One Crucial Bug Living in your Mouth
Dirty mouth?
It used to be that the mouth could clean itself. The oral microflora kept the discrete parts of your mouth running the way they should…
The teeth, gingival sulcus, tongue, cheeks, hard and soft palates, and tonsils.
Each of those separate areas is its own ecosystem. And ecosystems are designed by nature to regulate themselves through a delicate balance of bacteria.
Then we discovered sugar cane. And refined carbohydrates. Even citrus fruits can turn your mouth into the devil’s playground.
From there, you know the rest.
Cavities are rampant. Root canals. Periodontal disease. Bleeding gums. And oral health is much more insidious than we think — when debris and bad bacteria can find a path underneath the gums, they can travel through the bloodstream to the brain, heart, lungs, and more.
But much like the ecosystem of the gut flora, we’ve learned that the best way to win a fight against unhealthy bacteria isn’t by killing bacteria with antibiotics and antibacterial products…
It’s bringing in the good bacteria to overpower the bad.
It isn’t natural for bad bacteria like Streptococcus mutans, a particularly vicious strain, to not only survive but thrive.
But we’re giving it all the tools it needs to breed.
The S. Mutans Breeding Ground
Here’s what you need to know about this strain of bacteria:
- It eats sugar (and anything that turns into sugar — like refined carbohydrates.)
- When it gets fed lots of sugar, its population grows. It reproduces.
- When it actually eats the sugar, it’s able to produce lactic acid.
- Lactic acid is your mouth’s worst nightmare.
Let’s talk about lactic acid a little bit.
In the body, it shows up in all kinds of places.
The body will produce lactic acid if it’s fed too much sugar or if it’s low on oxygen (necessary for the conversion of glucose into energy), and that lactic acid can lead to erosion in the body, muscle cramping, cell degeneration, and in this case…
It’s your mouth’s major enemy because it eats away at the calcium phosphate in tooth enamel.
That first step allows a cavity to form. Once there’s a hole in your tooth, you’ve vulnerable to blood infections, gum disease, brain disease, and more, not to mention painful correctional surgeries.
So let’s review:
S. mutans? Bad. Lactic acid? Real bad.
Where’s a hero when you need one?
Enter A12 and the Probiotic Army
We take probiotics to encourage the helpful flora in our guts to flourish.
Scientists are suggesting the oral flora needs the same kind of attention.
A bacterial strain called A12 has been shown to stop S. mutans in its tracks.
Not an easy thing to do, because the very nature of S. mutans creates an environment in the mouth almost too hostile for bacteria to survive.
But A12’s plan of attack is triple-faceted.
Here’s how it combats S. mutans…
- First, it can produce hydrogen peroxide. If you’ve ever poured hydrogen peroxide onto a scraped knee, you know its purpose: it kills bad bacteria.
- It prevents a biofilm from forming on the teeth by disrupting chemical message signaling. Simply put? In order to form a biofilm, or plaque, S. mutans must be able to communicate with other bacteria in the mouth. A12 acts like a scrambler and renders communication useless.
- And finally, it produces ammonia. If you don’t remember from high school chemistry, ammonia is basic. It neutralizes the effect of acid… as in, lactic acid.
The more we promote A12 in the oral microbiome, the more we overpower S. mutans.
And that’s only the beginning.
Scientists and field experts are only recently starting to open wide and say “Ahhh,” examining the mouth as the hot seat of more than 200 unique bacterial strains, each having a different effect on our overall health.
And even while they’re making incredible strides in their research.
You shouldn’t expect to see any of their groundbreaking findings make their way into your dentist’s office any time soon.
No, to stay on the cutting edge…
You have to travel to the fringes of the medical community. Where the experiments and trials are being conducted.
Where like-minded, curious, educated, and brilliant doctors are pushing through the barriers of mainstream dental health.
Click here for a free trial to whole.tv, where you can watch our docu-series Gateway to Health and find out the truth about what’s living in your mouth.
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