Author Topic: Take care of your teeth!!  (Read 1207 times)

Offline samjohn

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Take care of your teeth!!
« on: March 10, 2010, 05:50:32 AM »
My title is somewhat hypocritical.

Today I went to the dentist for the first time in a very very very long time. I was petrified, thought he would take one look in my mouth and tell me my face was going to rot off in the next two weeks. Last time I went to the dentist I had just finished high school.

And while being petrified I realized that having bad/weak teeth would seriously cramp my style diet wise. No more steak, no more jerky, any kind of meat that requires chewing would be out.

I got lucky and needed one very minor filling, but I'm going to be a twice a year check up kinda guy from now on. Imagine not being able to chew on a juicy chunk of steak ever again...
The answer to your question is 'eat more fat'.

Stop counting calories. If you are eating Paleo, there is usually no need.

If you are having weight loss issues, it'd be a good idea to start posting a detailed food journal, then everyone can help.

'Anecdotal Evidence' is an oxymoron.

Offline rentawitch

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2010, 08:31:45 AM »
it's ok if  your teeth fall out you learn how to suck very hard! :)




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Offline phrakture

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2010, 08:54:01 AM »
I got lucky and needed one very minor filling

Ugh. I have 3 crowns and a multitude of fillings (gum line and facial fillings). A lot of this is due to smoking for 12-15 years or whatever it was. The average smoker loses a tooth every 5 years



Offline Il Capo

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2010, 10:13:57 AM »
I'll repeat what I know about teeth illnesses:

- Saliva pH determines whether you tend to develop cavities or tartar.
- Diet (and smoke) can influence each person's "normal" saliva pH.
- Hygiene will determine how often the patient will develop the one corresponding to his or her pH.

In my case, I'm "lucky" to tend to develop tartar. I need to get cleanups regularly, but have not developed a single cavity in my entire life. My father is the same, and he has all his teeth with no fillings at 65+. My mother, on the other hand, has struggled with cavities and has had several fillings and even a replacement or two done.

If I remember correctly, sugar / carbs push the saliva pH towards developing cavities. So if someone has had really bad cavities before the diet, he or she would be arguably better off with paleo. The tartar guy, on the other hand, will probably accumulate tartar at a faster rate.

Any idiot can get on a treadmill and watch TV and then take great pride in the fact they've exercised.
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Offline phrakture

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2010, 10:58:12 AM »
- Diet (and smoke) can influence each person's "normal" saliva pH.

And genetics. My mother (and her fraternal twin) had bad teeth compared to their siblings (which partially rules out hygiene issues - same family and all). My grandfather had lost a majority of his teeth by his 30s.

I once had a dentist tell me that genetics plays a large role in saliva acidity, though it's not as big of a role as diet and things like that



Offline Il Capo

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2010, 12:51:58 PM »
Yeah, that's what I meant by "normal". It is specific to each person and determined by genetics.
Any idiot can get on a treadmill and watch TV and then take great pride in the fact they've exercised.
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Offline samjohn

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2010, 02:58:19 PM »
In my case, I'm "lucky" to tend to develop tartar. I need to get cleanups regularly, but have not developed a single cavity in my entire life. My father is the same, and he has all his teeth with no fillings at 65+. My mother, on the other hand, has struggled with cavities and has had several fillings and even a replacement or two done.

If I remember correctly, sugar / carbs push the saliva pH towards developing cavities. So if someone has had really bad cavities before the diet, he or she would be arguably better off with paleo. The tartar guy, on the other hand, will probably accumulate tartar at a faster rate.


Actually he said I had a huge tartar build up, so much so that he had to book a new appt to do the cleaning as it would have pushed his appt schedule off too much to do it then.

Do you mean tartar builds up faster on Paleo or on carbs/sugar?
The answer to your question is 'eat more fat'.

Stop counting calories. If you are eating Paleo, there is usually no need.

If you are having weight loss issues, it'd be a good idea to start posting a detailed food journal, then everyone can help.

'Anecdotal Evidence' is an oxymoron.

Offline samjohn

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2010, 02:58:55 PM »
it's ok if  your teeth fall out you learn how to suck very hard! :)

You saucy little minx :)
The answer to your question is 'eat more fat'.

Stop counting calories. If you are eating Paleo, there is usually no need.

If you are having weight loss issues, it'd be a good idea to start posting a detailed food journal, then everyone can help.

'Anecdotal Evidence' is an oxymoron.

Offline Il Capo

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2010, 03:13:01 PM »
Under my limited understanding of how all this works, low carb would push you more towards tartar and less towards cavities. If you had a lot of cavities, you may get less or none at all. If you had only very occasional cavities or some tartar, the cavities may be gone and the tartar build-up could increase.

BUT: I made a few assumptions I'm not sure are right, so take it with a grain of salt.
Any idiot can get on a treadmill and watch TV and then take great pride in the fact they've exercised.
Mark Rippetoe

Offline Lone_woLf

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2010, 07:40:52 PM »
I noticed less plaque with the change in the diet, and plaque, as I understand it, is tartar that hasn't hardened yet.
Change requires you to scream, I'M NOT GONNA TAKE ANY MORE!...and then you don't.

Offline rentawitch

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2010, 03:58:16 AM »
it's ok if  your teeth fall out you learn how to suck very hard! :)

You saucy little minx :)

Couldn't resist!! and just pointing out that NO TEETH would not keep me away from steak and lamb chops :)





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Offline ajmesa

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2010, 07:21:26 AM »
If I remember correctly, sugar / carbs push the saliva pH towards developing cavities. So if someone has had really bad cavities before the diet, he or she would be arguably better off with paleo. The tartar guy, on the other hand, will probably accumulate tartar at a faster rate.
It's not so simple. If you read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" you can see that some groups that consume no carbs have more cavities than groups consuming carbs. For example, the Inuits had more cavities than many of the groups that consumed carbs.
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Offline Warren Dew

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2010, 11:08:07 AM »
It's not so simple. If you read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" you can see that some groups that consume no carbs have more cavities than groups consuming carbs. For example, the Inuits had more cavities than many of the groups that consumed carbs.

I suspect this was from Inuit groups that had already started eating a westernized diet.  Weston A. Price was not terribly careful about verifying his data.

Stefansson, who actually lived amongst a group of Inuits while they were still on a meat only diet, reported good teeth.  He also reports how they started getting cavities when they started adding some western food in the early 1900s.  See for example section IV of the following:

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson3.htm

Offline ajmesa

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2010, 07:21:59 PM »
It's not so simple. If you read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" you can see that some groups that consume no carbs have more cavities than groups consuming carbs. For example, the Inuits had more cavities than many of the groups that consumed carbs.

I suspect this was from Inuit groups that had already started eating a westernized diet.  Weston A. Price was not terribly careful about verifying his data.

Stefansson, who actually lived amongst a group of Inuits while they were still on a meat only diet, reported good teeth.  He also reports how they started getting cavities when they started adding some western food in the early 1900s.  See for example section IV of the following:

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson3.htm

The data presented by Price was from Inuits who were not modernized. He describes the diet and mentions there is no use of modern foods. I have no reason for not believing him.

BTW, I don't think Price reported bad teeth, quite the opposite, he reported good teeth (same with Stefansson). The number of cavities just happens to be a bit high than other carb consuming groups. That's why I think there is more to the picture than just the amount of carb consumed.

Blaming biological reactions to one thing often leads to poor conclusions.
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Offline Warren Dew

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2010, 07:57:08 PM »
BTW, I don't think Price reported bad teeth, quite the opposite, he reported good teeth (same with Stefansson). The number of cavities just happens to be a bit high than other carb consuming groups.

You might want actually to read Stefansson.  His statement is that there are no cavities at all amongst Eskimos without western influence:

Quote
Dr. Alex Hirdlicka, Curator of Anthropology in the National Museum, Washington, writes me that he knows of no case of tooth decay among Eskimos of the present or past who were uninfluenced by European habits. Dr. S. G. Ritchie, of Dalhousie University, wrote after studying the skeletal collection gathered by Mr. Diamond Jenness on my third expedition: " In all the teeth examined there is not the slightest trace of caries."

I brought about 100 skulls of Eskimos, who had died before Europeans came in, to the American Museum of Natural History, New York. These have been examined by many students, but no sign of tooth decay has yet been discovered.

Sugar - which includes starch that stays in the mouth long enough to be digested into sugar - is a clear prerequisite for cavities.  The cavities are, after all, formed when bacteria in the mouth go into high gear because of the presence of sugar, emitting acids that eat into the tooth material.

Are there other influences?  Probably there are.  Genetics might be one.  Other aspects of the diet as well as nondietary factors probably affect the specific strains of bacteria in any individual's mouth.  The presence of carbohydrates is the most critical, though, as Il Capo said.

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Re: Take care of your teeth!!
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2010, 07:57:08 PM »

 


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