A tooth that’s had a root canal needs a crown. Some put this off but in fact the tooth is frail and cannot withstand the burden of chewing without the crown. If it cracks (it’s dried out because the nerve is gone) it will need to be extracted. That means getting a dental implant and crown or some other tooth replacement.

Then there’s replacing missing teeth. When this is neglected, the burden of chewing is shifted to remaining teeth. Just recently, a patient with missing teeth on one side of the mouth cracked a tooth holding a bridge on the opposite side of the mouth, which was overused for chewing.

The moral is: the sooner dental conditions are treated, the less time and money you’ll spend.

First, decide to get healthier.

That has to include becoming more knowledgeable about food, nutrition and exercise. Realize that you are in control of your own health.

Second, make forty percent of your daily intake fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic. Cut out the sugar and start to reduce carbohydrates like breads and pasta and processed foods. Add a tablespoon a day of flax seed oil. When you get up in the morning, drink a hot cup of water with lemon squeezed into it. If you do just those things for two weeks, you’ll notice a difference in how you feel. Losing weight will just be a side benefit.

One major contributor to bad breath is gum disease. When your gums are inflamed, swollen, and pulled away from the teeth, you can have such offensive breath that you’re unknowingly turning people off. The odor is the warning light on your dental dashboard and neglect can go so far that your teeth fell out. Even then, you still would have to contend with having offensive breath.

So, keep your gums in great shape with regular cleanings, tooth and gum tonic and any deep cleaning you may need. It’s a minimal investment, compared with the alternative, which can lead to tooth loss and offensive breath.

John Erb, author of The Slow Poisoning of America and a research assistant at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, spent years working for the government. He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals. In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies.

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so scientists have to create them. In hundreds of studies presented in medical journals, researchers routinely administer MSG to newborn rats and mice to induce obesity. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing them to become obese. They then use these animals as experimental subjects for research on anything from diabetes to weight loss.

MSG-laced food products are found in any kitchen: Campbell’s soups, Hostess Doritos, Lays flavored potato
chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the ‘healthy low fat’ ones.

According to The Glutamate Association, a lobby group sponsored by food manufacturers’ (http://www.msgfacts.com/facts/msgfact12.html), the reason MSG is added to food is to encourage people to eat more. Their home page singles out the elderly as most benefited by MSG-laced food, since taste diminishes in the elderly and MSG causes them to eat more.

Interestingly, several attempts have been made to pass a bill in Congress that would prevent lawsuits from obese people against food manufacturers or retailers like McDonalds. Called the “Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act” also known as the “Cheeseburger Bill” it has twice been passed by the House and turned down by the Senate. Opponents make the analogy to the tobacco industry, which eventually was held accountable for creating disease in its customers.

Are Today’s Kids Overstimulated? MSG is also considered an “excitotoxin,” which is a substance added to food and beverages that stimulates neurons. Glutamate is the active ingredient in MSG. It is a neurotransmitter found mainly in the brain and spinal cord. Glutamate can cause neurons to become extremely excited and, if the dose is large enough, the cells will die.

In his book, Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills, author Russell Blaylock relays the discoveries of neuroscientist Dr. John Olney. In 1948, Dr. Olney was working out of the Dept of Psychiatry at Washington University here in St Louis. He discovered that MSG caused widespread destruction of neurons. At the time of his report of findings, baby foods contained high levels of msg. His reports were ignored by medical journals, but after he and other doctors testified before congress as to their findings, MSG was voluntarily removed from baby foods in 1969.

While one can argue if an obese individual can blame his condition on McDonalds, it is interesting to note the
rise in childhood obesity with the prevalence of msg in our foods and the shift from home cooked meals to
fast food meals.

Interested in saving on dental costs in the long run? Simplify your lifestyle by eating more meals prepared with unprocessed ingredients. It will have a profound effect on your overall health as well.

Americans today consume far more of their daily calories from carbohydrates than they did 30 years ago. In fact, soft drinks have now replaced white bread as the leading source of calorie consumption in America.

A 64 oz “Big Gulp” has an average of 800 calories and zero, none, nada nutritional value. That’s right…empty calories. The average adult requires 1600 to 2400 calories a day and a large soda averages 800 of these…supplying nothing to the body that it needs.

Your consumption of carbohydrates, whether in the form of high fructose corn syrup, grain or sugars, will determine whether or not you’re able to manage your weight and maintain optimal health.

If you’re overweight or your health is suffering, make a U-turn in your health by eliminating grains, sugars and foods containing high fructose corn syrup. If you rely on restaurant food for most of your meals, you’re likely slashing decades from your lifespan and increasing the likelihood of having to rely on expensive and potentially toxic drugs to treat the symptoms that will result from not eating healthy.

What to do?

Return to your kitchen and embrace good old-fashioned home cooking.

Return to a diet of simple foods. Restrict your grocery shopping to the perimeter of the grocery store, which gives you produce, dairy and meats. The processed foods are in the middle.

Restrict your intake of processed food to only 10% and get the rest from simple ingredients.

Purchase only meats and fowl raised without hormones, or antibiotics. These additives get into your system and affect your overall health. When you select your own ingredients, you control the calories.

The benefits of making the changes mentioned above include:

• More energy
• Added years to your lifespan
• Reducing risks of cancer, heart disease and arthritis.

Much of the information for this articles was taken from Dr. Mercola’s site.

A typical dental exam checks your teeth for cavities and your gums for disease and stops there. It doesn’t include examining your jaw joints and their impact on your dental health and your overall health. This more comprehensive dental exam is important in “orthopedic dentistry,” which ensures your jaw joints are balanced.

An “orthopedic dentistry” exam notes the teeth position and function of your teeth and their supporting structures; an analysis of how your teeth fit together when you bite down; an examination of your chewing and speech — and the movement of your jaws and joints and how they impact all of the above.

Taking the exam even further, the experience of the practitioner determines how much he/she is able to detect. Usually, a dentist doesn’t see much beyond what he or she can treat. At Artistic Dentistry, we treat nearly any dental situation — from root canals to orthodontics to cosmetics to identifying the “mysterious” reason for a tooth problem. In short, the scope of responsibility your practitioner is willing to take depends upon his/her knowledge.

Your teeth and mouth tell a story. Your mouth, gums and jaws indicate much about your overall health. Aside from your dental condition — I can sometimes detect conditions like osteoporosis, leukemia, cancer and even bulimia.

A young woman came to me with tonsils that had been swollen for fifteen years. She had regular dental care while growing up and five years of orthodontics. Neither her dentist or her orthodontist had suggested she see a specialist about the swollen tonsils. I queried her about a list of symptoms I suspected she was suffering from, including chronic fatigue. Wide-eyed, she sat up in my chair and asked “how do you know all this about me?” I immediately referred her to a surgeon who diagnosed that her condition as life-threatening.

A man came to me after spending $50,000 on cosmetic dental treatment. The doctor overseeing the case only performed cosmetic procedures and had referred him to several specialists to perform various phases, such as root canals, extractions, etc. After two years of treatment and expense, the patient still had lower crooked teeth. Why? The specialist overseeing his case didn’t perform orthodontics and told this patient he didn’t need it. After spending $50,000 to rehab your mouth, wouldn’t you want straight teeth? In our office, the steps of his treatment program would have been put in a sequential order that would have included orthodontics at the correct stage.

A dentist with multi-disciplinary skills sees beyond a limited set of procedures. So, the next time my staff in St Louis calls to get you scheduled for your cleaning and exam, you should know that this is one of the most important visits to the dentist you can make. If you value the health of your mouth and plan to keep your teeth for a lifetime, then we’re both on the same page.

Here’s a simplistic description of “brush border” that will probably make any medical person who is intimately familiar with this cringe, but I’m more interested in being understood than in being absolutely technically accurate.

Your brush border aids in the absorption of nutrients by increasing the surface area inside your gut wall. When this surface area is reduced from long term antibiotic therapy, suppressant medications and even stress, the brush border is compromised. The less brush border, the fewer nutrients get absorbed from your food and vitamins. That means the less healthy you’ll be and the less resistant your gums will be to periodontal disease. Having brush border is like having a big savings account. If you suffer a financial setback, you don’t hit the panic button. Brush border determines if you’re going to catch this year’s virus or be able to resist it. And, in case you haven’t guessed by now, brush border determines how quickly your gums are impacted by poor hygiene habits.

That’s why some people who are fanatical about brushing and flossing can still get periodontal disease. Others whose hygiene habits aren’t great, never seem to even get bleeding gums. Those people are in better overall health. They have good brush border and their resistance is higher.

In either case, you don’t want to ignore the signs of periodontal disease. You want to address redness and swelling right away. Your gum health contributes to your internal health and vice versa. So, pay attention to those gums. Like the red light on your car dashboard, their condition indicates your overall health.

While standing at a checkout counter recently, I was intrigued by a photo in a fitness magazine that featured a trim, muscular 63 year old man in a headstand pose. The article described how, by the age of 57, he had grown fat, tired and zapped of energy. He realized that his lifestyle, if continued, would lead to a very unhealthy old age. He dedicated himself to getting fit, started doing yoga and committed to doing it every day. At first he found it painful to stretch body parts that hadn’t moved in years. He persisted and at 63 he was more limber, stronger and healthier than at any other time in his life.

According to Dr. Eric Plasker, author of THE 100 YEAR LIFESTYLE, aging poorly is not inevitable. You have a choice. Based on your parents and grandparents’ experiences, you’ll see where you are headed unless you choose a different path. That path may include major shifts in lifestyle, such as regular exercise, balancing hormones, vitamin and mineral therapy, eating organic foods, and a commitment to maintaining your dental health.

It sometimes takes a rude awakening to realize that you are the only one who can alter the course of your own health. Many people don’t give up smoking until they suffer a heart attack; many don’t lose weight until they’re diagnosed with diabetes. And though we’re constantly urged to exercise, many don’t take it up until they find themselves huffing and puffing walking up a short flight of stairs.

Many common diseases seen in older people in this country are not a normal part of aging in other parts of the world. According to Dr. Plasker, these diseases are largely brought on by lifestyle choices. That’s a sobering thought. You can influence not only how you feel today, but whether you’ll have a healthy body in your geriatric years.

At 60, I’m in better health than when I was 40. Through a change of diet — eating less and eating organic — as well as starting yoga a few years ago, I’ve lost weight and feel healthier than ever. A recent physical showed my blood pressure to be lower than normal for my age.

As your St Louis dental health provider, I know that no matter how beautiful you make your teeth, unless the rest of your body is in good physical condition, your oral health will suffer. And conversely, your oral health affects the rest of your body. Just as a diseased liver will affect the remainder of your body, so will diseased gums or missing teeth that throw off the delicate mechanism of chewing affect your health

All of the good habits you implement daily will culminate in healthier and thus more enjoyable later years.

Source: Journal of the American Dental Association March 2001

your son, daughter or grandkid wants to join the growing number of young adults with pierced tongues, they should be aware of the risks to their dental health.

These can cause tooth chipping and breakage and lead gums to recede due to rubbing and irritation.