Following on from my previous postings, let’s look at what happens in your mouth that causes the most annoying problems, costs you the most money and results in your dislike for the dentist.

Fact: the mouth is one of the most infected parts of the human body. The two main problems that people and dentists keep fighting (many times repeatedly and unsuccessfully over a long period of time) are tooth decay and gum disease.

They are both bacterial infections and it’s bugs that cause them. In fact they’re the most common infections of humankind, across all socioeconomic levels. Holes in teeth and gum and bone loss are the result of bacterial diseases. Bad breath is also caused by bugs (rotting food debris and dead human cells in your mouth). It is directly linked in with the other two problems.

So why can’t we just brush away these bugs like dentists tell us to do? There is much more to oral health than brushing and flossing properly (yet it is critical you do these properly and regularly).

Bugs live in “biofilms”; little cities that are held together by gluey proteins that also hold them to their “target” nice and snug. The target can be your skin, teeth, gums, tongue or guts. Some of the citizens of these biofilms are good for us and some are bad for us.

They’re always fighting for space and nutrients and see each other as either friends or foes. We win by keeping a positive balance of good bugs in our body and mouth to push away the bad guys. There is my paradigm again: balance and homeostasis.

To achieve that we must understand what different bugs like or don’t like. The good guys like what we like; oxygen, alkaline or neutral pH environment and do not interfere with our immune system. The bad guys hate oxygen (anaerobic), love acid (that’s how they dissolve our teeth and bone) and they cause our immune system to react (causing inflammation- which can be destructive to our whole health if left untreated for a long time).

Knowing your enemy helps you win the biological warfare going on inside your mouth and your body. Knowing yourself and your allies helps you stay healthier and make better “coalitions and allies” that protect you long term.

Were do we get these bugs from? Good and bad bugs are not inherited; they are begotten. First from our mothers, caregivers and siblings, then from other people we start kissing and sharing oral fluids with later on in life. Then we either become good or bad hosts to those biofilms thus help them set in (or not). So biofilms can change over time.

What helps bad biofilms grow and set in?

• Frequent intake of sugary foods and drinks - fruit juice, honey, candy, sweetened waters, energy and fizzy drinks, nibbling on dried fruit, refined carbohydrates like white bread and more.

• Frequent intake of acid - fruit juices or lemon in water (if sipped on during the day), fizzy drinks (even diet ones), energy and sports drinks, flavoured waters, alcoholic drinks, acidic mouthwashes.

• Reflux - acid coming up from your stomach.

• Lack of oxygen in your mouth - when biofilms are so thick because you don’t clean well, especially in between your teeth and under the gums, the oxygen hating bugs grow more. Smoking deprives cells from oxygen also.

• Dry mouth or lack of saliva - if you’re dehydrated most of the day (high alcohol or caffeine intake and/or low water intake) or if you take drugs or medications. Ageing also causes less saliva flow.

• Acidic body that lacks mineral and buffers.

How do we win the biofilm war?

• Be good to yourself and the good bugs and deprive the bad bugs = Create balance.

• Juice, lemon in water and honey limited to once or twice a day.

• Refined sugars and carbohydrates should be reduced to a minimum frequency and quantity (three meal times a day = three sugar hits a day- no more).

• Increase your water and alkaline food intake.

• Caffeine and alcohol limited to 1-2 cups/glasses a day.

• Limit or stop smoking.

• Find an exceptional dentist and hygienist who will help you change your biofilm, clean better, understand health risks and manage them, rather than just fill cavities and take out teeth without looking at the cause.

• Use alkaline, soap (SLS) free toothpaste and alcohol free, neutral or alkaline mouthwashes.