to be nourished. There are good and bad bacteria in your mouth, and as long as the population ratio is commensal, you\u2019re fine. Even natural mouthwashes with essential oils are bactericidal. One health influencer burned his mouth on a homeopathic mouthwash and lost his voice. One study found that if you use too much mouthwash, it actually elevates your blood pressure. It kills off a bacterium that produces nitric oxide. Again, this super organism \u2013 the combination of human bacteria and other nonhuman bacteria and viruses and E cells, fungi \u2013 is present in your mouth for a reason just like it is in the gut. Using mouthwash every day is like using an antibiotic on your gut every day. Fluoride in Toothpaste Fluoride is in commercial toothpastes, and it\u2019s in our water. Drinking fluoride treated water has been shown to lower IQ. What is your professional opinion on the safety of fluoride? Fluoride is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. They take this product which they would have to pay to get rid of because it is a toxin when it comes out of the smokestack, and filter it. Then they truck it to a municipal water supply and sell it, and then it goes into the water. When we raised our three daughters, my wife and I went to distilled water right away. They didn\u2019t get fluoride supplements, and they don\u2019t have any cavities. Your at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-3639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-contaminants"],"yoast_head":"\nFluoride, Friend or Foe? - Whole House Water Filter Systems and Water Softeners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ragnarok83.com\/authwaternew\/fluoride-friend-or-foe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fluoride, Friend or Foe? - Whole House Water Filter Systems and Water Softeners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Mark Burhenne on How the Oral Microbiome Affects Overall Health From Greenchildmagazine.com Functional dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne explains the oral microbiome, the dangers of fluoride, and why diet matters more than brushing. Dr. Mark Burhenne is a functional dentist, best selling author, and TedX speaker. At the core of his years of learning, practicing functional dentistry, and teaching is that the state of our oral microbiome directly affects our overall health. Known by his patients (and much of the internet) as Dr. B, Mark is also extremely caring, kind, and refreshingly optimistic about how our everyday actions can reclaim our health. The Relationship Between the Mouth & Immune System The topic on everyone\u2019s minds lately is immune health. What is the relationship between the mouth and the immune system? The immune system is very active in the mouth. It turns out that one of the great risk factors in COVID-19 infection rate (and even fatality) is oral health. The mouth has its own biome, just like the gut has its own biome. The mouth has a variety of micro-environments that host different bacterial populations: the tongue, the hard palate, the teeth, the area around the tooth surfaces, above the gums, and below the gums. There\u2019s a lot of permeability in the mouth. Oral pathogens are involved in almost every chronic disease. The mouth is the only place in the body that a biofilm exists by design. The oral microbiome is a unique system that is integral to your health, yet it has been largely ignored by the medical community for years. How we breathe (nasal breathing as opposed to mouth breathing) has an effect on the immune system. What happens in the mouth happens in the body. Taking Care of Our Oral Microbiome Health When it comes to taking care of our oral microbiome health, which practices and products are necessary? Many of our readers live a low-waste lifestyle and want to know what\u2019s essential so they\u2019re not creating waste. I applaud them, and I try and do the same. There\u2019s a lot of waste in the oral health category. Think about all the floss, toothbrushes, and tubes of toothpaste in our landfills. I\u2019m sure a bunch of that stuff is floating in the Pacific Ocean as well, and it doesn\u2019t break down. The good news is that a lot of the smaller companies are providing better solutions. I use a recycled toothbrush handle and replace the head because I really like the toothbrush. There are also wooden-handled toothbrushes so you can avoid plastic. You can also find biodegradable floss, made from silk. Bite tablets come in a recyclable glass jar. It contains hydroxyapatite, which is a safe alternative to fluoride, and it doesn\u2019t contain emulsifiers. The toothpaste I generally recommend is by Boka. However, toothpaste is only 10% of the equation. If you had a perfect diet and weren\u2019t mouth-breathing, you could get away without using toothpaste. And forget mouthwash. You don\u2019t need it, so that saves one product and one container from the landfill. Most modern diseases, which were nearly unknown to our paleolithic ancestors, are the result of a \u201cmismatch\u201d between the environments we evolved in for the last two-million years (Homo habilis) and the new environments we have created for ourselves and live in now. This is the premise Harvard evolutionary biologist Dan Lieberman puts forth in his book, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, And Disease. In other words, our bodies are matched to the environment we\u2019ve had for most of our evolutionary history \u2014 not to the environment which we just recently created for ourselves. Natural selection has not been able to keep up with the rate of human innovations like farming, sugar, and processed foods. The recent changes in our lifestyle create a \u201cmismatch\u201d for the mouth, which evolved under vastly different environments than what our mouths are exposed to these days. Our mouths evolved to be chewing tough meats and fibrous vegetables. Sugar-laden fruit was a rare and special treat for our paleolithic ancestors. Now, our diets are filled with heavily processed foods that take hardly any energy to chew \u2014 smoothies, coffees, and sodas high in sugar, white bread, and crackers to name just a few. Mouthwash: Necessary or Harmful? Can you clarify about mouthwash\u2026 It isn\u2019t necessary? Or it\u2019s harmful? There are a lot of chemicals (alcohol, detergents, pesticides) in mouthwash. In dental school I was told that the mouth is a dirty place and you have to disinfect it. But it\u2019s actually a place that needs to be nourished. There are good and bad bacteria in your mouth, and as long as the population ratio is commensal, you\u2019re fine. Even natural mouthwashes with essential oils are bactericidal. One health influencer burned his mouth on a homeopathic mouthwash and lost his voice. One study found that if you use too much mouthwash, it actually elevates your blood pressure. It kills off a bacterium that produces nitric oxide. Again, this super organism \u2013 the combination of human bacteria and other nonhuman bacteria and viruses and E cells, fungi \u2013 is present in your mouth for a reason just like it is in the gut. Using mouthwash every day is like using an antibiotic on your gut every day. Fluoride in Toothpaste Fluoride is in commercial toothpastes, and it\u2019s in our water. Drinking fluoride treated water has been shown to lower IQ. What is your professional opinion on the safety of fluoride? Fluoride is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. They take this product which they would have to pay to get rid of because it is a toxin when it comes out of the smokestack, and filter it. Then they truck it to a municipal water supply and sell it, and then it goes into the water. When we raised our three daughters, my wife and I went to distilled water right away. They didn\u2019t get fluoride supplements, and they don\u2019t have any cavities. 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- Whole House Water Filter Systems and Water Softeners","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ragnarok83.com\/authwaternew\/fluoride-friend-or-foe\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fluoride, Friend or Foe? - Whole House Water Filter Systems and Water Softeners","og_description":"Dr. Mark Burhenne on How the Oral Microbiome Affects Overall Health From Greenchildmagazine.com Functional dentist Dr. Mark Burhenne explains the oral microbiome, the dangers of fluoride, and why diet matters more than brushing. Dr. Mark Burhenne is a functional dentist, best selling author, and TedX speaker. At the core of his years of learning, practicing functional dentistry, and teaching is that the state of our oral microbiome directly affects our overall health. Known by his patients (and much of the internet) as Dr. B, Mark is also extremely caring, kind, and refreshingly optimistic about how our everyday actions can reclaim our health. The Relationship Between the Mouth & Immune System The topic on everyone\u2019s minds lately is immune health. What is the relationship between the mouth and the immune system? The immune system is very active in the mouth. It turns out that one of the great risk factors in COVID-19 infection rate (and even fatality) is oral health. The mouth has its own biome, just like the gut has its own biome. The mouth has a variety of micro-environments that host different bacterial populations: the tongue, the hard palate, the teeth, the area around the tooth surfaces, above the gums, and below the gums. There\u2019s a lot of permeability in the mouth. Oral pathogens are involved in almost every chronic disease. The mouth is the only place in the body that a biofilm exists by design. The oral microbiome is a unique system that is integral to your health, yet it has been largely ignored by the medical community for years. How we breathe (nasal breathing as opposed to mouth breathing) has an effect on the immune system. What happens in the mouth happens in the body. Taking Care of Our Oral Microbiome Health When it comes to taking care of our oral microbiome health, which practices and products are necessary? Many of our readers live a low-waste lifestyle and want to know what\u2019s essential so they\u2019re not creating waste. I applaud them, and I try and do the same. There\u2019s a lot of waste in the oral health category. Think about all the floss, toothbrushes, and tubes of toothpaste in our landfills. I\u2019m sure a bunch of that stuff is floating in the Pacific Ocean as well, and it doesn\u2019t break down. The good news is that a lot of the smaller companies are providing better solutions. I use a recycled toothbrush handle and replace the head because I really like the toothbrush. There are also wooden-handled toothbrushes so you can avoid plastic. You can also find biodegradable floss, made from silk. Bite tablets come in a recyclable glass jar. It contains hydroxyapatite, which is a safe alternative to fluoride, and it doesn\u2019t contain emulsifiers. The toothpaste I generally recommend is by Boka. However, toothpaste is only 10% of the equation. If you had a perfect diet and weren\u2019t mouth-breathing, you could get away without using toothpaste. And forget mouthwash. You don\u2019t need it, so that saves one product and one container from the landfill. Most modern diseases, which were nearly unknown to our paleolithic ancestors, are the result of a \u201cmismatch\u201d between the environments we evolved in for the last two-million years (Homo habilis) and the new environments we have created for ourselves and live in now. This is the premise Harvard evolutionary biologist Dan Lieberman puts forth in his book, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, And Disease. In other words, our bodies are matched to the environment we\u2019ve had for most of our evolutionary history \u2014 not to the environment which we just recently created for ourselves. Natural selection has not been able to keep up with the rate of human innovations like farming, sugar, and processed foods. The recent changes in our lifestyle create a \u201cmismatch\u201d for the mouth, which evolved under vastly different environments than what our mouths are exposed to these days. Our mouths evolved to be chewing tough meats and fibrous vegetables. Sugar-laden fruit was a rare and special treat for our paleolithic ancestors. Now, our diets are filled with heavily processed foods that take hardly any energy to chew \u2014 smoothies, coffees, and sodas high in sugar, white bread, and crackers to name just a few. Mouthwash: Necessary or Harmful? Can you clarify about mouthwash\u2026 It isn\u2019t necessary? Or it\u2019s harmful? There are a lot of chemicals (alcohol, detergents, pesticides) in mouthwash. In dental school I was told that the mouth is a dirty place and you have to disinfect it. But it\u2019s actually a place that needs to be nourished. There are good and bad bacteria in your mouth, and as long as the population ratio is commensal, you\u2019re fine. Even natural mouthwashes with essential oils are bactericidal. One health influencer burned his mouth on a homeopathic mouthwash and lost his voice. One study found that if you use too much mouthwash, it actually elevates your blood pressure. It kills off a bacterium that produces nitric oxide. Again, this super organism \u2013 the combination of human bacteria and other nonhuman bacteria and viruses and E cells, fungi \u2013 is present in your mouth for a reason just like it is in the gut. Using mouthwash every day is like using an antibiotic on your gut every day. Fluoride in Toothpaste Fluoride is in commercial toothpastes, and it\u2019s in our water. Drinking fluoride treated water has been shown to lower IQ. What is your professional opinion on the safety of fluoride? Fluoride is a byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. They take this product which they would have to pay to get rid of because it is a toxin when it comes out of the smokestack, and filter it. Then they truck it to a municipal water supply and sell it, and then it goes into the water. When we raised our three daughters, my wife and I went to distilled water right away. They didn\u2019t get fluoride supplements, and they don\u2019t have any cavities. 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