Chapter 1: Why is oral health important for overall well-being?
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are discussing oral health.
Now, when most people hear oral health, they immediately think tooth health and appearance and presumably fresh breath or lack of bad breath as well. And while, of course,
tooth and breath, freshness, whiteness, and health is a critical component of oral health.
Today you will learn that oral health, including the oral microbiome, the health of your palate, your tonsils, indeed the entire oral cavity is an extremely important component of general bodily health. So much so that today we are going to add a seventh pillar to the so-called six pillars of mental health, physical health, and performance.
This is not a trivial step to add a seventh pillar to these six pillars.
If some of you have been listeners of this podcast for a while, you may recall that the six pillars of mental health, physical health, and performance, that is the six things that everyone needs to invest specific protocols into each day are in no particular order, by the way, sleep, sunlight, and light exposure generally, which by extension also includes dark exposure, nutrition,
exercise, which we could also call movement, both cardiovascular exercise and resistance training, stress management and relationships and social engagement, including relationship to self. And today we are going to add oral health and microbiome health. And I suppose we could generally call this oral and gut health because as you
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Chapter 2: What protocols can strengthen your teeth and gums?
No, if you think about it, your mouth, your oral cavity and your gut are contiguous with one another. We are going to add oral and gut health as the seventh pillar of mental health, physical health and performance, because as you will learn today, there are so many aspects of oral health and daily protocols for oral health that extend to
cardiovascular health, to metabolic health, and indeed to brain health and to staving off diseases in all of those bodily compartments. I cannot overemphasize enough how much oral health influences your general bodily health. So today you will learn about oral biology and health.
We won't go too deep into the biology, but we will go deep enough into the biology that you will learn some incredible things such as your teeth have the ability to
literally fill back in cavities that have formed provided those cavities haven't gone too deep into the teeth layers yet you will learn that saliva while most people think of it as just spit is an incredible substance fluid that contains all sorts of interesting and important things that allow you to rebuild the strength of your teeth and indeed to support the health of your oral cavity and gut microbiome and body generally so saliva
is super interesting and important. And today you're going to learn many, many protocols, including zero cost protocols, protocols that will actually save you money, as well as some low cost protocols to both restore, improve and maintain oral health. And in doing so, maintain and improve your overall bodily health.
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Today's episode is also brought to us by Waking Up.
Waking Up is a meditation app that includes hundreds of meditation programs, mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra sessions, and NSDR, non-sleep-deep-rest protocols.
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Chapter 3: How do cavities form and what role does sugar play?
I started using the Waking Up app a few years ago because even though I've been doing regular meditation since my teens, and I started doing yoga nidra about a decade ago,
My dad mentioned to me that he had found an app, turned out to be the Waking Up app, which could teach you meditations of different durations and that had a lot of different types of meditations to place the brain and body into different states and that he liked it very much.
So I gave the Waking Up app a try and I too found it to be extremely useful because sometimes I only have a few minutes to meditate, other times I have longer to meditate. And indeed, I love the fact that I can explore different types of meditation
to bring about different levels of understanding about consciousness, but also to place my brain and body into lots of different kinds of states, depending on which meditation I do. I also love that the Waking Up app has lots of different types of yoga nidra sessions. For those of you who don't know, yoga nidra is a process of lying very still, but keeping an active mind.
It's very different than most meditations. And there's excellent scientific data to show that yoga nidra and something similar to it, called non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR, can greatly restore levels of cognitive and physical energy, even with just a short 10 minute session. If you'd like to try the Waking Up app, you can go to wakingup.com slash Huberman and access a free 30 day trial.
Again, that's wakingup.com slash Huberman to access a free 30 day trial. Okay, let's talk about oral health. This absolutely critical aspect of not just having fresh, bright teeth and no cavities and fresh breath, or at least lack of bad breath, one would hope, but also total body health.
As I mentioned a little bit earlier, oral health is inextricably linked to all aspects of brain and bodily health, both in the short term and in the long term. And it is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of mental health and physical health. So today I'd like to start off with a quiz. I'm going to ask you which of the following three categories you believe you best fall into. Okay.
The first category is those of you out there who brush and floss every day, probably twice a day, and who make some effort to try and keep your teeth clean, who like the feeling of your teeth being clean, and who pay a fair amount of attention to whether or not your teeth are getting whiter or not getting whiter, maybe whether or not your breath is fresh or not fresh.
Maybe, okay, these aren't requirements for being in this category, but maybe you're somebody who also uses a mouthwash or uses mints or gums in order to try and keep your mouth smelling and looking fresh and your mouth clean.
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Chapter 4: What are the best practices for brushing and flossing?
And by the way, if you're in category one and you do those things and you do a bunch of other things like tooth whitening, and maybe you go to the dentist, especially often more than the recommended twice per year, that still puts you in category one. Okay, second category are those of you out there who are, let's say, a bit more blase about your oral and tooth care.
Those of you that perhaps just brush your teeth in the morning so that your breath is fresh, you can clean out that kind of sticky feeling in your mouth that's accumulated overnight, that sometimes brush and maybe floss at night, but you know, a lot of times you fall asleep without doing that, or you don't feel like doing it, or perhaps that don't really floss at all, okay?
perhaps go to the dentist once every six months, maybe a little less, maybe once a year, once every couple of years. So while there's a bunch of different things that could put you into category two, let's make a basic requirement for belonging to category two, that you brush your teeth once a day, but not twice a day on a regular basis. or that you brush twice a day, but that you rarely floss.
Okay, that would put you into what I'm calling category two. And then of course, there's the third category that maybe some of you out there fall into. And this is the category of people who are extremely diligent, not just about
tooth care, but also about oral health generally, about maintaining the microbiome of your mouth, about making sure that your gums are very healthy, about making sure that your soft palate and hard palate is very healthy, about making sure that, yes, your teeth are clean, that they're devoid of as much
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Chapter 5: How can nutrition affect oral health?
bacterial buildup and other stuff in there that can cause cavities, but also that you're paying careful attention to your oral microbiome and the overall milieu of your health in the mouth. And the fact that your mouth is linked to all these different aspects of brain and cardiac and metabolic health, okay?
If you fall into that third category, great, but let's be honest, most people, I would argue, 95, maybe even 98% of people or more fall into either category one or category two. So as you're hearing this, you're probably thinking, okay, well, if I'm in category one, I'm good, right? I go to the dentist twice a year, I brush and floss. I use some mouthwash, I even brighten my teeth.
I make sure that if I had a sugary meal, I'll rinse out my mouth. I try not to drink acidic foods, things that we'll discuss today as to whether or not they actually have relevance for cavity formation or not. But guess what? If you are in category one, as I described it, or category two, chances are you are doing things to really deplete and disrupt your oral health.
That's right, even if you're paying a lot of attention to tooth health, chances are, if you're like most people out there, simply because you don't have the latest information on what oral health really is and how to best support it, chances are you are doing things that yes, might be keeping your teeth white and clean and you're not getting cavities or you're not,
being told you have cavities that need to be filled when you go to the dentist twice a year or more. But that you are disrupting your oral health in ways that are depleting other aspects of your brain and bodily health. And I'm not here to scare you.
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Chapter 6: What are the dangers of mouth breathing?
I'm just here to tell you that if you're in category one, okay, you're clearly doing some things that are beneficial for you, but that there's some additional things that you can do and a few things to avoid doing that very likely will improve your overall bodily health very quickly. And the good news is those things are also zero or low cost, or in some cases can save you substantial cost.
Now, if you're in category two, chances are you are depleting both your oral health and your overall bodily health. But here's what's interesting. Some of the folks in category two that are not doing as much for the, let's say hygiene and freshening and whitening of their teeth actually have a healthier overall oral microbiome. That's not always the case, but often it can be the case.
So what you're going to discover today is whether you're in category one or category two, there are some wonderful and easily accessible practices that are well backed by science. And by the way, in preparation for this episode, I also consulted with no fewer than five dentists, including a
pediatric dentist, I talk to a periodontist, I talk to people who fall into the functional dentist category, I talk to people with a bunch of different orientations who are all heavily qualified to talk about and to make recommendations about oral health and tooth health, et cetera. And what I'm going to deliver today is essentially the overlap in the Venn diagram of what they all agreed on.
I'll highlight a few differences that they each had and that several of them had, they do fall into different camps, but I was positively surprised how much overlap or consensus there was in terms of best protocols for tooth and oral health.
And by the way, if you're in that third category of the person that's doing a lot for their tooth health and appearance and breath, et cetera, but also oral health and microbiome, I'm sure that today you'll also learn some new health practices and some things that will allow you to expand on your already terrific practices for oral health.
Let's get into the material about oral health, focusing first on tooth anatomy and health and a little bit about mouth anatomy. I promise to not go into this in too much depth, but we really need to have a firm basis, a foundation of understanding of what the mouth cavity really consists of. And I'm not just going to throw a bunch of names out there for sake of nomenclature.
I don't need to cloud your hippocampus.
with that sort of information, unless it's functional information, but it is critical functional information for the rest of our discussion, where we'll talk about ways that you can really build up the strength of your teeth, even if cavities have already started to form, and how to really get your saliva to be the best, healthiest saliva for your overall mouth and for your gut and for your brain, your heart, et cetera.
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Chapter 7: How can xylitol help prevent cavities?
Light can make it through, but it's not transparent. It's not like a clear window. It's translucent. Light can make it through, but it's a bit opaque. Beneath the enamel is a structure called dentin. Dentin is important for today's discussion because as it turns out, cavities form, not surprisingly, from the outside
of teeth inward and cavities, as the name suggests, are holes that bacteria burrow down through the enamel and if you're unlucky, make it down to the dentin. Our goal, meaning your goal, is to engage in daily protocols.
that's right, daily protocols that are simple and fast and zero or very low cost that allow you to avoid the formation of those cavities, yes, but also that can allow you to fill in those cavities.
This is one of the most important things to understand about oral health that frankly, I didn't know until I started researching this episode and talking to all these experts in the field, which is that you can repair cavities that have started to form. That's right. Your mouth environment, based on its chemistry,
and some things that are mechanical, but mostly based on its chemistry, in particular, how acidic it is or how basic it is, is always in a state of what's called either demineralization or remineralization. Now, those words are hard to say, and they're especially hard to say fast. demineralization, remineralization. It's a little bit of a tongue twister.
Today, I'm going to use a shorthand that's a convention in the dentistry field, which is demin or remin to refer to demineralization or remineralization. Remineralization is good. It is the process by which within the enamel and to some extent in the deeper dentin layer of the tooth, but especially within the enamel, there can be the addition of new minerals that form very robust,
essentially chains of crystals, okay? If you've ever looked at a crystal of any kind under a microscope, or you've seen a picture of it, they are incredibly well-organized. They form a lattice of very strong, often, although there are weaker crystals too, very strong bonds and structure. It's like the structure of a really well-formed building, okay?
Remineralization is the process of putting minerals back into that crystal structure. And it's actually possible to fill back in those cavities that bacteria have started to form, especially when those cavities have burrowed down into the enamel, but have not yet made it into the dentin layer of the tooth or teeth. Okay, this is very important to understand.
It's especially important to understand in the context of the fact that typically, not always, but typically if you have a cavity formed at one tooth, and let's say it's just halfway or three quarters of the way through the enamel layer, that if you have cavities elsewhere in your mouth, chances are that they are at the same depth or level. Not always, but chances are.
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Chapter 8: What is the relationship between oral health and brain health?
I had a very traumatic childhood with respect to dentistry and oral health. I'll talk about it a little bit later in the episode. It's not that I had tons and tons of cavities. I actually had this other issue where my adult teeth came in behind my baby teeth. I had all my baby teeth pulled. I had to get a bunch of injections of Novocaine in my mouth.
I didn't like getting injections into my mouth. So I opted to have any cavities I had drilled without Novocaine. It's not because I was a tough little kid, although that definitely toughened me up. It was because I hated having syringes in my mouth. I might've even bitten a dentist or two or three. I don't bite the dentist anymore. I thank the dentist. By the way, I think dentists are wonderful.
Regular cleanings are wonderful. We'll talk about frequency of cleanings, but here's the point. If you are somebody who enjoys getting your teeth drilled, well, then I don't know what to say. But if you're like most people out there with proper wiring of your neurology, well, then you don't like getting your teeth drilled and
you can avoid it in many cases by remineralizing that enamel layer of your teeth. Now, if there's demineralization down to the deeper dentin layers of the tooth, then most often you're going to need it to be drilled, drilled and filled as they say, or as some people say, which is a bit more cynical, drill, fill, and bill, because you get charged for that, or your insurance gets charged for that.
Okay, back to some tooth anatomy and mouth anatomy. We talked about the enamel layer of the tooth on the outside. I told you that it either can demineralize, demin, or remineralize, remin. This is a key point. Your teeth are always in a state of either demin or remin. That's right, either demin or remin. It's not both at the same time, it's one or the other.
And it is largely dependent on the pH, that is the acidity of your mouth, which is largely dependent on how much saliva you're producing and the mineral content of that saliva. Keep that in mind, I think it's a very important point. Now, another key point is that next to your teeth, right, you have your gums, the gingiva, as it's called.
Now the gingiva provides a really important role in keeping the teeth stable. We don't often think of it like that, but even though that stuff seems gummy and soft, it is soft tissue, it is very important for fixing the teeth to the bone. It's not just about the roots that extend down into the jawbone below. The gums are very important for keeping the teeth where they are.
There's actually a little ligament too, between gums and the teeth that resides a little bit deeper, but the gums form a critical barrier between the oral cavity and the deeper layers of what eventually is bone and into the general blood flow or bloodstream of the body. Now, this is so important to understand that the gums are a seal around the tooth.
This is why when you go to the dentist, they're paying attention with that little pick. They're paying attention to how high or hopefully low the tenting is, the little recesses or pockets of gums along the, here I go, yes, I have my tooth in my mouth. Yes, I'll try not to do that during today's episode, point to my teeth so much so that I'm then, you know, you can't understand what I'm saying.
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