Tooth Decay and Gum Disease

Tooth Decay and Gum Disease

Webster's dictionary defines the word "decay" as "an act of passing gradually from a sound or prosperous state to one of less perfection; to be gradually impaired; to deteriorate; or to become rotten." Webster defines the word "disease" as "a particular destructive process in the body with a specific cause and effect; an uneasiness; a distress; or any departure from the healthy condition." With these definitions we may be able to understand the dentist when she or he tells us that a tooth has decay and the cavity needs a filling, or the gum has a disease pocket formed around the tooth and the space needs a deep cleaning. Unfortunately these definitions by Webster for the word "decay" and for the word "disease" do not answer the question as to "why" the tooth cavity and the gum pocket developed in the first place. Maybe this article will help you to comprehend and answer this question as to why you need treatments in the dental chair.

Animal teeth, specifically the enamel, covering the outer surfaces of the teeth, are the hardest structures ever to develop in the animal body. It is Nature's design and Nature intended the teeth of any animal to last the animal's lifetime, which includes lasting the lifetime for us human animals. To observe this natural longevity, all you have to do is go the any natural history museum. There you will find many kinds of animal skeletons, including some of our own hominid ancestors that are on the same branch of Nature's family tree with us. You will find in some museums intact skeletons of dinosaurs that are 65 million years old. These dinosaur skulls have all their teeth without any tooth decay or gum disease, showing healthy bone, surrounding their healthy teeth. These observations support the contention that the teeth of animals must last the animal's lifetime, because without them, how could they survive and live? From skeletons we can acquire a great amount of knowledge in the lives of animals that preceded us and even more knowledge if we compare them with the wild animals of the present day. In fact animals of all kinds, living in the past as well as the ones living in the wild today, continue to exhibit the same magnificent, disease free mouths as those displayed and seen from the skeletons in our natural history museums.

At archaeological sites all over the world, scientists are finding intact hominid skeletons that are millions of years old. In archeological studies, teeth serve an important function similar to the use of modern fingerprints in criminology. Archaeologists will use these teeth when identifying particular species of animals and hominids of the prehistoric past. Archeologists will confirm that teeth and their tooth enamel is the most durable biological substance known to science and that teeth are more likely than bones to survive the ravages of evolutionary time. Also it has been said that animal teeth are almost indestructible, just witnesses a wild carnivore using its teeth for crushing bones while eating. These observations of teeth being almost indestructible and decay free in 65 million year old dinosaurs, in millions of year old hominids and other animal skeletons in our natural history museums, as well as in the wild animals living today, begs another question. Why do we modern humans have so many dental problems with tooth decay and gum disease? The one thing all these past animals and the wild ones living today have in common, which we have overlooked, is the fact that the past wild animals didn't and the present wild animals don't eat cooked foods. They only ate and eat from Nature's food supply, which are the seasonal environmental foods of planet Earth. Also none of these past and present wild animals ever cleaned their teeth, using a toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash or floss, yet their teeth and gums remained disease free throughout their lives. This evidence is everywhere all through evolutionary time in almost every intact animal skull, showing all their teeth and surrounding supporting bone.

To understand this natural phenomenon, we need to know about the healthy balance that exists in all of Nature's animal mouths, which has occurred to every evolutionary animal. This natural innate balance involves three physical areas. First, we need to understand the tissues, which include the teeth, tongue, gums and other oral soft tissues, the jawbones and jaw joints, head and neck muscles, taste buds and the salivary glands with their alkalizing fluids. Second, we need to understand the microorganisms that naturally live in the animal mouth. And third, we need to understand the evolutionary planetary foods consumed by the animals of time. The animal's five physical senses are also involved and are the biggest part to this balancing picture for all of Nature's living creatures. These natural senses for living pay strict attention to sound, sight, touch, smell and taste that all the animals use in the discovery of their foods. The experiences of the senses also turn on many contributing physiological functions that are everywhere in the body. These senses direct and assist in the consumption processes of foods, which will continue the animal's life. The senses are used for gathering foods to eat, digest, assimilate, package and store the energy and nutrients from the foods eaten. The energy and nutrients are used for immediate or for future use, allowing the cells of an animal body their living experiences.

During meals the mouth masticates the food, using all the soft and hard tissues of the head and neck in an amazing coordinated effort in chewing and in swallowing the food. The taste buds on the tongue evaluate the food, sending messages to the brain so that it can communicate and direct many other functioning tissues of the body to prepare for the food's arrival. The salivary fluids in the mouth start digesting the food while chewing and play the role of main protector of the oral environment and its tissues as well as to the rest of the body. As protector of the body and oral tissues, the salivary fluids carry the advanced guard of the immune system within its liquid aqueous composition, ready to process and defend the body from any non-nutritive intruder that may enter through the mouth. All the naturally present minerals supplied by the salivary fluids, when resting or while chewing food, support daily the re-mineralization process of the teeth so that they stay healthy and strong all through life. The salivary fluids also maintain proper chemical balance, the pH balance in the mouth, to protect the oral tissues from acids that come from the microorganisms living in the mouth and their waste products, which are always present in the mouth. The salivary fluids also protect the mouth from any acidic foods or drinks an animal might consume, especially us modern humans, during and in between meals. At the end of masticating a meal, while salivary fluids continue to be pumped into the mouth by muscle movements of the lower jaw for a time, the tongue will swipe and wipe the tooth surfaces clean. Nature's foods also aid in the cleaning process of the teeth because most of Nature's uncooked planetary foods from plant sources are moist and have a fibrous texture that naturally brushes the tooth surfaces while chewing. These natural fibrous textures of foods affect the gums by physically stimulating them, increasing the flow of blood to these tissues during mastication in chewing and with the swallowing movements. Foods that come from plant sources have fiber and all animal food sources do not have any fiber. There is one exception, if you eat the intestines of an herbivore complete with its contents, there will be plant-based fibers inside the intestines that were being digested before the animal died. Carnivores will eat the freshly killed contents of the abdominal cavity of an herbivore, including the intestines, and will get some plant fibers that way.

Once the meal is completed and the tongue goes back to rest after cleaning the surfaces of the teeth, the microorganisms in the mouth are there to finish the job of cleaning the oral environment. They clean the oral environment by cleansing the teeth and all the other soft tissue surfaces of the mouth. Food debris left in the mouth after chewing a meal, mostly found between the teeth and just along and under the gum line, gets its final process of digestion, evolutionarily speaking, from the microorganisms that naturally live in the animal mouth. This final process of microscopic digestion done by bacteria restores the mouth to its clean and food-free state. This microbial activity dissolves or really digests any remaining food debris left anywhere in the mouth. The microorganisms in the mouth produce and eliminate an acid waste product while they are working, eating the foods in their environment. Their job is to eat the dead and decaying biochemical matter, which are remaining or are the remnants of foods from the animal's meal. Bacterial cellular elimination means bacterial cellular defecation. This happens in an animal's mouth, but throughout evolutionary time, the animal's saliva and its alkaline biochemical nature neutralizes this acidic bacterial waste defecation and washes it away during and in between meals. It is the alkaline rich salivary fluids, abundant in minerals, that's been keeping the mouths of all the animals of the past and the wild ones living today free of tooth decay and gum disease. Also being on a planetary unprocessed diet also supports the health of the teeth and the other oral tissues because processed and refined foods increase bacterial populations artificially.

Animal teeth in general do experience some wear over a lifetime but not enough to prevent them from lasting a lifetime under evolutionary conditions. Scientists in the future, when looking back at our contemporary times, will have to create yet another new branch in the evolutionary tree of wildlife for Homo sapiens. It will be for this new hominid sub-specie from these modern recent histories. These scientists in the future when comparing human skeletons from today with Homo sapiens skeletons from the last 125 thousands years will have to call this new sub-specie, Homo sapiens idioticus. The reason for this could be summed up into one word. That word is stress or it is better defined as modern unnatural civilizing stress. This modern stress, mental and physical, is new to the evolutionary scene and it has had a unique effect on our minds and on our human bodies. The skeletons of today's civilizing animals are experiencing unnatural and non-evolutionary type stresses that have never been seen before in the Earth's history. Striking examples are not difficult to find, physiologically and psychologically speaking.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biology at Stanford University and the author of "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" has been for several decades studying wild baboons in Kenya. When he began his research decades ago the tourist industry did not exist and the wild baboons lived as baboons had always lived everywhere throughout evolutionary time. As tourism developed over the years, trash and garbage from the many new hotels in the area became a problem. Landfill dumps were the solution for all this human garbage and these dumps were soon discovered by one group of baboons. These baboons saw the dumps as a free lunch and began hanging out there rather than foraging for their food naturally. These animals compared to the baboons still living, roaming and eating in their natural environments in time developed some very interesting adaptive behaviors. They would sleep until late in the morning, waking with the arrival of garbage trucks. No longer sharing their food, they fought over tidbits of processed garbage, especially the males. In short order they developed many of the same diseases we humans suffer from today.

After a number of years of being "garbage eaters" this baboon group ate some tainted bacterial infected garbage and many got very sick. In fact the ones that died from the bacterial infection were the ones who were the most aggressive and the least social of the group. They were the male animals whose immune systems had been weakened to an even higher degree than just being "garbage eaters." Their anti-social aggressive behaviors were probably the variable, the last straw to compromise their immune system and cause their death. This behavior Dr. Sapolsky observed in his Keekoorok troupe of baboons was not the natural wild lifestyle that baboons have experienced throughout evolutionary time. The natural wild lifestyle of eating unprocessed, unrefined, uncooked and locally available seasonal foods, which have nourished and still nourish all wild living animals even today. This Keekoorok troupe of baboons for some unknown reason changed their wild lifestyle to what can be called a more modern human lifestyle of eating cooked and processed foods, which were decaying in landfill dumps. Another very interesting observation Dr. Sapolsky made after the dying off of all the aggressive and least social male animals in this Keekoorok troupe was, the entire group transformed in new generations to a more peaceful society on the whole in a very short period of time.

Cooking plant matter changes the properties of Nature's evolutionary foods for any animal. One change is in the moist and rough qualities in texture of the natural foods. Cooking will change the fibers in the vegetable foods, making them soft. These fibers will no longer act like a hard brush to clean the entire gastrointestinal tract, starting at the teeth. The microorganisms inherent all along the gastrointestinal tract will now grow at an accelerated rate on this cooked processed food. This accelerated rate of growth causes the effect of composting larger quantities of their acidic cellular waste, as compared to their growing on uncooked foods left in the mouth. This increasing growth of microorganisms on the cooked food travels down into and through the gastrointestinal tract. This accelerated bacterial growth taxes the neutralizing abilities of the salivary fluids. It taxes the immune system in general all through in the intestinal tract. The immune response to this accelerated rate of bacterial growth is call digestive leucocytosis. Bacterial acidic wastes that are not neutralized in the mouth will de-mineralize the tooth's enamel, resulting in tooth decay over times of repeated exposures. Heat used to cook plant matter causes many elements in the food to change such as fluoride. Heat will cause the fluoride ions in the food to escape into the air as fluorine gas. With less or no fluoride ions available to the body's blood stream, the blood, the body and consequently the salivary tissues and their fluids become inadequate in supply of fluoride ions. This will cause a deficiency for the entire body as well as causing the teeth to weaken over time. Salivary fluid fluorides re-mineralize teeth daily throughout an animal's life, insuring them to last a lifetime.

In the mouth when the tissues and their cells are deficient in energy and nutrients, the salivary glands and their fluids will not have sufficient materials to feed the teeth daily and keep them healthy. As the acid-neutralizing power of the salivary fluids weakens, the salivary fluids themselves may even become acid instead of alkaline in chemical pH due to the unnatural acidic lifestyle and other contributing modern factors. Microorganisms and their effects, when no longer controlled, will overpopulate in large numbers and irritate the gums in the mouth. This will cause bleeding in the gums around a tooth. This is the body's immune response to the infected area. The body's bleeding around the tooth tries to physically wash the area of the local bacterial irritants along with the blood's immune cells that will go into action digesting the increasing bacterial population. Eventually this periodontal, around a tooth, irritation will decrease the bone support because the body recedes away from this building and growing microscopic city called bacterial plaque. The teeth over time will become loose and when enough bone has been decreased around a tooth, it will eventually be lost. A habit of grinding and clenching of the teeth, a non-functional physiological and psychological habit, will only increase this process of bone loss. One clever adaptation to increase resistance to the microbial effects of eating cooked food left in the mouth is grooming the teeth. Some mammals have discovered this grooming of the teeth, including us humans. By removing all the food debris from the mouth after each meal, microorganisms in the mouth will have nothing to eat and that means no de-mineralizing acidic bacterial waste or bacterial plaque production. The oral tissues will benefit by this proactive protection from brushing and flossing the teeth after each meal. Tooth decay and gum disease can be largely prevented by perfect oral hygiene habits after every meal, provided of course your resting salivary fluids, resting means when not eating foods, are not acidic.

There are many physical stressors that occur to our bodies. These are the non-nutritive intruders that get into our body through our skin-protected barriers. From breathing, drinking and eating, as well as from our own trillions of cells, which also produce a cellular acidic waste product, all this acidic waste has to be removed from the body. Health is a dynamic balancing act between the consumption of energy and nutrients along with the elimination of our own cellular acid waste and other non-nutritive materials. Our body's chemical balance is determined by what we breathe, drink and eat in consumption and by the effects of moving, resting and the sun in elimination of waste products. But the biggest stressor to our body's chemical balance, the one that does the most harm to our bodies is our minds, which is our metaphysical stressor. In the mouth when the mind reacts to some negative thought emotion, the teeth clench together with severe force, caused by muscle contractions in the head and neck. All the surrounding tissues, including the shoulders and maybe even further down the spine, will get physically stressed out and all because of the mind's reaction to something experienced or thought. This mental and emotional stress can cause an acidic condition to the salivary fluids in the mouth as well and can easily be checked with pH paper. The teeth are meant to touch but infrequently and with little pressure because in swallowing the teeth touch lightly and no tissues are stressed. When eating there is food between the upper and lower teeth so there is no stress there when eating. But when clenching the jaws and teeth in reaction to mental and emotional stress, which can occur during the day as well as during our dreams at night, it causes damage to all the oral tissues, physically and chemically. This clenching and grinding of the teeth also stresses the tooth's nerves and can result in cracked and broken teeth, severe tooth wear over time, periodontal bone support loss with gum recession to name a few signs and symptoms.

In the prehistoric past and in the wild today, stressors were short lived. The bodies of animals have conscious and subconscious physical functioning mechanisms to prompt the fright, freeze, fight or flight reflexes. A bear confronting another bear might fight; a raccoon with a bear had better run like mad. In a few moments, the bear and the raccoon, now far apart, will be back to a better and calmer state, which are the responses back into relaxation for continued living. Today, surviving under these modern conditions, we are being chased by a rabid bear. It's called modern civilizing surviving. This rabid bear is our modern stress and it's persistent all day long and all night long too. We are suffering for it in mind and in body. In the midst of today's challenges, we need to nourish our bodies and our minds with the best materials so that we can better cope, mentally and physically, with these rapidly changing civilizing surviving environments. To be healthy and to reverse these modern stressing diseases from the teeth and gums to elsewhere in the body, we need to accept, adapt and surrender to the planet's successful and intended lifestyle for us to live. Or you can continue the path towards mental and physical self-destruction.

If you have a compromised chewing system, it is important to restore it to its natural function. To restore it with materials that will last a lifetime. You need good teeth to chew Nature's fibrous foods. Most of us are very acidic and as we begin to transform our civilizing surviving habits back to a more natural way. Be very aware that your acidic detoxifying process can greatly injure your teeth. Many individuals get numerous new cavities while cleansing their minds and bodies of the past unhealthy conditions. All these new cavities are caused by their own acid, which leaves the body during these detoxifying eliminating cleansing processes, which take a lot of time. Acidic salivary fluids can be checked and monitored very easily with pH paper, which will determine the need for rinsing the mouth often with sea salt water. Sea salt water is one pound of uncooked sea salt added to one gallon of distilled water and is the best mouthwash and tooth cleaner I know of, use it for brushing your teeth. The sea salt water will neutralize acidic salivary fluids and bacterial waste products and protect your teeth and other oral tissues. Check your oral pH often if you have acidic saliva, when you get up in the morning, before and after meals, when mentally stressed or angry and before going to bed to discover more about your mind/body experience.

Lastly, remember an automobile gets their energy from gasoline. No one burns their automobile's fuel before putting it into their car's gas tank. The same concept applies to the mind/body of any animal living wild all around the world. We need a variety of Nature's uncooked, unrefined and unprocessed seasonal energy and nutrient foods grown from the best fertile ground to be healthy. Just look at the skeletons of prehistoric animals as well as the wild animals living in their natural habitats today. Maintaining a quiet and peaceful mind, a non-reactive mind, will also conserve much needed energy and nutrients for the body's well-being. Having a healthy mind means to "heal-thy" mind and having a healthy body means to "heal-thy" body. The word "healthy" is really an action word. It is really a verb in the English language. For many of us this healthy path in life is our choice, which no one can make for us. Now is the time to make your most important choice and I hope this article helps you in your decision for a "heal-thy" lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle is a healthier and happier living experience, surviving on this beautiful planet called Mother Earth. Just remember, everything will be OK in the end, if it's not, it means, it's not the end.