What’s WRONG With Modern Dentistry & How To Fix Your Mouth, Sleep & Oral Microbiome For Good, With Dr. Eniko Loud & The Whole Health Dentistry Team.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, flossing is not just to get food out from in between your teeth.

It's actually to get oxygen under the gum line so that it can kill the bacteria that causes bleeding.

Wait, so you're saying even if I don't eat steak or corn on the cob and there's stuff stuck in my teeth, I should floss because the purpose of flossing is not just to get those little shards of food out?

Correct.

Yes. Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this. This might be the most people I've ever had on a podcast all at one time, people with good smiles at least. It's incredible to be here at Whole Health Dentistry talking to the people who have had their fingers inside my mouth for like the past 3 years. Thank you very much. I think. And, um, you know, I interviewed, um, you, Dr. Loud, and we've also done a bunch of videos on YouTube showing kind of like your unique flavor of dentistry. And for people who want the whole backstory of how you got into this whole space, uh, they can go listen to my original podcast with you. All the show notes for this show are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/mouthhealth. bengreenfieldlife.com/mouthhealth. I'm really glad I can say that because the numbing injection has worn off from these finishing touches that you put on me today. So, I've got Dr. Nico Loud here. I also have her dental hygienist and also Kat, how do you describe it like an oral facial myologist, mycologist?

Yeah, that's exactly it. Oral facial myologist or a myofunctional therapist.

Mycologist is mushrooms.

Myologist.

Myologist.

Okay.

You were close.

Cool. And, you've been great giving me all sorts of different jaw and tongue exercises and things I can do with straws and spray bottles.

Yep.

Yeah. You got this special little follow-up talent and blowing up balloons. And then Dr. Sophia, just in case people didn't know, Whole Health actually has a whole team here now. So, Dr. Sophia, this is the first time I've actually really, really had you on the show.

Yeah, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure having you. I'm Dr. Sophia. I'm Dr. Loud's associate, so I'm her right-hand woman, basically.

Nice. Nice. So we've established Dr. Loud is right-handed. Okay. So, this whole idea because I used to tell people that you were like a holistic dentist or a biological dentist. And then, I think I realized like maybe a year into our work together that the actual term I should have possibly been using was bioaesthetic. And a lot of people have no clue what bioaesthetic, even if you Google it, like there's some fringe like German and European websites. It's not very popular. A lot of people don't know about it. We talked a little bit about it in the previous podcast, but for people who kind of want the TL;DR, how do you explain bioesthetic dentistry to somebody?

So bioesthetic dentistry is not exclusive of biological dentistry. It kind of encompasses that. And bioesthetic dentistry focuses on restoring a biological form and function in the mouth. It starts from Dr. Robert Lee's work, who studied healthy bites, healthy joints, healthy teeth, and he figured found out that there's a common denominator in what a healthy bite and joint is. And then he created principles that we apply in how we rebuild somebody's bite, how we analyze somebody's bite to see if your joints, your teeth, or your muscles are out of balance, and how to get somebody step by step back into balance and restore their bite to kind of how natural function would work best.

So if I understand it correctly, like holistic biological dentistry. You're using natural materials that are compatible with people's biology. You're not using some of the things people talk about now that you'll find some modern dental offices, you know, metals, or, you know, not using ozone or lasers or some of the cool tools you have around here. But then bioaesthetics involves a deeper investigation of the actual biomechanics of the mouth. That's right. So that all of that money that somebody might spend on something like a beautiful smile isn't like ground away within 5 years or something like that.

That's right. Yeah. So we look at the, how the, the bite connects with the jaw and muscles and how that supports the whole posture of the body. So it's more like focused on function. And then from when we restore somebody's function, then aesthetics is secondary. Okay. Got it.

And you've been doing work on me and my wife. I think we were trying to figure it out back there this morning for what, like 3 years? Yes. I think we started So, this is a long process even though we don't live in Phoenix where you're located. So, we probably slowed it down a little bit having to fly back and forth. But, using— you could use me as an example if you want to. What's the actual process look like with bioaesthetic dentistry? Somebody's looking in the mirror, they want better teeth or they've lost a few teeth or had cavities or whatever. Like what's the actual process look like when somebody walks in?

So the first process was getting, getting to know you. Like the first exam that we did on you was like about an hour and a half getting records to figure out where you are. Then the second step would be to make sure we have solid foundation for whatever we build would be getting the gums and teeth healthy. Like if there's cavities or gum disease, we want that fully under control. And then you wear an appliance. That appliance is a, almost like an orthotic device.

You say appliance, it sounds like a refrigerator or like a dryer or something. You guys should come up with a new word, like a mouthpiece, something like that. Call it a muggle. Yeah, it is a— it's not an oven in your mouth, but there's— yeah, it's like an orthotic device. You put it in at night when you sleep and, you know, sometimes work during the day.

I agree, yeah, appliance.

We have really weird words in dentistry. Kind of a little bit. What are those things called, like the Invisalign?

Yes, but it's not quite the same. So it's designed to allow your muscles and joints to find their most balanced state. And remember how many times we had to adjust it till we got to a point where your joints and muscles were stable. And then we—

because my biomechanics were changing, was changing over time that we did this, like, for better, for better. We kept having to come in and do measurements and change until we got to the point where basically, correct me if I'm saying this the wrong way, like my jaw was good enough to be able to fix my teeth.

Yeah. And then we could verify that you closed in the same way several times in a row. So we knew that you were at a stable place. So your muscles and joints shifted back to a balanced state where we could verify that they're staying in a balanced state. And at that point, remember we put that 3D device that measured the jaw motion and that was specific to you. And then we transferred that onto these models. And then we did an analysis of what needs to be done in order to put teeth back together and rebuild the enamel that was missing and create a stable bite that correlates to stable joint and stable muscles. Yeah. And then we deliver, and that's when we put everything on in your mouth.

And when you put everything in my mouth, I went home and I told my wife, I feel like I'm an alien in my mouth. This is a whole new feel. And then Kat, you remember I texted you, I'm like, what, like, 'cause I know that you do some of these jaw exercises and relaxation exercises and tongue training. And I'm just curious, like when somebody gets this type of work done or somebody has a tight jaw or doesn't use their mouth or their tongue properly, what do you actually see and what do you do in a case like that?

So an initial myo evaluation takes a lot of time. It's about 90 minutes. But after work with Dr. Loud, I can look at the muscles and see how the, how the jaw opens and closes, opens and closes. And I can give you stretches and exercises, self-massages that you can actually do at home to help with the recovery phase of your dental treatment. Right.

And you, you can do some of that like online, right? You do some of it via— I do it online. Because you did, you did me online. Yeah. When I left, I didn't realize that I had to get used to these new teeth and then we met via video. But what's your website again? Honestmyo.com. Honestmyo.com. So, if somebody goes there and they have something like TMJ or maybe they've read that book "Jaws: The Hidden Epidemic" and they don't know if they have their tongue suctioned up against the roof of their mouth, which fortunately I read a couple of months ago. And so, I can tell a lot of what you were teaching was based on that. But give me an example of the type of things that someone does when they're doing a myotherapy session.

So a myotherapy session is basically I'm training you to keep your tongue up on the roof of your mouth. So it's not enough to just keep the tongue up, the tip of the tongue up on the roof of the mouth. You actually want to put the tongue, the tip of the tongue, the middle of the tongue, and the back of the tongue up suctioned lightly on the palate so that your teeth aren't touching. Your lips need to be completely closed, and then that tongue is suctioned up. So there's actually like a vacuum sensation, a vacuum seal in the back of your throat. So that you can swallow properly, you can chew properly, you can eat properly. That's where your tongue should live all day and all night.

How many people don't live all day and all night like that? Because I never learned that until, and I've been in the health sector and everything. I didn't even learn that till maybe like 5 months ago that the tongue should be suctioned up against the roof of the mouth basically a lot of the time.

All the time. Like, unless you're eating or you're talking. Then your tongue needs to stay up on your palate. So many people do this. It breaks my heart that nobody teaches you this stuff. Like, the airway is one of the most important aspects of the human body that we need to be evaluating at a very young age. So, I mean, if you think about it, we get our eyes checked, we get our nose checked, we get checked for scoliosis, but nobody's checking the airway.

Well, playing devil's advocate here, if so many people don't suction their tongue against the roof of their mouth from the base to the tip. Why is it that we don't just naturally do it from birth? Like, you'd think it'd just be kind of like built in for us to do it. And if it was a deficit for chewing or for airway obstruction or something, that we would naturally, from an ancestral or evolutionary standpoint, suction our tongue up against the roof of the mouth.

But we don't. We don't. And there's so many reasons for this. And that's Also, what we discover in the myo evaluation is the root cause. Why is the tongue not able to get up into the palate? So we're talking about tonality, mobility, and space. So tonality, obviously it's talking about strength. So the tongue isn't strong enough to get up there. So part of myofunctional therapy is to strengthen the tongue so that it can get up all the way suctioned on the palate. It could be mobility. If there's a frenum attachment that's too tight, too thick, or too short, it's restrictive. Frenum is the same thing that causes like the tongue tie. Correct. Yes. We've all heard the term tongue tie. Tongue tie is basically when the frenum is too thick or too tight, restricting the tongue to being able to get up on the palate. So if it's too tight, it might need to get a frenectomy is what we call. So Dr. Loud can actually do that and her husband can do it as well, where he just takes a little laser and we free up the tongue and increase the range of motion with the tongue so that it can reach the palate. It's very important if you do the frenectomy, you have to learn the stretches and exercises. And part of my myofunctional therapy program is to guide the patient through every step of the way of the healing process with that wound that's under the tongue. Yeah.

And that affects the rest of the body too. I just interviewed Dr. Neal, who I introduced you guys to. That podcast might have come out by now, but he showed me how the tongue is actually because of embryology and the way that we form via the oral cavity, then the diaphragm, and then the fascia that interconnects all the muscles. As soon as you start messing up the tongue, and the jaw and the mouth, you can affect changes farther down the body. Absolutely.

I don't know if you've seen that picture of the entire cadaver. Somebody actually took fascia out of a human body and a cadaver, and you can actually find it online. I don't know what you would look up, but, um, Frontline Deep Fascia, and it's connected from the tip of the tongue all the way down to the toes. So if you're having restriction in your knee or knee pain, joint pain, back pain, it could actually be stemming from your tongue.

That's crazy. So how common is it? I don't know if you know the answer to this, Dr. Sophia or Dr. Loud, maybe. How common is it to have bioesthetic dentistry paired with myotherapy like that? Like, is that kind of common and recommended, or is this like a unique thing that you guys started doing?

The treatment's really customized, but for a lot of people it can be recommended. It just depends on the findings, really.

With bioesthetic dentistry in general, what, what does modern dentistry think about it, right? Because when you look at, you know, functional medicine and alternative medicine and naturopathy or osteopathy, there still seems to be a little bit of friction between that and modern medicine, loosely defined, you know. And some people will theorize about, you know, pharmaceutical interests and education early on affecting that. But how do you guys kind of align with modern dentistry? Is this generally accepted or are you considered to be like freaks?

It all depends. Yeah. There, there are a lot more organizations that are very geared toward the oral systemic connection. They're recognizing the importance of, of how the mouth is the entry to the rest of the body. So there's more and more organization. I think there's more and more awareness because people are looking for it. The consumer is looking for it and is demanding it. So more dentists are looking into practicing that way.

Go ahead.

Myofunctional therapy isn't new. I just wanna add that it's actually like goes back to ancient times where midwives would actually keep a fingernail long so that they could snip, which I hate saying the word snip, but they could cut the front of underneath the tongue. If the baby wasn't latching on the breast enough, the most natural form of myofunctional therapy is breastfeeding. So if you can think about that, right? Like how the proper swallow is, like how deep, I mean, it, goes into so much detail, but basically the tongue needs to be suctioned up on the palate in order for you to have a problem.

In order to suck, all the tongue has to be suctioned. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, a fascinating thing happens is when I have done like tongue tie releases with the laser, the patient is completely numb, so they're not aware of what their tongue is doing. As soon as you release the tongue, the tongue rolls back, almost like goes in the back of the throat. Like that's a yogic practice of locking energy in through the throat. So it was always fascinating. As soon as I released the tongue, the tongue would roll back and go in the back of the throat. That's crazy. Without the person being aware of what they're doing. Yeah.

Yeah. With the yogic practice that you talked about, you're now taking this dive into Ayurveda. And I've done some podcasts about Ayurvedic medicine and Ayurvedic routines. And that's actually when I started doing coconut oil pulling and tongue scraping. Now I do ozone oil pulling and tongue scraping. But what's the link between Ayurveda and dentistry? Was this just like a random interest for you, or do you see how that form of medicine could somehow apply to oral health?

I think it's already making a big difference for my patients because I'm, I'm still a newbie. I'm only in my second year of Ayurvedic studies, but one, one of the things that pushed me toward Ayurvedic medicine is we have so many patients that are elderly with suffering with dry mouth and a lot of cavities. Yet they seem to be eating pretty decent diets and they brush like crazy because they don't want to get cavities, yet every 6 months they have a problem. So with Ayurveda, I was looking for more these ancient methods to help patients. So it's really making a big difference on helping people figure out with their diet, through their diet, why they're getting dry mouth or why the foods that they eat, the combinations, are leading to other conditions that otherwise they would not know about.

What are some examples of ways that you think you're going to change your— because it's, it's a lot of years you'll be spending.

It's a lot of years, almost 6 years. Yeah, 6 years.

How many years in? 2 years. 2 years into 6 years, and you will be in— what do you call it, an Ayurvedic physician, or—

you can't call yourself a physician in this country. Doctor of Ayurvedic medicine? Uh, not even that, you can't. It's like Ayurveda is some kind of specialist. Study the crap out of Ayurveda.

So how do you envision that affecting dentistry? Like, what would change in your practice, do you think, or has changed in your practice since learning some of those concepts?

Truly being able to do more individualized care and knowing what herbs to recommend for certain people, what practices, what— and then food combinations, really truly doing individualized care for every single patient when it comes to their diet, lifestyle, and herbs.

Can you give me an example, like an Ayurvedic food combination? For incompatible food combinations. I've been at your house before and you have all sorts of crazy concoctions, so I'm just curious, like, well, like, how this has changed the way that you eat or the way that you think about combining certain foods now?

Uh, for example, I don't combine, uh, fruits with anything. That's a big no-no. So oftentimes people make smoothies with fruits and dairy. That's a bad combination because fruit will ferment the dairy and then it'll sit and sit in your stomach. So it's like curling the fruit, curling the fruit.

But you could like blend a fruit with like coconut water? Yeah, you can. Yeah.

But you shouldn't combine fruits with vegetables. Okay. So that's also an incompatible combination. Potatoes and meat is not a very good combination.

This sounds really complex. Yeah. You're like ruining half my meals.

Fish and dairy. It's incompatible. It's very slimy and creates sliminess in the body.

Interesting. What about meat and dairy?

Meat and dairy, not a very good combination. Very heavy.

They are or they aren't? They are heavy. Yeah. Okay.

So those would, those would count. They would— so in a healthy person like you, you can eat those things now and then, but somebody that's dealing with medical issues, they really need to be careful to stay away from incompatible food combinations.

Yeah, yeah, I know some of the proteins in dairy are— I don't know if it's the proteins or certain enzymes in dairy actually help to bind iron and prevent hemochromatosis from excessive meat consumption. So there's some interplay between some of those. But yeah, the fruit and the dairy, I don't want to tell you how many times that I've had something like a bunch of watermelon or berries and included like too much yogurt or too much dairy, and it does kind of like make your stomach feel upset. So it is interesting. But related to the mouth, are there like herbs or sprays or things that you're finding that help with the oral biome or with the care of the mouth in general?

Yeah, a new thing I learned is triphala. You've heard of triphala? Yes. Yeah, Designs for Health has triphala. Yeah. So combining triphala with sea salt Not sea salt. Yeah. Himalayan pink salt and black pepper. It's like astringent, so it dries up any type of inflammation, infection in the gums, and it's super refreshing and it prevents plaque from forming because it's antimicrobial. You make that as a powder? You can make it as a powder yourself and brush with it and brush with it. Interesting. And the bitter taste.

That was it. Oh, okay.

Yeah. The bitter taste, it's, it's like it pulls and like tightens your gum tissues and it's antibacterial. Interesting.

So, the combination of those reminds me another combination you told me about triphala because it's very drying. I actually tried to dry powder it once. It was just nasty. Have you guys used triphala before? Yeah, yeah. And, it does really help with a morning bowel movement or it's known to help with detoxification, but you said you're supposed to take it with a teaspoon of ghee.

Ghee. Depending. So, depending on your constitution, for you probably with ghee, but somebody that's overweight, maybe a tiny bit of honey. Okay. Yeah, because honey has a scraping action, like it removes blockages.

But if you're taking like a capsule or powder of triphala, something oily or something liquid along with it, otherwise it's going to kind of dry out the digestive tract a little bit. Yeah, it could be interesting. Have you gotten into Ayurveda at all, Dr. Sophia, since Dr. Loud's gotten interested in it?

She's actually taught me a lot about it, and I'm very interested in it. I come more from like a biologic functional medicine perspective, which is what Dr. Loud was practicing before getting into Ayurveda. But it's fascinating to learn all about it. It's, it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

What have you seen with— because I literally just got done with the swish and spit test that you do. I think it's been a year since I've done one. What do you do with the results of that type of test, or how do you work that into your practice?

So we look at the bacteria that are related to gum disease, and we discuss the different numbers with patients. So if they have low, medium, or high numbers. We talk about that and then we talk about the systemic links based on the bacteria that are present in their mouths. And then based on, um, their numbers, we would recommend an antimicrobial therapy to help with lowering those numbers. In addition to that, we would of course discuss proper oral hygiene, um, toothbrush care, things like that to just make sure to disinfect the toothbrush properly, change your toothbrush head once a month and, um, reduce bacterial load in that way.

If I get a, a salivary DNA test, you know, like a 23andMe or a 3x4 or whatever, you know, one of these tests where you, where you spit, is that also measuring my oral biome or do you have to get a special test to measure the oral biome?

It has to be a special test that's looking for specific bacteria that are related to the oral cavity.

How often do you see, cuz I've heard that the bacteria in the mouth can influence Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease. Gut issues, etc. Do you guys tend to see qualitative links between the bacteria in the mouth and some of those symptoms? Absolutely.

There are a lot of articles currently that show associations between, like diabetes, for example, Alzheimer's and the oral cavity. And so, and there's more studies coming out as we speak regarding these systemic links with the different bacteria.

So as far as cleaning that out, I did a podcast maybe 4 weeks ago. I interviewed this company called Thrive. They make a probiotic and they made a pretty compelling case for being able to actually address the proper biome in the mouth via not just doing things like avoiding excessive use of mouthwash, for example. That was a big one that came up, but also even considering doing something like breaking open a probiotic capsule and putting it in your mouth when you're swishing with water or oil or something like that. Have you ever you looked into that or—

Yeah. So we actually—

Bacteria in the mouth.

Yeah. So one of the things that we recommend, of course, um, also looking at the patient's diet to address their gut health, but there are oral probiotics. They're a little bit different than the one that you would take that's more for the gut, for the urinary tract. But, um, these are special oral tablets and you place them in your mouth after brushing and flossing at night and you can chew on them or let them dissolve and they actually populate the mouth with good bacteria to help fight off the bad ones.

Do you know what type of brand or what type of strain you'd be looking for?

There are two that we really like. There's ProBiora Pro and then also one by BioCide and Botanicals, the Dental Flora probiotic.

Okay, got it. Got it. So you're looking at the oral biome, you're doing the, the whole bioaesthetic, you know, routine start to finish and then the myotherapy after that. But with the, with the bioaesthetic piece, in terms of the, the actual steps, I had to come back in multiple times and each time you were remeasuring my teeth and readjusting that appliance that I wear at night. But what else do you guys do as a part of that process? Or is it really that simple? You're just measuring, adjusting, and waiting.

Well, yes, we're adjusting till we don't need to adjust anymore when the system stabilized. And that's the part I don't get.

How do you know when the system is stabilized?

So as you remember, we were adjusting it and oftentimes you were— when you came in after wearing it for a while, you were hitting more, like touching more on the left side, which meant that that joint wants to go back into its place. So then I'd flatten the appliance again on that side till everything was even. So the goal of the appliance is to have the forces directed in a long axis of the, of the skull instead of being uneven on one side. So every adjustment is, every adjustment's aim is to get the forces even all across front and side and then allow your jaw to slide left and right smoothly. So at one point we didn't have to do that anymore because your joint and muscle found their balanced state and I didn't have to adjust it anymore. And at that point we verified that, that even without that appliance, I can obtain your jaw would close the same way in same spot every single time. And at that point, now we know we're starting with a stable bite. Otherwise, when we try to rely on a teeth to tell us where the bite is, we can't because your teeth were worn down, so they were not functional. It's kind of like the tires of a car that wear down unevenly. You can only balance the tires for so long before you have to replace the tires, right?

Kind of thing. Yeah, that makes sense. Kat, talk to me about chewing. Because when I came out of the office, it took like maybe a week for me to adjust. That whole week, chewing just felt funky. But then, once my bite became adjusted, and thank you, I was doing some of the exercises that you sent me and didn't feel like I had an alien in my mouth anymore. My chewing was different in that I found myself, and I'll totally bastardize the explanation of which teeth these are, but I was using the teeth behind my front teeth teeth, way more to chew. My food was like liquid goo when I swallowed. I'm very careful not to rip open things with my front teeth anymore because I don't want to ruin all the hard work that we've been doing. But I used to kind of like rip meat with my front teeth and do a lot with my front teeth. Now I'm using the ones that are farther back. What happened and how should people chew?

So the front teeth are for tearing. So you can chew with the— you can tear with the front teeth. Chewing is for the back teeth.

And tearing would be like if you're eating like chicken on the bone and maybe you're ripping the chicken breast off the— or the chicken leg off the bone or something like that.

Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Meats and stuff. And I was going to add actually with tongue space and tongue mobility earlier when I was talking about myofunctional therapy, it is super important that our diet, it consists of crunchy hard foods, things like meat, things that we can tear with because your muscles, your facial muscles actually need that bone loading stimulation to grow and become strong and develop properly, right?

That's another premise of the book Jaws, by the way. Kids that grow up on Gerber baby food and liquid smoothies and ultra-processed foods that are pre-digested, or at least pre-processed, right, develop weak jaws, teeth crowding, improper tongue posture, etc. Yes, correct.

So the fact that you said your food was a consistency of soup is really good. That's what you want. You want to chew your food enough. A lot of people are not chewing their food enough. And so now that you have new teeth, you have new cusps. What Dr. Loud did was gave you more anatomy in your tooth to be able to chew. So before your teeth were very worn down, you weren't able to chew your food enough. And now that your teeth are built back up again and you have cusps, those mountains, the mountain part of your tooth, right? We have mountains and valleys in our tooth in the, in the back molars. If you can imagine like the back cusps sitting up really tall and then the valley of the, of the tooth kind of dipping down. Each tooth is in a specific position for a reason. And so Dr. Loud is able to put back what God initially gave you, what you were supposed to have in your face to begin with. And so it's really cool that you're noticing that your muscles are working together properly now. Your tongue is actually moving the way that it should, that you have new teeth now. So it takes a while, but you can get there. And once you get to the point where you're like, okay, this is how my jaw moves, this is how my teeth move, these are the teeth that I'm supposed to tear with and cut with and chew with, then you can chew your food enough to where you can swallow it and digest it enough.

Yeah, because it is interesting. Like, I thought that I had something like leaky gut syndrome for a while because I would, you know, as everybody, you know, you do it sometimes, you turn around and look and, you know, see the consistency of the poop and what's in the, what's in the bowl. And I would see like little pieces of food in there for a long time. But I also do consistent gut tests, and I rarely had, you know, elevated levels zonulin or markers of leaky gut or anything like that. I don't get that now. Like, the food's actually— it was, it was my mouth. I actually, because of the way that my teeth were worn down, I was chewing on— you're mashing— chewed, you know, mashed up kind of half-ground food, and it was winding up in my stool. I'm sure that's something that happens somewhat frequently. Yeah, absolutely.

And think of what that's doing to your digestive tract.

You're swallowing food that's not chewed enough, and then you're risking things like diverticulitis or, or, you know, inflammatory pockets or irritation of digestive tract, right?

What you are noticing with your eye teeth is actually one of the principles of bioesthetics is, um, we— the eye teeth are actually a little longer, and they're the ones that guide our jaw in an even motion left and right. So right now, that's guidance. So when you slide to the right, all your back teeth disengage, so you're not wearing your back teeth. And then they're, they're set up in a way that they guide you right back to the center. So left and right guide you back. And that's one of the things people notice after we build it back in. They're like, what is happening? Most people chew sideways, so they chew usually to one side only, and then they wear down their eye teeth and they become super flat. Once those wear out, then the rest of the front teeth will start wearing out and the back teeth start wearing out. So what you are noticing is that you're being kept in a kind of like a chewing vertically instead of laterally.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it feels really good now, but yeah, it took a lot of getting used to. Okay, so this is gonna be a fun question and I wanna hear from each of you on this. I think it was one of the times that I was in here, Kat, you actually taught me a lot of kind of cool facts about how I should be flossing and how I should be brushing. And I've learned so much from you guys over the years about proper oral care. I mean, I'm now to the point where I might have passed you up because I'm using an electric smart toothbrush now. I know what you're talking about. It's called a Pheno. You literally, put tooth foam on it because I hate to Waterpik, floss. It's just time-consuming. So anyways, you put this entire, in this case, probably it is an appliance in your mouth. Yeah. And, it's covered in bristles and then you press the button and you've put foam on it beforehand and it just does your whole mouth all at once. And, you said, Anita, I'm like, "Oh, this is pretty good." I've only used it for 10 days. And it's incredible because I can just like walk around getting stuff done, you know, turn on the alarm in the garage, get stuff ready at night. I've just got that thing vibrating in my mouth.

Yeah. Your plaque levels and, and then the inflammation is like gone now.

Yeah. I have to add, this one's custom to your mouth specifically, correct?

This is not custom to your mouth, but it has what's called a smart scan feature on it, which allows you to scan your teeth and your tongue after brushing. And that's the only thing that I don't like about it so far is I don't have wifi at my house. Because I'm just a Luddite and you have to have Wi-Fi to use that feature, but it does have like a smart scan feature so it can kind of like give you a readout of your mouth as you go. So, I'll eventually experiment with that. What I actually wanted to ask you was based on that, what are the biggest mistakes? And again, I want to hear from each of you, the biggest mistakes that people make when taking care of their teeth at home, if you could just name 1 or 2 of the ones that really just bug the heck out of you.

Some of it is using toxic products that have Teflon and then leave residues on their teeth. The other one is to not being mindful about what they're doing. They're just kind of rushing through it, so they don't really pay attention to— Rushing through the brushing process? Yeah, rushing through it and not really even knowing if they're missing any areas. So they're just not very mindful of what's happening. It's just something that we do quickly. How do you do it? Um, I actually multitask, so I do it in front of the red light.

So I brush for 4 minutes at night. I do that all the time. I'm naked in front of my giant red light panels checking emails this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's what you're doing while you do it. But as far as making sure you get the adequate coverage, do you have a strategy when you brush?

I just really pay attention to every single side of my mouth. Like I go through it more mindfully. I almost like say gratitude for every tooth I have. I know this sounds silly, but it's like a gratitude practice too.

You, you have a cheat code, you're a dentist, you know, like the number of each tooth. So you can, I know, right? Number 1 and number 8A and number 3.

So it's hard to ask me. Yeah. I see so many people with, uh, I hit mostly the insides of my gums because like right at the tongue side, everybody's forgetting to brush their teeth. So I see what other people are not doing and I make sure I do it on myself. And how long and how often do you brush? Morning and at night, sometimes lunch also. And at night is almost 4 minutes because I'm in front of my red light machine.

Okay. Yeah. So you use that as your timer. And then are you doing water picking, flossing, oil pulling, anything like that?

Flossing. Okay. Flossing and oil pulling in the morning and tongue scraping. Okay. All right.

Cool. The hardest part is going to be the people who go after Dr. Loud because you have to come up with something different.

I know, but I'm a hygienist. That's okay. All right. Go. You got time. Go. Exactly. So not doing it long enough and not doing it properly. So to piggyback off what she said, correct. Yes. But not brushing long enough and not brushing properly. So yes, being quick, being spastic, not spending a full 2 minutes with brushing, but also you want to angle the toothbrush towards the gum line. So you do want to brush the gums and not just the teeth. Angle?

What do you mean angle the toothbrush?

So I guess it just depends on which toothbrush you're using because if you're using an Oral-B, it's 90 degrees towards the gums. If it's any other toothbrush that's a regular toothbrush, it's 45 degrees towards the gum line.

45 degrees towards the gum line. Yeah.

So a little bit up on the top, down on the bottom.

So if I were to hold an imaginary toothbrush, or like my phone here was a toothbrush, it would give— and it was just a regular toothbrush that I bought at 7-Eleven. I'm brushing like that.

So 45 degrees towards the gum line on the top and on the bottom.

And then on the bottom it'd be like that. Correct. And then on this side like that.

And a trick you can do with those lower front teeth.

Because most people go like this, like 90 degrees. Yes, I guess that would be 180 degrees. Yeah, right.

So you want to— the angles do make a huge difference. And then also with the lower front 6 teeth, if you can angle the toothbrush straight up and down on the inside surface of the lower front 6 teeth.

Lower front 6. Yeah, the lower front 6. I'll use my phone brush here as an example. Yeah, perfect. So it'd be like that. Yes. Okay. Yes. It'd be in both the front and the back. Just the back.

Just the back. The front you could do the same way as you would before.

Okay. Yeah. Front would be the 45 degrees. Correct. Okay. Yes. Got it. Yeah. So the actual angle of the brush is important. 45 degrees across all the teeth except the front back ones, which is 90 degrees. Correct.

And you can do that on the top as well. The top front 6 teeth on the inside, straight up and down. There's a salivary gland that sits under your tongue and it just creates more calcium buildup on your teeth. Is that— that's why everybody has more plaque buildup on the lower front 6 teeth on the inside.

So there's a— wait, say that again. There's a salivary gland and it causes calcium to build up on the teeth.

Yep. It causes a little bit more buildup to build up on the lower front 6 teeth. How would that be? Yeah, we have salivary glands all over our mouth, actually. We have them up in the cheeks as well.

Yeah, but that seems like if, like, there's an actual built-in gland in the mouth that's increasing plaque accumulation.

No, it's just in some people that have calcium and phosphorus levels are— okay, the minerals that somebody has an imbalance or is taking too much calcium.

So someone would get like a hair tissue mineral analysis or something like that and find an imbalance between calcium and phosphorus. Something like excess calcium would cause the salivary glands to release that, kind of like vitamin D in excess can cause arterial calcification. Something like calcium in excess could cause oral calcification.

Yeah. So usually when we test the saliva, when every patient comes in, we test the pH of the saliva. And when they have more basic saliva, they usually have more buildup on their teeth. When they have more acidic saliva, they get more cavities typically.

Okay. Yeah, that would make sense because you'd see the calcium would be Calcium-based. Correct. Okay. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So in addition to your pet peeve of people holding their toothbrush at an improper angle, are there any other home oral care mistakes that people make?

Yes. C, C-shaped flossing. You wanna hug the side of the tooth with the floss. You don't just wanna pop the floss in and pop it out. Flossing's one of those things that people don't wanna do, so you have to force yourself to do it. It is important to get the floss underneath the gum line. And that's where the C-shape comes into play, into play, because if you're just popping the floss in, you're not going under the gum. Flossing is not just to get food out from in between your teeth. It's actually to get oxygen under the gum line so that it can kill the bacteria that causes bleeding.

Wait, so you're saying even if I don't eat steak or corn on the cob and there's stuff stuck in my teeth, I should floss because the purpose of flossing is not just to get those little shards of food out? Correct. Correct. Yes. And explain again what, what the actual purpose is, or the other purpose.

So you're getting oxygen under the gum. Really? So oxygen— so if the bacteria that causes bleeding is anaerobic, they thrive without oxygen. Right. So when you're flossing, you're introducing oxygen under the gum line, which is going to kill the anaerobic bacteria that thrive without oxygen.

What about if I oil pull with something like ozone? Wouldn't that also kind of get oxygen into those areas?

In theory, yes, but it might not get all the way down into the pocket like floss does.

Okay. So when you say C-shape, I'm trying to picture what that would look like in my head, or maybe you could explain.

Yep. So if you imagine a tooth, you're hugging the side of the tooth with the floss all the way around the side of the tooth. And then you're going up and down.

You're using both hands when you floss. Oh yeah.

Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. The picks are okay. You can use—

How do you get the very back ones?

It's tricky. You can use, uh, I use my index fingers. I kind of go on the very end of my index finger and slide it all the way back. With the back teeth, you want to close your jaw halfway and you can even move your jaw towards that side that you're working on. Okay.

Have you seen this thing that's coming out of it? Speaking of devices, the one I was talking about earlier is called the Fino. But have you seen this one called the E-Floss? Is it out yet? But I think they did like a Kickstarter or something and it's supposed to floss all your teeth at once.

Yeah. There's a bunch of different companies that are making these now.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Are you, are you okay with that? I mean, do you think if it's— you'll stay old school with the taking 10 minutes to do the C-shaped flossing or—

So Waterpik don't replace flossing, unfortunately. Now, sometimes if you have a very deep pocket or you have implants and bridges, things like that, the Waterpik is going to be very beneficial in addition to flossing. Okay. So sometimes it won't get all the way underneath the gum like you, like you can with the floss.

Right. Right. Yeah. And again, I know people are probably listening in thinking like this is a lot, but I'm like you guys, I multitask. I'll have like a podcast or an audiobook in. I'll be walking around doing the oral care while I'm oil pulling. I'm making the hot water for coffee and tea in the morning. You know, when I'm tongue scraping, I'm also just listening to something. So, a lot of this you can multitask.

Yeah. I mean, you can Waterpik in the shower.

Yeah, yeah. That's true, except I only shower once every few days. Yeah, big hot tub cold plunge sauna guy. You can floss in the car. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. See how many motor vehicle accidents there's been. Greenfield Life podcast listeners increase after this. All right, so Dr. Safia, you've had a long time now to think about, about mistakes people make when caring for their teeth at home.

Well, I think just, um, you were talking about tongue scraping, and I think just caring more about your— more than about your teeth is caring about the tongue as well. So tongue scraping is super important because the tongue is like a sponge that sits in our mouths, and we spend spend so much time brushing and flossing with the, with the Bass Method and the C-shaped flossing and everything that takes a long time. But at the end of your routine, you also want to ensure to scrape your tongue to remove any debris that's been sitting on the tongue all day. And I actually recommend to do that morning and night just to remove any residue that might have built up on the tongue while you're sleeping. And the reason for that is if we remove the bacteria from the tongue, there's— that can also decrease chances of cavities forming because we're removing more of the bacteria from the mouth. Another thing that, that I suggest doing is also storing your toothbrush away from the toilet or just somewhere more protected to prevent any debris or anything from collecting on the toothbrush head.

Put their toothbrushes next to the toilet.

You know, sometimes people have a, have a sink that's right next to the toilet. And if you don't put the seat down, you have to imagine that, you know, some things can get into the air. So really ensuring to store your toothbrush away in a more protected area. And disinfecting the toothbrush and replacing the toothbrush head more often, I think, is very important as well. I think a lot of times people can forget about that. And another thing I would say is to change your toothbrush head after you're sick, just so that you're not reintroducing bacteria back into your mouth.

You just— because I've done this before— can't you just like wash it with soap like you would in the dishwasher or whatever?

It doesn't really— I mean, it, it might remove some of the surface debris on the toothbrush. I think soaking your toothbrush head in maybe like hydrogen peroxide and then rinsing it after that would be a really good idea to just ensure that the bacteria— you're actually killing the bacteria that are on the toothbrush.

So back to the tongue scraping, what you're doing. So if you wake up in the morning and you're scraping, what it sounds like is there's actual bacteria that can build up in the mouth during a night of sleep, similar to the bacteria we were talking about that could be associated with Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, etc. And not only by flossing to introduce oxygen to that area like Kat explained and into these pockets where bacteria can reside, by scraping, it's more than just cleaning debris or gunk or dragon breath-producing saliva or whatever in the morning off your tongue, you're actually getting rid of that bacteria. A tongue scraper is good enough at doing that?

I do think it is good at removing a lot of bacteria off the tongue. I think that Oil pulling can help as well with reducing a coating on the tongue. I think overall, just ensuring that you're not leaving any debris on your tongue. Sometimes people can get an overgrowth of bacteria on the tongue as well, which can tell us a lot about their health. So Dr. Loud is studying Ayurvedic medicine, and looking at the tongue is very important to determine what's going on with the patient's gut.

So yeah, yeah, is this why A lot of the tongue scrapers are made out of copper because it's antibacterial. Yeah, copper is really great. Interesting. And you guys don't get worried about killing good bacteria in the mouth?

No. Like, going back to the tongue and Ayurveda, and this makes sense from a functional medicine point of view too, at night our liver detoxes, so it removes the toxins from the system, dumps it back into the gut, and the mouth being the first part of it, those toxins can be deposited on the tongue. So like the very back of the tongue. And they can show up as different coloring. So like, based on how that color looks like, you could tell, like, if it's yellowish green, then the liver is probably a bit sluggish or struggling. Or it's more white, you're building more toxins, the foods were too heavy for you. So that's called ama, which is like toxic residue, undigestive stuff that the body's trying to kick out. And it's like a breeding ground for bacteria. So if you leave it on there, bacteria just grow in it, mostly acidic, and it's like just the breeding ground. So scraping that off every morning and really looking at it, what color it is, or if it's too thick, that, that means that you're not digesting, you're not assimilating your food really well. You got a lot of leftover toxic residue that your body couldn't handle. Okay. And it's trying to get it out.

And don't keep your tongue scraper next to the toilet.

No. Yeah, definitely don't do that.

I advise you not to do that. I think a lot of people hear the term bioesthetic or, for example, you know, hear me talk about the work I've done with my mouth, and a lot of people have complimented me on my new smile, and I think it's great. But do you also work with, I guess, like, you know, sick people or people who have had some kind of work done that's messed up their mouths that's actually making them sick, like some type of implant or root canal or something like that? Or does bioesthetic really just mean Aesthetic?

No. So biosthetic is the final touch on it. If you think of it like a pyramid where you're building, the foundation is really the getting the teeth healthy, the gums healthy, and then we go get the joints healthy. And then finally, the final, the tip of the iceberg is to put the enamel back on a teeth to restore the function of the teeth and the structure of the teeth. So we work with Dr. Sophia. We get a lot of referrals from the Invita Cancer Center. So we work with a lot of cancer patients. With a lot of functional medicine doctors.

It's like functional oncology here in Phoenix, Wisconsin. Yes. It's great.

And we help the patients clean out infections. So that's like a big part of our practice is getting out infected root canal treated teeth, getting their oral microbiome healthier, getting mercury fillings out. So that's like the foundation of, of biostatic dentistry. We have to get somebody healthy first structurally before we can rebuild the function.

Okay, I'm asking this about, um, a friend of mine who has been struggling with really low HRV, kind of a measurement of nervous system balance, ever since he had a bunch of dental work done. Does that somehow, or could it somehow, deleteriously impact the nervous system if dental work is done improperly? Or have you seen that It could.

I actually seen it. And if the work was not done properly, it can cause problems with the gums. So they can get a lot of inflammation. So inflammatory markers go up. The other thing is the musculoskeletal system is in imbalance. It could throw off the vagus nerve. And through that, I don't know exactly how that precisely works, but that could affect HRV also. Interesting. What do you think? Or the sleep. So they don't get deep sleep because the muscles of the jaw are constantly trying to figure out where to put the teeth. Teeth. Yeah. Because they're constantly contracting, they're creating like almost like an interference to the function of the brain.

Yeah, yeah. That actually happened to me. I think I told you this, Kat, for like the first 3 days after I left here, my sleep just went to crap. And then, once my mouth got used to everything, I feel great now. I measure pulse oxygenation and use a ring and everything to measure my sleep scores and they're good now. But yeah, it was crazy how much a little change, I guess, was probably a big change in my jaw and my teeth. That affected my sleep. I mean, it was really bad. I was sleeping like 2 hours a night.

Yeah. Another thing is if your tongue is wandering in your mouth because you just had dental work done and you're pushing into those teeth, your tongue isn't up on your palate, remember? So you're not going to stimulate the vagus nerve. When you put your tongue up on your palate, it actually does stimulate that nerve. We're talking a lot about cranial nerves when you're, when you're dealing with the tongue therapy. So it's helpful to calm the nervous system and then also check the bite. Like your friend, he needs to go get his bite checked to make sure that he isn't hitting high on that tooth that he had dental work done on. And if he is, then he can do an adjustment on that or, you know, check the bite alignment like Dr. Loud does and all of that.

Okay, got it, got it. So for this style of biocycle dentistry, you said when I was asking about it, Nico, that's not super duper common, but you can find practitioners. Is there like a directory? Because half the time I tell people, I'll just call Whole Health Dentistry in Phoenix and ask them if they got somebody they recommend near you. You, but is there an actual website people can go to to find a doctor who does what you do or a dentist who does what you do?

Yeah, bioaesthetics.com. They're all over the world. It's just bioaesthetics.com. Good looks, Bill.

I'll put it in the show notes. BenGreenfieldLife.com/mouthhealth is the show notes. So, bioaesthetics.com, you have— you can find a directory.

Yes, there's lots of doctors all over.

Okay. And, the people actually kind of like I did fly in here to do this type of work with you?

Yeah. And they just come in multiple times. It's pretty common. They come in multi— it's, it's harder when somebody's not in town because it's a big deal to travel here for adjustments. But we try to maximize the time that somebody's here to do several adjustments and make sure—

Trust me, like we've done, it's kind of funny, like I've played dentist at home before. 'Cause like I had one fall out. You taught me how to use these tools. You sent me to glue it back in. At one point you had me using a little burr device to adjust my appliance. Don't do that. Yeah. No. Yeah. Don't do this at home, folks.

We did it via FaceTime.

Yeah. I was just too lazy. It's easy to fly to Phoenix. But anyway, so people can, can visit that place to find a directory. And then Kat, for the type of work that you do, is that just something where someone could go to Honest Mayo and do like a Zoom session or video session or something like that?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm all virtual, so it makes it super easy. I can see people all over the world and it's a quick, well, it's not quick, it's 90 minutes for the first initial evaluation and then we can just go from there and see what type of program you need.

Yeah, because you've been sending me like every week, like clockwork. I get like 4 or 5 new videos. I get a PDF. I just print it out and I can do it while I'm driving. Or although lately I'm getting ready to go hunt elk, so I've been doing a ton of elk calling, which involves a lot of like tongue and lip suction or tongue suction and lip work and a lot of jaw movement. So yeah, it's great. I've had to prioritize that the past week, but I feel like it's doing something.

Well, being aware of the tongue is so important. I mean, if you think of when we were kids, we used to do taco tongue and bowls with our tongues. And now when we're adults, nobody thinks about where their tongue is. So if you can just bring awareness to where the tongue is in the mouth, then it can help you actually with things like elk calling and other hobbies. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, if I— if I get an elk this year, then you get a backstrap, I guess. Thanks to you, Dr. Sophia, Kat, Dr. Loud. This has been incredible. You know, I'm— one of my favorite parts about my job is to find people who do really cool things and tell the world about them because, you You know, it's kind of fun to just find unicorns or folks who have a unique approach, and, and your, your, your whole organization just fits right into that mold. So folks, you're listening in, um, give these folks a visit if you get a chance, try out in Phoenix, or check out the links in the show notes to find BioAesthetic Dentistry or to work with Kat online or to come in and see Dr. Sophia or Nico. They're all super cool here, and the show notes are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/mouth. Mouth Health. It's bengreenfieldlife.com/mouthhealth. Thank you so much, ladies. Again, best smiles ever had on the podcast. So, thank you. Thanks to you. Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting-edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life, and a whole lot more? Check out Ben BenGreenfieldLife.com. It's all there, BenGreenfieldLife.com. See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like, or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe, like, and/or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings, and the bigger the Ben Greenfield Life show gets, the bigger and better the guests get and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review if you got a little extra time. It means way more than you might think. Thank you so much. In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion-branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend in good conscience. I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body, and spirit, and I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So, there's your fancy legal disclaimer.