January health series: Oral care
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First off, blessings to everyone affected by the LA fires. My elementary school and old home burned down and it’s sad. But I live in NYC now so my heart goes out to everyone who’s lost a home, a grocery store, a church, a school, a life.
Second off, it’s January. The official month of making life goals and hypothetically reinventing your entire self. Especially when it comes to health.
Last January, I published How to get into A+ health and How to figure out if I’m healthy. They were the result of listening to every longevity, fitness, and nutrition podcast worth it’s salt, then distilled to give 80/20 recommendations for how to be fit as hell through your 70s. They’re the most popular posts I’ve written to date, and the the advice there remains dynamite.
But it didn’t cover everything, so I’m building on it this year with one of 2024’s hottest health topics: oral care.
Somehow, 2024 was a big year for teeth. Andrew Huberman published a set of oral care protocols, the New York Times ran a whole thing on tooth health, and Azealia Banks had the most surprisingly useful Twitter post on oral care I’ve seen to date (while also getting into a celebrity feud).
So here’s my oral care roundup, largely taken from Andrew Huberman and oral care advice articles that interviewed real dentists. None of the product links are affiliate links, mostly cause I don’t got time for that.
The fundamentals
Your teeth are either in a state of demineralization or remineralization. Demineralization is when your teeth lose minerals when you eat and drink. Remineralization is when you add those minerals back through the calcium and phosphate in your saliva. Remineralization makes your teeth stronger. We like it.
So the whole schtick here is to do things that put your mouth in a state of remineralization. And the key to that is having saliva at the right pH level. Specifically a pH of 7.5 - 8.5 (7.0 is neutral). Here are the major do’s and don’ts for that.
What to NOT do
Drink sugary or acidic drinks (e.g. carbonated beverages). Sugary and acidic drinks lower the pH level of the mouth, causing demineralization. In fact it’s one of the most efficient ways to demineralize teeth out there.
Alcohol and stimulants. Same as soda, alcohol and stimulants like cocaine and meth encourage the demineralization of your teeth by making the pH of your mouth more acidic and drying out the mouth. This is why meth addicts’ teeth are especially no bueno. Adderall and other stimulating ADD drugs also fit into this camp, albeit to a lesser degree, so folks on those meds should take special care of their teeth.
Mouth breath. This causes dry mouth. Since saliva helps neutralize acids and pH levels in the mouth, a lack of saliva can lead to demineralization. There are many other health reasons to not mouth breath, but the biggest one in my book is that it just looks kinda goofy.
What to do (in order)
Do your dental routine before breakfast and coffee. Brushing before breakfast removes bacteria, increases saliva production, and protects your teeth from acids in food and coffee. Doing it right after sugary food or acidic beverages like coffee can promote demineralization. If you do brush after coffee/breakfast, wait at least 30 minutes. Also, floss before you brush. It’s shown more plaque is removed this way.
During the day, go long periods without eating or drinking. Peak saliva production happens during the day. The more saliva at the right pH level, the more your teeth remineralize. Eating and drinking anything interesting will lower your mouth’s pH, so going 2 - 6 hours without eating while awake improves tooth remineralization.
Do your dental routine at the end of the day. Night time is the most important time to brush and floss. This is because saliva production is dramatically reduced at night, and so if you have food or drink remnants in your mouth at night, you don’t have as as much saliva to bring the pH levels back up to neutral. And again, you don’t want to brush directly after a meal because many meals cause demineralization, so brushing at least 30 minutes after is ideal.
What to use
Floss and/or waterpik. Both work very well, and are complementary to each other. Bryan Johnson, king of doing the most for all things health, does both. Bryan Johnson uses Dr. Tung’s Floss and says it removes 25% more floss. I like this silk floss by Biom because it’s a) not plastic and b) make me feel like a fancy boy for $10. I don’t personally waterpik because flossing is enough of a pain for me, but here’s New Yorg Mag’s recommendations which was counseled by dentists.
Tooth brush. Use an electric toothbrush with SOFT bristles. Hard bristles should be illegal. Medium bristles should be under some Trump tariff situation. Hard bristles, and to a lesser extent medium strength bristles, disrupt the interface between the teeth and gum and causes gum recession. Literally no reason to put them in your mouth.
Toothpaste. All good toothpaste has a remineralization agent in it, which is exactly what fluoride is. But fluoride ain’t the only remineralization agent in town. Hydroxyapatite is another, and is actually what our own mouths naturally create to remineralize our teeth. Hydroxyapatite and fluoride seem comparably effective at remineralizing. I use hydroxyapatite since I like the idea that it’s similar to the natural hydroxyapatite my mouth creates. Specifically I use David’s toothpaste.
How to use it
Floss. Get that string all the way in there, curve it against the teeth, and rub. Take no prisoners. You’re there to give those food bits absolute hell.
Brushing. Apply soft pressure, not hard, especially with an electric toothbrush. And brush your gums. When you brush the gums, you encourage blood flow to deeper areas of the gums and mouth, which is good for tooth health and decreases sensitivity to hot/cold sensations. It also seems like the American Dental Association’s recommendation of brushing for 2 minutes at a time is a good one. This study and this study showed brushing for just 45 seconds (the average folks actually brush their teeth) or 1 minute removed far less plaque.
If I missed anything, let me know in the comments and I’ll edit this accordingly :)
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