Breathific Dental Synbiotic Oral Strips

Continued experiments with Substack. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

My M&BF Challenge Update for 3-16-2025

These words from Justin Welsh's weekly newsletter caught my attention: "AI has killed the age of easy content marketing. And this is good news for people with real expertise. Because now, the only way to stand out is to be deeply helpful. To share real-life expertise. To talk about what you actually know, not what you think you should say. Start leading with your expertise, because in a world of AI-generated content, depth isn't just an advantage — it's a requirement." Thanks Justin. As always, I relate stuff to Mouth & Body Fitness. Ever since I started practicing dentistry (1986), I have seen endless regurgitations of the S.O.S. (Same Old $#!+) about oral health: "Avoid sweets, do oral hygiene for 2 minutes 2 times a day, and keep regular dental checkups". It's the same as a fitness trainer saying: "Eat right, exercise, and visit your physician regularly". That would obviously be useless advice to keep fit. How to exercise? What exercises? What to eat? When to eat? etc... and besides, my doctor is out of shape. Because AI is trained on existing and regurgitated dental advice, its dental advice is the same re-regurgitated cud-chewing stuff. Even when I've tasked AI to think outside the box, it comes up with science-fictionalized versions of the same old spew. And worse, it makes mistakes. For example, in one response it listed sugar as having 16 calories per gram. But when I corrected it with, "You said sugar has 16 calories per gram -- that is wrong", it replied, "I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are absolutely correct to point this out, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. Let me provide the correct information: Sugar (sucrose) actually contains 4 calories per gram, not 16 as I incorrectly stated. This is a fundamental nutritional fact that I should have presented accurately." Sure, AI is great at saving time, performing wondrous calculations, coding, research, etc. but it reminds me of my robotic vacuum cleaner, bumping into stuff, completely missing some areas, and getting stuck. Meanwhile, here's my MBF app results as of March 8th: You can see my average dental plaque pH was fairly low to start with by doing only standard home oral hygiene. But after a few days I amped up my results by implementing MBF. The reason it's rising on the right is because I haven't entered any future meals into the data. If I would do that, the curve would drop. My weight is dropping, and it would drop more if I would exercise more. So far, I've been mostly just cutting calories. Besides, fitness is about 75% nutrition and supplementation anyway. A crappy diet will screw up even the best exercise programs. It's the exact same with oral health. Folks, if you want a fit mouth and body, you need a totally new system, not regurgitation. Follow me if you want to live -- with your teeth.

Another Dental Case From the Archives

Lesson 5: Gum Disease Gum disease is a serious infectious disease caused by 60+ dangerous microbes. These germs and their harmful byproducts damage and digest gum tissues, creating an oral-systemic link—a gateway between your mouth and body. Gum disease germs are almost like spiders digesting their prey from the inside-out. They can also enter your bloodstream, cause blood clots (I worry more about this than dubious reports about xylitol or erythritol), infect various organs and joint prostheses, and are implicated in cancers of the mouth, throat, pancreas and colon. Gum disease is a slow, insidious, serious threat to overall health. Recent research has linked severe COVID-19 outcomes to moderate or severe gum disease, which is also associated with diabetes. The constant inflammation from gum disease strains your immune system and worsens other health issues. This underscores the importance of prevention. Up to 80% of common dental problems can be avoided with proper knowledge, action, and care. Gum disease germs are anaerobic. They thrive in low-oxygen environments. Smoking and vaping reduce blood oxygen levels, particularly in extremities like gums. This creates ideal conditions for these microbes. These germs use several dastardly survival strategies: They create stagnant "dead" spaces in your gums, forming pockets of anaerobic, infected tissue. They prefer to eat proteins -- YOU! 24/7/365/for life! They rely on ineffective oral hygiene. Most people leave 60% of their dental plaque untouched. (Between teeth, lingual surfaces, molars, deep under the gums, tongue, tonsils, throat, sinuses.) They thrive deeper than 4mm under your gums. This is beyond the reach of standard tools like floss and toothbrushes, which barely reach 2.5mm under gums. They're protected by biofilm as they travel through the bloodstream, and colonize other parts of the body. Their microbial biofilm makes it 1,000 x harder to kill them with antibiotics and antiseptics. Their three-layered cell wall makes them more resilient than cavity-causing bacteria, which have only two layers. The middle layer of their cell wall contains a potent poison. Scientists believe these germs may release substances that numb pain receptors, allowing them to thrive unnoticed. This may be why gum disease often progresses silently, causing no pain until advanced stages. What can you do? Oral irrigators can reach 6mm deep into gum pockets. Adding 5ml of hydrogen peroxide to your oral irrigator reservoir can increase its effectiveness by introducing more oxygen, which is toxic to these anaerobic bacteria. I'm about at the word limit for this post. Lesson 6 will expand on periodontal disease and provide more details how to effectively manage the endless onslaught of these evil germs. The attached image gives you an idea how deep your gums are compared to microbes and preventive dental products. Every 1 mm = 1 mile in the microbial world.

Floss is Dental Butt-Wipe Yes- that's an actual shirt I made. I still have a few, but they say "Toilet Tissue" instead of Butt-Wipe. I sold out of the Butt-Wipers. We need to rethink home oral hygiene. No more "sugar bugs". That sounds too nice. No more "flossing cavities". That sounds like you get cavities from flossing. No more beating around the bush and sugar-coating stuff so we don't scare people or turn them off. People need to know the truth. Decay and gum disease germs are NASTY. Especially gum disease germs. They feed on YOU like parasitic alien spiders/wasps (images courtesy of Dall-E 3). We dental professionals need to be like coaches. Coaches bring out the best in their players. “A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.”?Ara Parseghian?(Notre Dame football coach). Everyone is on the same team. Right now the fluoride controversy is floating around again. It's a valid concern. BUT--- If you can see dentistry through my eyes, an EXPONENTIALLY greater set of problems are the dental and systemic effects of pathogenic oral microbes and their toxic waste products that can get into your bloodstream and disseminate throughout your body, every day, all day long. Forever. In fact, gum disease basically kills you in slow motion. Unless you get an additional disease that makes things worse, like diabetes. Or COVID. And then things speed up. https://lnkd.in/g23RJvZQ FYI: Gum disease and diabetes are intricately linked in a bi-directional relationship. Both diseases make each other worse. Improving either one improves the other. Want your gums to improve? Manage your diabetes better. Want your diabetes to improve? Do more Mouth & Body Fitness. Oral hygiene is still good, don't get me wrong, but it's only a fraction of what you can do to avoid the risk of 80% of most common dental problems, and their related systemic problems. Remember this: you can't get in shape by hanging out in the shower room keeping "hygienic". You gotta "exercise". Correctly. Often. With a trainer for a while. Eat right. Use supplements. Avoid injury. And much more. Speaking of the shower -- Waterpik is kinda like a dental "bidet" (Image from Dall-E 3). Actually it's more like an aerobic bidet. Tomorrow -- lesson 4 -- we'll expand on periodontal disease management the Mouth & Body Fitness way. Cavities are easy to control. Periodontal disease is a whole nother ballgame. Hint: It can actually be as easy as sleeping, if you know how. I'll show you. Stay tuned....

Lesson 4 The Easy Way to Fight Decay 1% Better Every Day With Mouth & Body Fitness Tooth decay can begin within 2 minutes of eating carbohydrates. Your saliva takes an hour to neutralize and dilute microbial acids and enzymes after you eat. Now, count how many meals, snacks, and beverages you have daily. At least three, but I bet it's more like 5 to 7 per day. That means you're facing 3 to 7 hours of potential decay. Every day. Forever. So, why on Earth would you do oral hygiene only twice a day? If teeth were eyes, you'd be blind by age two. So, treat your teeth like eyes! RUN! DON'T WALK! To the nearest tooth-wash station ASAP after eating. Power-swish your teeth with water at least three times. No tooth-wash stations? Make some! I have a dedicated shot glass by the kitchen sink. I also stash "dental fitness stations" around my house, car, garage, briefcase, office, workbench, gym bag—you name it. I keep them stocked with xylitol gum and mints, flosspicks, BasicBites, interdental picks, floss, and probiotics. Pro tip: Buy xylitol (Zellie's) gum by the 1,000-piece bag. Never run out of xylitol. I've been using xylitol since 1989. I've had my oral microbiome tested by Bristle. Decay germs struggle to survive in my mouth, and gum disease germs can barely hang on. But I still rinse out my mouth as often as possible and use xylitol because I don't take chances. Decay and gum disease germs are everywhere and they never quit. They may slow down occasionally, but they never give up. That's partly why dental problems are still the 1st or 2nd most common of human afflictions. So I make darn sure I hassle my dental germs more than they hassle me. There's a big furor again over fluoride in public water supplies. I'm not a fan of government mass-medication. I believe we should take care of ourselves. BUT, if water fluoridation is ever stopped, there's not enough fluoride in natural water supplies to protect teeth. Therefore, we all must take better care of our mouths. And the sooner, the better. You'll need more than just standard home oral hygiene and fluoride -- they haven't been working very well anyway. Because, if they worked, 80% of dental problems would have been solved by now. You'll need Mouth & Body Fitness. Sometime during Nov 10-16, 2024, I’ll open my new Mouth and Body Fitness course and you can help me build it while you learn.