Everything Flows from the Mouth of the River Microbiome
Raise your hand if you’re completely comfortable with the state of your mouth!
According to a recent survey conducted by the Delta Dental Plans Association, only 15% of you should have raised your hands.
In fact, for the second year in a row, dentists ranked highest on a list of health practitioners Americans thought they needed to see more often.
The problem?
The current dental health world is based on old science, some of which stopped progressing at the same rate as other health fields as long as 150 years ago.
On average, it takes about 17 years for accredited research that’s academically accepted to make it into textbooks, through medical school, and into your doctor’s office.
So even if the 25% of Americans who don’t currently have dental healthcare coverage (that’s about 73 million, just for the record, and the pandemic added about 16 million more) felt that they could afford to handle dental health, let alone dental emergencies…
New research on the incredible cavity that is your mouth hasn’t even reached the desks of your dentists. That means it certainly hasn’t informed their practices.
Dental health is precarious for many reasons, but the main reason is that to the average layperson, the mouth is a mystery.
And we use it all the time…
When There’s Something Amiss in Your Mouth
Many years ago, dental preventive maintenance existed in its barest, most primitive form.
Babylonians had chew sticks 5,000 years ago, the Chinese used a rough toothbrush made of coarse hair 3,000 years ago, and there are even plants in nature that our ancestors determined could prevent ulcers or slow plaque growth (the Salvadora persica.)
And when teeth got infected, they got pulled.
What people didn’t know was how connected their oral hygiene was to the health of the rest of their bodies.
Today, we know bleeding gums indicate inflammation, which can lead to infection, which can lead to bad bacteria in the bloodstream, the brain, the heart, the lungs, and more.
We know we’re supposed to brush our teeth using a certain technique, floss on a regular basis, and we think we’re supposed to flood our mouths with antibacterial mouthwash every day.
Those without insurance also know there are lots of homeopathic remedies for mouth maladies — coconut oil pulling, brushing with baking soda, etc.
It seems like there’s enough evidence to support strong oral hygiene for better reasons than pearly whites, sweet breath, or gap coverage.
But there’s one reason that’s more important than everything else…
Your Mouth is the Gatekeeper
We spend a lot of time talking about how important the gut’s microbiome is. It regulates and affects so many other systems in the body that its maintenance and balance are of critical importance.
No problem in the body is solvable without recruiting the gut’s assistance.
And the gut microbiome?
It starts in your mouth.
The first step in digestion occurs the moment you take a bite of your food.
That means that your diet is just as important to your teeth as your after-meal care…
It also means that more attention should be paid to the goings-on in your mouth than we’ve been paying.
From the bacterial content and structure of plaque to the size of your teeth to the effect of food on tooth placement and crowding to the connection between gum disease and diabetes, stress and tooth decay, jaw infections and heart disease…
The mouth, like the gut, is its own ecosystem, its own universe. And just like the gut’s microbiome, it has massive implications for the rest of your health.
And even if it doesn’t seem like it…
The world’s leading scientists are taking notice.
In fact, they’ve gotten together with me to answer these impactful and wide-reaching questions in a new series I’ve produced called Gateway to Health.
And you’ll learn not only the secrets that have been hiding in between your teeth, under your gums, in your saliva (most of which isn’t really yours, by the way)…
But the groundbreaking methods scientists are developing to change the frontier of dental health forever (hint: there are lasers.)
And this health revolution all starts when you simply open your mouth.
If you enjoyed these thoughts and think we’ve got something in common, I have a feeling you’re going to love the Urban Monk Academy. It’s the home of every class I teach — from Qi Gong to Life Gardening to Dream Yoga and even Tantra — and for two weeks, you can try it for free.
