November 9, 2022

DF0005 - Nighttime is the "Undiscovered Country" of Oral Health

Nighttime is The Undiscovered Country of Oral Health

This is another excerpt from a course in my online Oral-Systemic Health for Life Masterclass.

(Be sure to read the disclaimer at the bottom of this document.)

Welcome to the Dental Fitness Weekly Newsletter v.0005; ~1096 words; 4.5 minutes reading time

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Stephan Curve Modified from:

Night-time Dental Plaque pH While Sleeping (Journal of Oral Rehabilitation 2016 43; 356–363)

(The results suggest that mouth breathing during sleep is related to a decrease in intraoral pH compared with normal breathing during sleep, and this has been proposed as a causal factor for dental erosion and caries.)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joor.12372

A quick recap of the last few newsletters to explain the image above:

From last week's newsletter, you know the frustration AND the danger of bad morning breath. Bad morning breath is potentially deadly.

This week's newsletter will show you why nighttime is so critical for oral health.

If you've been following me for a little while, you know that tooth decay and gum disease are infectious microbial diseases. They are not directly caused by sugar or sweets. In fact, newsletter #1 showed how tooth decay can happen even in the absence of sugars and sweets. And this knowledge is especially important for control of dental problems overnight.

Recall from the Stephan Curve that tooth decay begins within the first two minutes of decay microbes eating carbohydrates. And the decay continues for nearly an hour after the microbes eat carbohydrates.

Therefore, if your meals, snacks, and drinks contain any carbohydrates, you will suffer, on average, one hour of tooth decay after finishing any carbohydrate intake. So, if you eat, snack and drink 5 to 7 times during the waking hours, you will suffer 5 to 7 hours of tooth decay during those hours. However, if you chew xylitol gum right after consuming any carbs, you will suffer the decay process for only about 23 minutes per meal.

So How Does This Relate To Nighttime Oral Health? You Can't Chew Gum While Sleeping!

If you don't do oral hygiene before bedtime, you simply leave a smorgasbord of various foods for your decay microbes to eat all night long.

But even if you do oral hygiene before bedtime, recall that saliva is a mucoprotein, and the mucin portion of saliva is a carbohydrate! Decay germs can break the carbohydrates from the saliva proteins and eat the carbs. Then they can make acids that dissolve teeth.

Therefore, it's totally possible and probable that you will suffer tooth decay every night. In fact, it could be about five times per night, for a total of about 4.5 hours of tooth decay per night!

And it's even worse if you suffer from dry mouth, especially nighttime dry mouth.

Looking at the nighttime Stephan Curve below, you can see that the red areas depict distinct active decay potential where dental plaque pH is below 6.2. The green areas depict dental plaque pH above 6.2, where tooth decay is not possible. And this Stephan Curve is even after doing oral hygiene before bedtime!

nighttime dental plaque ph Stephan Curve

So What Can You Do?

1) This is where a lifestyle of Dental Fitness kicks in.

You see, when you develop the lifestyle and habits of Dental Fitness, you actually reduce the numbers of decay and gum disease germs in general. Therefore, you have fewer dental pathogens to worry about overnight.

It's kind of like a lifestyle of physical fitness and nutrition in which you don't have to worry about eating some crap food occasionally, because you are overwhelmingly making the correct decisions most of the time.

2) Use arginine bicarbonate toothpaste (Tom's of Maine Rapid Relief) which feeds alkaline-loving oral microbes. Some of the alkaline-loving microbes can fight dental pathogens, as well as helping to maintain a dental plaque pH above 6.2. And this helps curb the growth of acid-loving oral germs.

3) Always always always use xylitol gum 7 times per day. Every day. Studies show that people who use 7 grams of xylitol per day will have very few cavity germs after six months. And if you quit using xylitol gum after six months, it may take up to two years for the cavity germs to regroup enough to start causing decay again. My friend, Dr. Ellie Phillips also sells Xylitol products, and she has a unique preventive dental program you could follow.

4) Always scrape your tongue when doing oral hygiene, especially before bedtime. The tongue has a huge surface area for holding germs. In fact, if you brush your teeth but don't scrape your tongue, you're basically wasting your time doing oral hygiene.

5) Floss -- obviously. There are so many kinds of floss, you can find something you'll like. I personally like Glide Teflon floss because some of my teeth are so tight, I can't get the regular string floss between the teeth. Some people claim that Teflon floss is toxic. But there are always people who are on the absolutely totally natural alignment. Teflon may be toxic when heated above 500 degrees F. But in the mouth it's safe. Besides, even if Teflon might be toxic at 98 degrees F, the fact is that gum disease germs are thousands of times more dangerous than a few molecules of Teflon that might get into my system. As a dentist, I'm exposed every day to all kinds of toxins from room sanitizing sprays, blood, spit, tooth dust, mercury filling dust, ceramic dust, plastics, monomers, polymers, laser light, etc., not to mention automobile exhaust, brake dust, air pollution, fires, etc., etc. So, the infinitesimal possibility of Teflon from floss getting into my system is not a concern for me.

6) Oral irrigation. I'm a huge fan of oral irrigators. I have several. One is the portable Waterpik WP560. The other is the Burst Oral Irrigator. You can't go wrong with either of them. Oral irrigators can flush four times deeper into gums than floss cam reach. Plus, you can use a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide in the irrigators for extra effect.

7) Dental Probiotics. While you sleep at night, your mouth is basically just a warm, moist STINKUBATOR to grow billions of stinky, bad germs. SO -- WHY NOT GROW BILLIONS OF GOOD GERMS OVERNIGHT TO FIGHT BAD GERMS! You can do that safely with BREATHIFIC Dental Synbiotic Oral Strips. Just place a strip on your gums between your upper molar teeth and cheek, and it will stick in a few seconds. Then you can go to sleep while the strip works discreetly time-releasing and growing billions of good probiotic microbes over three to six hours while you sleep. Even better, if you suffer from dry mouth, you can sleep for about six hours without needing to wake up to drink water and then to pee several times per night. BREATHIFIC will be available soon. I hope by the end of November 2022.

In Summary

Now you can see how you can suffer dental decay overnight, even if you do oral hygiene before bedtime.

And now you can start to see how a lifestyle of dental fitness will help you more than just doing oral hygiene twice a day.

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Now that you’ve gone through this basic Dental Fitness education, you can jumpstart the rest of your Dental Fitness training in the links below.

Whenever you're ready, here are some ways I can help you, your family, and friends:
1. Improve your home oral hygiene with this free, downloadable, 22-page, PDF booklet: "7 Easy Steps to Start Supercharging Your Oral Hygiene Efforts".
2. Get my 58-page downloadable book "The RENUZORAL Method of Dental Fitness" for just $5.97 USD.
3. Visit my websites RENUORAL.com or Breathificdental.com and get any of the products I recommend
4. Enroll in my Oral-Systemic Health for Life Masterclass to create customized, effective dental fitness systems and take charge of your dental destiny once and for all.

To our oral-systemic health!

Dr. Steve Edwards

PS,

Next Week's Newsletter will be "Dental Fitness is Better Than Dental Insurance.

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Disclaimer:

The purpose of this document is to improve dental literacy. It is not meant to provide dental or medical advice, treat or prevent any disease, or take the place of regular dental care. As individuals differ, so will the results of the products and exercises in this document. The publisher, RENUzORAL, and Dr. Edwards shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage related to, or alleged to be related directly or indirectly to the content herein. This document is written mainly for average people in average dental and medical health from ages six through the golden years. For more specific or severe problems such as oral cancer, dry mouth, or advanced periodontal disease, and when starting any plans of nutrition, diet, supplementation, exercise, or prevention, please consult your dentist and/or physician to ensure that you are in proper health. Some of you may have medical problems or allergies that might limit your participation in the steps that follow. For additional preventive dental educational materials, videos, training, seminars, services, and links to products mentioned in this document, please visit: https://www.renuzoral.com.

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