tooth metabolism and your endocrine system · tooth metabolism and your endocrine system speaker:...

Tooth Metabolism and Your Endocrine

SystemSpeaker: The information provided in this presentation is for educational and

informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for

professional medical and/or dental advice to diagnosis or treatment any

condition. Always seek the advice

qualified health care professional for any questions you may have regarding

a medical or dental condition.

Scott: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the Functional Oral H

Scott Saunders of Healthywith Nadine Artemiswhich is a line of serums, elixirs, essential oilsbotanical health. She is the author of

to Healthy Teeth and G

overview of how we can foster our teeth and gums

This encourages effortlessness; itconventional notions of beauty and won the Functional Oral H

Nadine: Thank you so much, Scott: Good. Happy to have you here. So why don't we start off

scientific context that we're trying to touch on tangentially and directly with

pretty much everythinSummit. I have to tell you that as a dentistread your book and started hearing about the hypothalamus

and how it interdigitates through the teeth, which I have to tell you was not taught toschool. It was a real eyelot of health practitioners are not familiar with

overview of how that works and this communication between the pituitaryparotid and hypothalamus and how that interfaces with whteeth and how the teeth fit into that as living

Nadine: Yes. I find that area of our oral

about it too, like we're struggling as- You know we've got aisles and aisles of d

all these solutions, and a


System Speaker: Nadine Artemis

The information provided in this presentation is for educational and

informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for – nor does it provide


condition. Always seek the advice of your physician, dentist or other


a medical or dental condition.

! Welcome back to the Functional Oral Health Summit

Scott Saunders of Healthy Mouth Media. Today, it is my privilege to be talking with Nadine Artemis. Nadine is an aromacologist and creator of Living Libations

serums, elixirs, essential oils for those seeking the purest of . She is the author of Holistic Dental Care: The Complete Guide

to Healthy Teeth and Gums, which gives a really good nuts and bolts practical overview of how we can foster a healthy oral microbiome and take better care of our teeth and gums. She has a new book coming out titled, Renegade Beauty

This encourages effortlessness; it assures regimes and inspires people to rethink conventional notions of beauty and wellness. It's our pleasure to

Functional Oral Health Summit. Welcome, Nadine!

much, Scott. It's a pleasure to be here.

to have you here. So why don't we start off by talking about a scientific context that we're trying to touch on tangentially and directly with

pretty much everything that we're doing here on the Functional Oral HI have to tell you that as a dentist, it was a little bit of surprise when I

read your book and started hearing about the hypothalamus-parotid gland a

it interdigitates with the dentinal fluid transport and actualwhich I have to tell you was not taught to me in dental

t was a real eye-opener to see that there is an endocrine access that a ealth practitioners are not familiar with. So why don't you give us an

of how that works and this communication between the pituitaryparotid and hypothalamus and how that interfaces with what goes on in the

the teeth fit into that as living, breathing organs?

Yes. I find that area of our oral system so fascinating because when we think like we're struggling as a North American culture so much with our

we've got aisles and aisles of dental products in any drugstore and

, and a lot of people are going diligently to the dentist and


The information provided in this presentation is for educational and

nor does it provide -


of your physician, dentist or other


ealth Summit. I am Dr.

it is my privilege to be talking and creator of Living Libations

or those seeking the purest of omplete Guide

bolts practical take better care of

Renegade Beauty.

assures regimes and inspires people to rethink t's our pleasure to have her here

by talking about a scientific context that we're trying to touch on tangentially and directly with

Functional Oral Health surprise when I

parotid gland axis

with the dentinal fluid transport and actual lymph flow me in dental

endocrine access that a o why don't you give us an

of how that works and this communication between the pituitary, at goes on in the

o fascinating because when we think a North American culture so much with our-

drugstore and

diligently to the dentist and the

©2017 Healthy Mouth Media for the Functional Oral Health Summit

hygienists. Yet, we've never seen so many early childhood cavities, adult cavities, root canals, bleeding and receding gums. So we've got a bit of a dental

crisis going on, and I do think it's great to step back and think what is going on here? Isn't there a system that's innate in the body that can take care of our teeth?

So I'm so happy to discover this research years ago. I like to think of it as the "invisible toothbrush." There is of course a system in our body that we're born and designed with that can help to prevent cavities and help the whole oral microbiome stay in balance and that is the dentinal lymph system, also known

as the dentinal fluid transport. It's got a few names. I'm so happy that I saw this one sentence in a book and that led me on my journey to find out more about Dr. Ralph Steinman's work. It was from a book by Dr. Hal Huggins who was just

one of our forefathers of pioneering our dentistry today and why we know so much about the issues with root canals, jaw cavitations and mercury fillings.

Scott: Indeed.

Nadine: So I, of course, got any book I could find of his. This book, I got a used book

and it was called, Why Raise Ugly Kids. It's a funny name because he is a funny

guy. The whole book isn't about dentistry but there's this one chapter. In it, he talks about reading a dentist called, Dr. Ralph Steinman. He talks about how it was like. I remember the metaphor he said, "It was like sandcastles being washed away on a beach" that everything he learned in dental school was like

that, being washed away. He explained his research to Dr. Hal Huggins and this was his, gosh really about 30 to 40 years of research. I may not be correct on that, but it was decades. He did hundreds and hundreds of studies.

So he was a dentist in the 1950s, and he had asthma and allergies that were so bad he couldn't actually practice in the month of August. Back then, of course we didn't know so much about diet but he was recommended to cut out white

sugar, white bread and that kind of stuff. He found immediate improvement in his health, and it really made him see the interconnectedness of the mouth and the body. He had been really thinking and exploring dental textbooks from the 1800s that were really suggesting that there was a systemic connection between

the mouth and the teeth, and that it may be connected to the lymphatic system. So we actually ended up not practicing but going to Loma Linda University and

just went fully into research. At that time, what was prevalent was the Acidogenic Theory of Decay and that's about really what we know today and what most dentists will know. That's about acids and sugars sitting on the teeth as being the main cause of decay. What he found is no, it's systemic, and there's

this whole lymph system connection which is what I call the invisible toothbrush. I can explain that if you want.

Scott: Sure. Yes, please.

Nadine: I think that's where the magic is.

Scott: Because I think that's a phrase that's going to stick in the minds of many of our Summit attendees−the invisible toothbrush. That's a real attention getter, so yes if you can please elaborate.


Nadine: Through his study-- Of course, that you know it's a lab so they're going to be using rats and that kind of thing. Apparently, they used rats because that is the

closest to our teeth cycle. Animal testing aside, he did discover this great thing. So with X-ray dye which shows color in the body, what he found was−he did all kinds of experiments−like the conclusion is when we chew foods and the substrates activate the hypothalamus system, which is the master gland of our

whole hormone system, so glands and secretions start communicating. Obviously, we're digesting.

What he found was that colored fluid would go from the stomach. He would

inject the stomach of the rats too. He also found out that that fluid comes up and travels into the tooth. Now at that stage, it's blood with nutrients but when it reaches the-- Our teeth are like trees and they draw up nutrients into the

tooth and then it gets to the pulp chamber. I'm sure people know about the pulp chamber in relation to like a root canal. That's why it gets cleaned and scraped out. It's the pulp chamber that's really like the powerhouse of nutrition. So when we're thinking about eating good, healthy foods and fat soluble vitamins, it's

that pulp chamber and what's inside. The dentin inside is what's getting healthy from that if we're eating nutrient-dense food.

So that whole process from the guts up to the tooth takes about an hour, but interestingly enough (I don't know all the conclusions as to why), from the pulp chamber to the top of the enamel, that process takes an hour. The first process takes five minutes and that microscopic movement from inside the tooth to the

top of the tooth takes like an hour. So what happens when it gets to the pulp chamber? It changes from a blood to a lymph fluid, which is like a clear fluid and then the odontoblast which act like pumps, and they help to create cells in the bones, because our teeth really are a form of bone. So that pumps the fluid up

to the surface of the teeth. What happens is it gets propelled out onto the surface of the enamel. It's like microscopic sweat being secreted from the teeth. This coalesces with the saliva and the oral microbiome to make for happy,

healthy teeth. Now the interesting thing is that this system, which is also centrifugal, so it's like a toroidal system inside the tooth that's moving that up. When we have

hormonal stress like puberty, menopause, pregnancy and those issues or if we're eating a high sugar diet which is affecting the blood sugar levels, so that's not really about the sugar sitting on the teeth. It's about the sugar's whole

chemistry in our body. Scott: Systemically.

Nadine: Yes, systemically and if we’re not getting enough minerals, what happens is that this lymph fluid flow reverses and the tooth becomes like a straw. It sucks in bacteria, fungus, viruses from inside the mouth into the tooth. That is the genesis of how a cavity is formed. So that's like a whole different concept than

just like, "Oh, you didn't brush your teeth." Scott: It gives people a window into a much more systemically practical way to take

care of their teeth, rather than just brush and floss. I have to tell you that even some of the more progressive dentists that I've seen in the last couple of years trying to take better care of my own mouth, they are hung up on this. The bottom line is going to be have the patient practice better home care so it's not


really necessary to see what kind of bugs we have in our mouths. It's not really necessary to assess pH or other parameters because the bottom line is always

going to be a brush and floss more, brush and floss more. I get the impression that patients are sick to death of being told to brush and floss more. We've heard from a number of experts on this Summit, and let me know if you agree with this, but despite brushing and flossing competently--

As you know, we have a carries epidemic, a dental decay epidemic, and what was once working or worked for a while, fluoride seemed to work for a while but it doesn't seem to be working anymore, there is something going on that is

making us get cavities and periodontal disease even though we are brushing and flossing competently the way that our dentists and dental hygienists are telling us to. So why don't you give us your perspective on how we can read between

the lines and pick up where brushing and flossing adequately might not be doing the trick, and how we can use the invisible toothbrush to reeducate ourselves and re-energize our oral care routine.

Nadine: For sure. So we think of it like a two-pronged thing. We want to care from the inside and take care of ourselves topically. We really need also to know Dr Steinman's work and also combine that knowledge with Dr. Western Price's for

diet, his amazing studies on cultures that hadn't yet been white and westernized that they're eating their original food and original fats and seeing how they didn't have cavities. They weren't brushing their teeth. They may have had like plaque buildup but they weren't brushing. Even studies with the twins, I find

fascinating. So you have like the New Hebrides where you got one twin brother living at the Coast, where there's the port and lots of jams and sugar and another brother in inland eating natural food. Their whole face structure's different. Their tooth smiles are different. One's got holes and the other is like

perfect.

So knowing that and also seeing the work of Dr. Melvin Page who was really

studying the blood sugar levels. He found like once when phosphorus levels dropped in the blood serum, that's also the beginning of cavities. Then Dr. Steinman's work, he could even not change the diet but add in minerals and that was halting decay. Then with Dr. Western Price's work of seeing like adding

vitamin D sources, and what we now know as probably K2, is Activator X when you add that in. That was able to halt and reverse decay. Steinman saw decay reversal and Melvin Page saw reversal with adding phosphorus back in, in that

whole situation. Culturally, we're over scrubbing everything, including our teeth. Scott: That's true.

Nadine: If we think about what we know now which has really come into the fold and if we combine all this knowledge, which I find totally fascinating, I think of the 2000 as this post genomic era where we are really understanding there's the whole DNA and gene thing, but there's our microbiome. With that, the

microbiome is the term for the billions of bacteria that live in our bodies. The guts and the mouth are huge microbiome areas for our bodies; and the skin. That's another huge one. So what we know now with that research is that all of

our bacteria, so the billions of bacteria in us, also have their own DNA. So we're really a host for billions and billions of bacteria.

Coming out of the 40s and 50s, we've had this germ warfare theory. Just like


the carpet bombing and scorched-earth policy, we see it with the planet and then we've got our bodies and our mouths being a microcosm of germ combat

theory. We've been over exfoliating our skin and removing the microbiome. When we use things like alcoholic mouthwashes, toothpaste with sodium lauryl sulfate, triclosan and dental procedures like fluoride, then what we're doing is we are mutating the microbes in our mouths which are there to keep−what I

call−the"oral ecology" like an oral balance. A mouthful of bustling bacteria is actually what's going to help keep the dentist away. So the perfect flossing and brushing and scope everyday is making microbes extinct in the mouth, and we got oral disease coming out of that.

Scott: So the way I see it, we're seeing basically a micro floral or microbionic shift that

is related to various aspects of our culture. It's related to our diet, the scorched-

earth mouthwashes and toothpastes that we're putting on our mouth. It's probably related also to, in more ways than one, the high-carb diet that the typical American-- I don't know what it's like in Canada but it may be similar. The high sugar intake and having simple carbs, the high-carb diet is one of the

pillars of the Western diet. That's obviously not having a good effect on the teeth, gums and the oral microbiome from a topical standpoint but as you're pointing out, the systemic exposure to increase blood glucose levels and this

blood glucose spikes are also having an effect on the teeth and the gums from the inside out, which is yet another perspective on the oral systemic connection. Would that be a fair statement?

Nadine: Yes, totally fair statement. Yes, the issue with carbs is multiples because often than not, it's replacing fat. You know there is the fad of like low-fat, all carb. We really need those healthy fats. It's got phytic acids which are actually anti-nutrients that rob our body of the essential minerals that we need for our teeth.

If we're missing the fats, we're not getting the D3 and the K2. We've been told not to sit in the sun, so we're not getting the D3 that way.

If we think of the whole food system, the factory farming is another form of growing food in the shadows. Animals aren't getting outside so no eggs and dairy have K2 in it because generally, everybody's eating from factory-farmed eggs and that chicken never saw the sun. There are pesticides which also take

away from nutrients and plants. So we're doing all of that which is adding to our depleted minerals and the high carbs are spiking blood sugar levels as well so we're not getting the nutrients that our teeth need.

Scott: That is really an eye-opening perspective. I hate to say this but I think that's

going to come as a surprise to some of our Summit listeners. Let's face it. Changing the diet is not an easy thing to do, especially when you've got food

industries that are essentially attacking us at our weakest points and using basically−for lack of a better term−addiction brain chemistry to keep us hooked on these carbs. We hear more and more talked about big sugar and the addictogenicity [ability to cause addiction] of simple carbs. Sugar has been

compared to heroin, cocaine and some of the more addictive substances known to human kind, and this is the culture that we have developed. What do you think would turn heads for our Summit listeners when we tell them, "Okay,

we've got to dial down these simple carbs in the diet?"What do you think would be the best place to start there?

Nadine: That's a great question. Yes.


Scott: From a standpoint of good systemic health and how can we eat to empower

what you refer to as the invisible toothbrush. Nadine: So one thing that helps is when we think about what are we going to add to our

diet, rather than deprive and taking away but I will list some things to take away

too. What we want to add to our diet is healthy fats. Not grass-fed eggs, but pastured chickens that eat the grass and make the eggs. You know butter, eggs, avocados coconut, coconut meat, coconut oil and olive oils. We really want to bring that back into our diet, a really healthy meal.

When you eat more fat, you actually are usually going to end up being thinner and maintain your ideal body weight because you're not having these spikes in

insulin and blood sugar. The great thing about this is it's really liberating. Once you bring those really healthy fats back into your diet, you don't have the cravings for the carbs. So you're not let around. When you get blood sugar back down at a good healthy level, you also won't be driven by cravings, like carbs

really create more cravings for carbs. So it's hard to get out of that path. The other thing too is like soaking nuts and grains, and that helps to remove the phytic acid. I'm a big believer too in finding that gluten really isn't healthy for

most people on the planet. If you really study it and study what's happened to wheat, grains and those kind things in the past 10,000 years. Before that, we were not really eating seed grains and cereals at all as humans.

Scott: Right. The gluten sensitivity is a biggie. I get the impression that the medical profession and I don't know how much on the radar of the dental profession gluten is at all, but when you go to your typical family practice, primary care physician in the United States anyway, he or she will tell you that, "Okay. You

only need to be concerned about gluten if you have celiac disease. Nadine: Exactly.

Scott: A malabsorption syndrome and yes, gluten is going to kick your butt there but

other than that there's really no good research, etc. More and more apparently as you're saying, gluten in the diet is just generally not a good thing. It's just

one of these things that prevalently, more often than not, will kick the human immune system into high gear to produce all kinds of things that are not good for the body.

Nadine: Yes. One reason is because it creates intestinal impermeability. So microscopic

holes go into the gut system and we're having things leak out of the gut that shouldn't be in the bloodstream. I also think of that too when we have bleeding

gums or even a cavity. A cavity is like a leaky tooth and bleeding gums are like a leaky gum supply. So we really want to heal and seal those areas.

Scott: Right. That's one of your pillars of oral health: Stop sealing, stop healing. I

guess you're referring to occlusal sealants that are put on by dentists? Nadine: Oh yes. There is the issue with sealants which is another area. My three steps

are stop, seal and seed would be something that I think of three steps to just generally think when you're thinking about your oral care. Any mouth right now, anybody that's listening, you can take your current situation and improve that. I highly recommend that too if you're feeling like you've had neglect around your


mouth or feeling a little struggle about solving some things, take like a few weeks depending on if there's-- Hopefully, there's no oral emergency with your

teeth but take a few weeks to a few months and look to stop, seal and seed. I also have eight steps for dental care. If you really practice that and you go to the dentist, you'll be in a much better situation. The news might not be so devastating, and it's probably a shorter appointment.

Scott: Yes. That's definitely something for people to keep on their radar. I can't

emphasize this enough, just thinking outside the box because thinking, the more experts I talk to on oral care, the more I'm seeing, both as a clinician and as an

oral healthcare consumer myself, that thinking Inside the box is not serving us and that we've got to do some different things. Looking at just the carries epidemic is what blows me away. It's the most common disease on the planet,

especially in younger age groups. The resources say that although it can be tied to lower socioeconomic groups, according to some studies, it's even more prevalent in people who have more disposable income and are in better position to afford better dental care or better diet than it is in people who are not. That's

one of the things that I read that really blows me away. Do you have any perspective on that?

Nadine: For sure. It can be sad and challenging when your kid has dental caries and that kind of situation. I think what's missing is really looking at what we can do each day. That's how I really came into this as a big fan of a natural health. I really went deeply into health and different things quite early in my life, but I did find

there was a gap with oral care. Back then, the books that were out there were rare and were really focused on some of the big issues, which are very important but still like mercury and root canals. You know just big items. Those are very important subjects but I just felt because I am not a dentist but I do

have teeth, and I do want them to stay for the rest of my life.

So I was like "what do we do at home every day? What are we doing between

the dental visits and how do we take care of that? So really understanding about food and diet. Like fruit juice, you basically just have to take that off your list for children because it's just so sugary.

Scott: Huge amounts of sugar in fruit juice and again, it's down to culture. There are a lot of cultural practices that unfortunately are getting perpetuated on the Internet. There's a lot of misinformation out there and that's one of the things

that we're trying to combat here on the Functional Oral Health Summit is to give people credible sources of information to look at and to actually follow a trail that are underpinned by good science. All the things we've been talking about here today are underpinned by good science and there are hundreds of studies

that talk about invisible toothbrush, dentinal lymph flow and all of these things that you're talking about.

Sometimes, good research sees the light of day but sometimes, it doesn't. I'm

not quite sure of all the factors involved but as many of our listeners know, there's a huge political component to scientific research, medicine and dentistry. That is one of the things that we want to make our Summit attendee audience

aware of that they had to read between the lines. I'm grateful to you for bringing out these sources that are going to be empowering resources for the healthcare consumer.


You gave us a little bit of a trail as to how you got into the whole oral healthcare research and as you pointed out, you are not a dentist but you do have teeth

and love your teeth, yes. Sometimes, we have to get it down to a very simple statement. One of our other experts that we are presenting here on the Functional Health Summit just put it very simply, and this person is a dentist. He says, "Love your teeth." What a concept. I hope that that's going to resonate

with our listeners. What else can you tell us about the signal that you picked up that led you to do research on oral care from the standpoint of a natural health practitioner and an oral healthcare consumer? What else led you down that path?

Nadine: Well, back in early 20s, I was obsessed with learning because I was coming out

of the 80s and there was no mind body connection. There was no internet. So I

was trying to find every book I could find. I've had experience just simply going to the doctor and nothing major happened to me health wise, but just going to the doctor and seeing how things weren't effective. I'm just like, "There's a gap here." Actually, when I went to University, I was getting into a lot of things. One

of our course textbooks, for example was Our Body's Ourselves. So I was really understanding like the horrors of birth control, for example. I was interviewing midwives and it was really amazing. So it was an exciting time, and I also lived

on a street with a little tiny health food store. It was just like a transformed house and it was called, "Greens and Beans and Things."I bought every book in being in that store because I would visit it every day. So that opened up a whole new world for me for things to study. I was just fascinated. I was getting books

on just common things like arthritis, eczema, bleeding gums and seeing other ways to heal it.

That led me to oral care but I wasn't finding the books I needed and of course

being a student. Right after I graduated, I was an entrepreneur. So I had my own store and opened up North America's first aromatherapy store. It was very exciting. But I was no longer under like my mom saying, "Time to go to the

dentist." So I definitely had a few years of neglecting my teeth. Also, who likes the dentist on a general level? I'm very sensitive of smell. So I was like, "Oh, the smells and chemicals in it." It never seems to have good news in a way like when you're a teenager it's like a cavity, this and that.

I definitely was avoiding the dentist, but I finally went. I was in the city and was able to go to an early holistic dentist at that state. I think there are a lot of

improvements they could do to be holistic but my hygienist was really neat and she said, "You've got the beginning of a cavity there." She's like, "Go home. Work with all your herbs and make something. Put it on and we'll X-rays it in six months." She's like a can clear up. I'd never heard of that concept. I'd never

known. When you had the experience as a child, you're just like, "Okay. My tooth got a cavity. We fill it." You think once your teeth are brown, they're done or like rocks in your mouth and they're not alive. You'd never think of a tooth healing. That was fascinating to see that when I went back in six months, the

beginning of the cavity had gone. So I went even further into it. I was reading books by Dr. Robert O Nara. He

might be gone now but he was pretty cool. He wasn't into all the diet and everything, but he was just this really renegade. I think he was like a navy dentist, and he saw, you know, just your using salt. He was like helping heal all these navy people's mouths. His stuff was really practical, and it wasn't that


fancy with like vitamin D3 and K2. I found his work really fascinating. I think his book is called, Money by the Mouthful and just going into also because of

insurance and different things. There's that concept that going to the dentist is just like black and white, they're the experts, they know what they're doing and then we’re finding journalistic

studies. So there was a Canadian journalist who went to 20 dentists and a US journalist that went to 50 dentists across the country. They each had X-rays done. It was it interesting. They both have the same issue; they had to replace a crown and that was it. They go to all these dentists and every single one had

different results and a different game plan for them. Thirty-five of those 50 dentists missed the one item that needed to be done.

People had quotes from $400 - $3600 from the nearest to root canals to everything in between. So I think we really have to understand too like there's many, many shades. I joked there's like 50 Shades of Grey to dentistry. There's the lab coat and that X-ray and we just think that an X-ray is this completely

objective signs. It's not going to change. The ADA was asked to comment on that journalist that had the 50 dentists experience and they said, "Well, dentistry is an art. It's not a set science." That was just fascinating too. I think a

lot of doctors have their hearts in the right places but there are influences like, "Oh you know, if you have insurance plan you may feel like-- Oh, let's get all veneers."

We really want to be informed and sometimes that means we have to inform our own consent because it may not be coming from a dentist. So I feel like too. Once you know there are possibilities and if you're listening to this Summit, then I think what a lot of us have to clear up is our previous dental work. That's

where a lot of us are at right now, because the path that we've all had for the past 50 to 60 years is been a bit of a quagmire. So it's like now there are studies that show about root canals and that 100 percent of the time, they will breed

necrotic bacteria. Even if it's like looks textbook perfect, even if nothing showing up in an X-ray, extracted teeth from perfect root canals are showing severe bacteria.

So when we're really getting this whole connection to our mouths, and I really feel like the past 10 years, this understanding of the mouth's microbiome is really putting it all together even with this invisible toothbrush information

because then, we're understanding like we all have streptococcus in our mouth which is a cavity forming bacteria. However, now that they're understanding microbiome-- because we own that we'll always going to have pathogens in us but the hope for you going to have more good bacteria always doing the good

stuff so that they can keep pathogens in check. So we all have strep. When does it get out of control? Now, they're understanding that it's probably getting out of control because it's missing−I'd like to call them−their"ancient

bacterial buddies." The other bacteria that can keep strep in check are missing through the mutating that we've been doing from fluoride treatments or triclosan in our toothpastes. So we're creating an uncontrolled environment

where the pathogens can really gain traction. Now we have something that we're understanding called "quorum sensing." I'm loving the research in this area because antibiotic resistance is a thing. It's not just oh something from the alternative health world like, "Hey, we shouldn't use so much antibiotics now."


It's a major crisis. With the new stuff on that microbiome and antibiotic resistance, there's a whole new respect for bacteria and a ton of research that's

really helping people that are thinking alternatively like really getting a lot of science to back this up.

Scientists from so many applications, they're looking for things that would inhibit

quorum sensing. This is from issues with factory farming because now they're going, "Oh, the antibiotics aren't working anymore" and that kind of thing. Quorum sensing is the communication of pathogens. It helps them to communicate in gene expression. When pathogens can gain traction, they begin

the quorum sensing and that helps them coral their pathogen buddies. They gain traction and get to form in colonized groups. That's when they're forming biofilms in the mouth. There's a biofilm and even another secretion layer around

the biofilm. Antibiotics are impenetrable to that. They can't get in there. For many forms, they're looking for ways to inhibit quorum sensing. The studies here are really fun for me because what they're understanding is that essential

oils are very good quorum sensing inhibitors. You can find a variety of studies like in PubMed on different oils that are good quorum sensing inhibitors. They're all going to be different. Generally, we can say that all essential oils, if they're

genuine and authentic distillations, display anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiviral. What's the other anti?

Scott: Antifungal?

Nadine: Antifungal, thank you. They all exhibit properties of that and of course, they're

all going to be different but they have all got something. Clove showed that it inhibited quorum sensing by 74 percent. Now, we've got all this science that can

back up why these substances have been used for thousands of years in our mouths. So we got this science going, "Oh that does make a good choice for the mouth." So things like meme, cinnamon, clove, frankincense, rose and tea tree

that all have this more antidotal evidence from our ancestors and now we've got the lab reports to back that up.

What's so cool about this-- I like to call them botanical biotics because their

antibiotic is anti life, biotic meaning life and botanical, life. Just that more of a life force that can be active in your mouth and the cool, cool thing is through this plant intelligence, we can understand through science but there's always

going to be the mystery is that they can clean up the pathogen parties but they don't disrupt the beneficial bacteria. So how good is that!

Scott: That would seem to be the best of both worlds. I think one of the takeaway

messages that I'm picking up from what you're saying, Nadine, is that we have bacteria that are friends and cultivating an environment of friendly bacteria that are actually helping us and making these biofilms and are in fact, protecting our teeth and gums from the substances that are manufactured by the nasty

bacteria. That is something that we can have control over through our diet and application of essential oils.

Of course, essential oils and aromatherapy or your two main areas of expertise and you mentioned a couple of essential oils. Could you give our listeners who might not be familiar with essential oil therapy, aromatherapy or aromacology a basic grounding in what those two things are all about? Maybe where they


started, how you came to be an expert in those things and just ABC's of essential oils and aromatherapy.

Nadine: Yes, it's age old. Really thousands of years ago, the first essential oils were

made through steamed distillation mainly by Avicenna. He was the first to distill rose essential oil. There had been other cultures and other people that were

doing different plant extracts but essential oils are steam distilled and you have the plant matter. So let's just take a bunch of rose petals, for example. There's a heat source underneath. It's in an alembic. The heat brings that essential oil which is like a fluid in the plant. It goes through the plant at different times. For

example Jasmine, this essential oil fluid is in the petals just before dawn for some species. That's why the Jasmine petals would be picked before dawn, because that's the most concentrated amount in the petal. So there's all that

kind of stuff.

The heat makes the essential oil rise out of the plant in a vaporous form and goes through a condensing coil and gets cooled. Through the cooling, you have

the water separated from the oil. What you're left with is a volatile oil, which means it can evaporate. It's not like an olive oil. There's no fat in it. You can put a drop on your fingers and still snaps your hand. I don’t know who named it

originally. It's not really an oil but it is liquid. It doesn't mix with water and yet it is vaporous. So if you leave the cap off, it's going to eventually go into the air. So they're like the quintessence of a plant. Just in one drop there are hundreds of molecular substances that we're still learning about like a drop of rose oil has

like 600 different chemical constituents. You have modern drugs so what they'll do is extract just one component. Menthol is in peppermint and it's one of the higher amounts of those chemicals.

That will just be extracted, isolated and synthesized to make a synthetic menthol. A lot of our modern drug situations come from working with these chemical constituents in plants but they're really just trying to isolate. So an

essential oil, you want to be using things in their whole form because we are yet to know what all those other 600 things are doing, and we want the package deal because that's what's going to really help bring-- just allowing that botanical intelligence to work with our body's intelligence. Humans have grown

alongside plants for eons, and so we have a symbiotic relationship. They're from the glands in the plants so they really work well for our skin, mouth and microbiome. They're just such jewels.

It's different than an herbal extract because that's like an infusion. Maybe you take calendula and fuse it in jojoba and you're letting that sit, squeeze and sit. At the end, you have an oil extraction but an essential oil is very, very

concentrated. That's why we're talking about using them in drops. So it's literally like one drop at a time. So let's say you're oil pulling, which is the use of swishing coconut oil or olive oil

in your mouth, which is an ancient Ayurvedic practice. It's really good for helping the oral microbiome. It does make your teeth white and pulls toxins out of the mouth. To that, you could add one drop of an essential oil and you're

really upgrading that whole concept. They really are such great friends for our health and beauty− the essential oils.

Scott: What essential oils would you recommend that people use? How should they use


them to foster better oral health and to work with the teeth and the gums as these living breathing organs that they are?

Nadine: They are for sure. The great thing is because this is a lot information for people

we do have the eBook. That will also spell things out further. So people can relax. They don't have to take lots of notes right now because we'll have that as

part of the Summit. Scott: That's right. You can download that as a PDF here on the Functional Oral Health

Summit. So great read and great summary.

Nadine: So I can explain more, if you want now. I think about it as the sealing stage

when we're working with essential oils. So the Stop is like stop the Listerine,

triclosan, sodium lauryl sulfate. Maybe you need to look at stop mouth breathing, because that really affects the whole oral microbiome. It dries up saliva.

Scott: Oh, absolutely.

Nadine: In kids, there's a lot of information out there that you can see it changes the way kids' faces will grow and that's a huge thing. That's the Stop. Then Seal is sealing. You want to seal and heal the gums. So if you're bleeding when you're flossing, that's a sign you've got to seal and heal the gums. Thankfully by now,

you probably stopped the sodium lauryl sulfate which contributes to bleeding gums, so do things like mercury fillings. Then you want to look to the botanical biotics to rejuvenate the mouth. So things like sea buckthorn, rose and all the oils I mentioned like frankincense, using all of those in place of toothpaste. What

you can do is simply ditch all of those things that you got from the drugstore and even some things from health food stores will contain things like glycerin or even sodium lauryl sulfate. So you really want to be eyeballing that label and

letting all that go, and then a couple things in your pantry. You can do it right now.

So I do make a whole line of oral care products but I always like to let people

know really you can for pennies be taking care of your teeth way better than anything from the drugstore and that is just simply with salt, sea salt and baking soda. That would be some staples. You can also add in things like magnesium

oil, apple cider vinegar or clay. That could also be a part of your pantry. You can work with all these things.

In the sealing, we also want to think about things like alkalinizers. Before you

brush your teeth and after, you can swish with baking soda or sea salt. I suggest people take a mason jar put it in their bathroom, add a tablespoon of sea salt or baking soda. Just have a shot glass and you could just switch before and after you brush. That really helps to neutralize the mouth because we really

want those buffering agents. Magnesium oil is also great because it's very alkalinine.

Even if you're using things like hydrogen peroxide, which is really a handy thing to have. You want to use food grade, three percent. It's not necessarily something you want to use daily because it can be quite astringent. If you are going to use something like hydrogen peroxide, you want to rinse them out


afterwards with baking soda just to keep that balance going. What you can do is take a pinch of baking soda and a drop of peppermint oil. It could be that simple

and you really upgraded your oral care system for like nothing. It's going to be way more effective. What you can also do with the essential oils, many need to be diluted before you

use them. We do make dental serums ready to go. Peppermint and tea tree are usually okay but definitely things like clove and cinnamon must be diluted before use. You just take one drop, glide it along your floss and then you floss. You're getting the botanical biotic that's anti-fungal/anti-bacterial right between each

tooth. I do recommend flossing twice. People go, "Do I have to?" I'm like "Well, floss the second time and you'll see that it was definitely worth the second trip." So simple things like that really helped but stopping a lot of stuff is a huge leap

and bound out of some cyclical imbalances that are happening in the mouth. Then there's seeding which is through the use of probiotics. We can rebuild what I like to think of as our bacterial bank account. There's even research now where

dentists are doing root planning. They're taking a syringe and injecting (not deep injection but a very surface injection) probiotics into the gum line. Then many labs do think, "Okay, how can we get probiotics and those kinds of things

to stay in the mouth more?" There's going to be inventions of dental lozenges and everything. I'm sure that's already existing, but you can actually just do that at home. Open a capsule of a probiotic, put that with your baking soda and brush with it.

We also have, and maybe available at a drugstore, a blunt tipped syringe with like a crooked neck, and so it's not pointy. You can really get that up in the gum line and start flushing that area out. You can use the diluted hydrogen peroxide,

the essential oils and saltwater .You can add probiotics to that and really start healing that because that gum line, where the gum and the teeth meet, that's a huge area to really take care of and protect. When the gums recede and that

bone gets exposed, that bone has less enamel. So that's when you can get things like gum line cavities but also, if there's a lot of bacteria and biofilm, that starts pushing the gums away as well. So we really want to take care of that area and focus on that when we're brushing our teeth.

Scott: That unfortunately, is the purview of the bad bugs, the denizens of the oral

cavity. They make all those nasty cytokines and other chemicals that break

down bone and the tight junctions and make your gums leaky, not unlike leaky gut - leaky gums. All these good things that you're talking about are things that people can try. Basically, see what results you get. If you're getting good results, then by all means keep doing it. Again, this boils down to doing what

works for you, because one of my presets is one size fits all does not fit all.

Again, you have to find an individual oral health care regimen that works for you but all the things that you're talking about are really good place to start when

you compare that to what people in Western society usually do for their teeth. Just doing it from my own research, I see the horrific cocktail that is in toothpaste and mouthwashes, most of the mainstream ones. They're using not

only a one size fits all approach, but they're putting on, if you use the analogy of an article of clothing, they're putting on a really ugly article of clothing. Not only does it not fit all, it's ugly and might even be harmful to you.


Nadine: Polyester.

Scott: It could be Polyester. You can dress up polyester and make it look good but it could be doing some other nasty things to you. All the combinations that you're talking about are all things that our Summit attendees can try and basically, see if they work. If you're using a toothpaste and a mouthwash and you're not

getting the dental checkups that you want and your gums are bleeding when you're brushing your teeth or flossing, obviously something is not working. So try this other approach and see if you get better results.

I'm a big fan of keeping it simple. That's what you're telling us, Nadine, is resonating with in my consciousness because you're telling us a very simple approach: mixing some very simple ingredients and using things like essential

oils, baking soda and diluted hydrogen peroxide. These all go into a simple approach and runs counter to the chemical cocktails that we're getting which in many ways, not only are they not a simple approach but they can have all kinds of systemic effects. You mentioned triclosan a couple of times. Triclosan, of

course, is an endocrine-disrupting chemical and there have been studies published with the goal of telling people how safe it is, citing a track record of safety, but then the study endpoints really don't look at systemic hormone levels

and all of the other nasty things that might be going on outside of your oral cavity that might be impacting your general health negatively.

The approach that you're advocating is using simple combinations of natural

products, and that really resonates with me. All of these things are detailed in your book, Holistic Dental Care: The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and

Gums. That was published I believe in 2013, was it?

Nadine: I think so. Scott: Yes. Definitely a good read and a good practical guide. You've got a new book

coming out titled, Renegade Beauty. Do you want to give us a little bit of an overview of what that book covers?

Nadine: Sure. It's really in depth, and I feel like it's a great process to empty my mind in

areas of health and beauty. So it's like everything I know so far. There is also a chapter on oral care but we go through everything from the skin microbiome. There are a lot of tips for women especially, because we'll go through things like

breast health, pregnancy and even yoni-care vaginal health because there's a whole microbiome in there. So it's a practical guide. It also really brings together the science and spirit. It's poetry and there are recipes. There's a whole section on, I call them, renegade beauty solutions. We go through an A to Z of practical

tips to deal with things from melasma to moles and sagging skin. It's all in there. It's like a complete body book.

Scott: Publication date for Renegade Beauty?

Nadine: This October, 2017.

Scott: Mark that on your calendars, folks because you're going to want to pick that up. That is good, simple practical information. Thank you so much Nadine Artemis for being with us here on the Functional Oral Health Summit. We have been talking with Nadine Artemis, founder of Living Libations. That is


www.livinglibations.com. She is the author of Holistic Dental Care: The Complete

Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums. That is her book that is currently in print. She

has a new book coming out in October of 2017 titled, Renegade Beauty. She has been very generously sharing some very practical information about how our teeth are living, breathing organs−who'd have thought−and how we can take better care of them through simple time-honored approaches. Nadine Artemis,

thank you so much for being with us here on the Functional Oral Health Summit. Nadine: Thank you so much.

tooth metabolism and your endocrine system · tooth metabolism and your endocrine system speaker:...

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