Friday Favorites: How to Stop Tooth Decay
If sugar consumption is considered to be the one and only cause of cavities, how much is too much?
If Fructose Is Bad, What About Fruit? ( ) How Much Fruit Is Too Much? ( ) Watch the videos to find out!
How powerful is the sugar industry? Check out Big Sugar Takes on the World Health Organization ( ).
For videos on dental and oral health, see:
• Don’t Use Antiseptic Mouthwash ( )
• Plant-Based Diets: Oral Health ( )
• Plant-Based Diets: Dental Health ( )
• What’s the Best Mouthwash? ( )
• Protecting Teeth from Hibiscus Tea ( )
• Antibacterial Toothpaste: Harmful, Helpful, or Harmless? ( )
• Do Raisins Cause Cavities? ( )
• Is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate Safe? ( )
• Is CABP in SLS-Free Toothpaste Any Better? ( )
• Best Food for Periodontal Disease and Gingivitis ( )
• How to Treat Periodontitis with Diet ( )
• Best Foods for Halitosis and Gingivitis ( )
• The Worst Food for Tooth Decay ( )
• Should You Floss Before or After You Brush? ( )
What about bad breath? Check out:
• How to Naturally Treat Tongue Coating-Associated Halitosis (Bad Breath) ( )
• Foods That Cause and Help Halitosis (Bad Breath) ( )
• Effects of Tongue Scraping on Plaque, Gingivitis, and Cavities ( )
• Tongue Scraping vs. Tongue Brushing for Treating Halitosis (Bad Breath) ( )
• Does Tongue Scraping Cause Cancer? ( )
• How Tongue Scraping Can Affect Heart Health ( )
• How to Clean Your Tongue ( )
• Can Stress Cause Halitosis (Bad Breath)? ( )
• The Benefits of Gum Chewing for Halitosis (Bad Breath) ( )
• Dental Implant Overdentures and Cognitive Function ( )
Check out my podcast on Teeth and Smiles ( ).
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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM
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Love your content ❤
Thanks for the great information!
Since being in America been having tooth problems .
Thank you. I hate that the medical community doesn’t even address diet.
Literally not true lmao y’all love overdramatizing
@@oceanlawnlove8109 When has a doctor ever asked you about your diet? They don’t. They just prescribe drugs for high cholesterol when you could stop eating meat and lower it naturally. Maybe you’re too young to see it but you will.
@@beachvacay3184Doctors are not the whole of “medical community” research publishers and health associations also belong to this group and the american heart association has quite firmly established the importance of diet in heart health, obviously the oral health authorities also explain the dangers of processed foods and sugar in causing tooth decay.
And yes they should do more and medical doctors should have comprehensive training in nutrition.
This is of course an american and capitalistic problem, in Finland we get dietary advice on matters regarding such chronic health problems.
Why would I want to eat less meat? Better to eat no sugar and cut carbs than cut meat@@beachvacay3184
@@beachvacay3184 Exactly. And if you ASK for a Recommendation to a Nutritionist they “can’t” unless you ASK them to write that down Specifically in Your Charts… then SUDDENLY they Can.
I would love to see dental prices come down so that people can afford to go to the dentist. I was a hygienist for 25 years and have seen dental skyrocket to an almost unaffordable amount for even a middle class person. 8 grand for braces, 2 grand for a crown, and prices just going up and up. We can’t educate when kids aren’t seen for routine cleanings because a parent cannot afford to take them.
They wouldn’t need any of that, including cleaning, if they cut out all added sugar.
@@pmw3839 Gum disease, knocked out teeth, chipped teeth, crowding, etc.. have nothing to do with sugar. If we eliminated sugar we would still need dentists. You are still going to have plaque even if you cut out sugar, so a cleaning is still important. And shocking you can get cavities from things like chips, fruit and other carbohydrates because they break down into sugars. I was a pediatric dental hygienist for over 25 years.
@@MotiveMindMeditations Agreed. Prices are out of control. I’m in need of a tooth replacement but it’s like $4000 or probably even more now.
@@MotiveMindMeditations gum disease has everything to do with sugar. Please educate yourself before commenting!
@@ellen3093 Gum disease has other root causes other than sugar. I went to school, maybe you should go yourself.
Brilliant!
My daughter just asked me to buy her Fruit Loops today. I told her that I love her too much to do that.
thats mean
@SeminarioMAE If all parents were that responsible, there would be almost no junk food and way less illness and infirmity.
Just buy her fruits and skip the loops.
Growing up, there wasn’t much junk food in house ever. My mom’s response “that’s what parents buy their kids when they don’t love them” I always thought it was harsh, but if you know, it’s so true.
Maybe she could choose some fruit 🙂
I love your sarcasm so much 💝 very good point at the end 💪😎
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Sugar but not fruit? What’s the mechanism of that?
Probably has to do with the way it is packaged. Fruit sugar should be bound up with fiber and other compounds that limit it’s affect on cavities (think that’s also the reason fruit doesn’t cause blood sugar spikes), or the sugars in fruits are in storage mode (I can’t remember the glycogen equivalent for plants, amylopectin?) and doesn’t breakdown enough in the mouth to be easily accessed by mouth bacteria to start cavities. Added sugar isn’t packaged that way/should be more easily accessible to oral microbes. Fruit good, ice cream bad
@@parkersavage8774 The packaging of sugars and other nutrients in whole foods will take your system longer to unpack (in the digestive tract). And the amount and speed at which you can shove it into your body is different for processed sugary foods compared to whole foods. Processed sugars are devoid of fiber and other elements, and the amount in just one drink hits your system (teeth, bloodsugar) in one fell swoop of minutes. Whereas in fruit the total amount is smaller, as you’ll probably not eat two apples, or 3 oranges. Once you start processing, say, juicing 3 oranges, you’ll easily drink a glass with multiple fruits in it, which makes the sugar intake three times more, and much faster. Even more processed, like in soda or cereals, even more fibre and other good nutrients are taken out, and the sugar is more condensed so -to-speak. Little chewing, and more gulping. Fruit: chewing, soda and Ice cream: more of a gulping kind of intake. There can be 30grams of sugar in a soda, but you’d not often eat 3 apples (10grams of sugar) in half an hour. Also, in an apple there’ll be for instance anti-oxidants, the good stuff that repairs our cells and protects our system. In a can of soda, there’s nothing like that. So in processed sugary foods you’ll only have the bad, in higher percentages, hitting you faster, and without the protective nutrients.
The exact same goes for white flour as opposed to whole grains. Does this help?
I wish we had a label for foods that have 2.5% of sugar in the meal 😢
Why does sugar from fruit not increase chances of cavities?
Google it.
They’re both sweet to the tongue but on a MOLECULAR level they’re slightly different. The differences can matter in how different molecules react with S. mutans, the main bacteria that is responsible for Cavities, INCLUDING other components of the Fruit that the Sweetened Object doesn’t have. Nonetheless, if you don’t brush your teeth, Fruit Sugar can still react the Same Way, eventually.
Fiber.
I removed sugar from my diet 10 years ago. I eat only whole foods and have had no sugar that wasn’t in fruit naturally in it’s whole form. Life changing!
What if we have a food with added sugar in tandem with whole foods high in fiber? For example, I cook my oatmeal in sweetened soy milk and then add things like flax, berries, walnuts, and cinnamon. Would this still have the same effect?
why would that make a difference?
Watch out for dried fruits as well, I was eating a lot of dried mango pieces which triggered a cavity 🙁
Most dried fruits have added sugar. That’s a real problem too.💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
IDK. I used to get cavities frequently. Since I went vegan almost a decade ago, I havent had a singly one. And I havent changed my sugar intake. Id love to see stats comparing vegans to omnivores in cavity frequency.
I am paleo eat mostly meat, fish, eggs and low glycemic vegs and fruit and my dental cleanings are simple now. I use a water pik and brush once a day before bed.
right on man.
no sugar!!!!
I’m trying so hard everyday to not eat any garbage.
haven’t had fast food in at least 2 years now.
Please make a video about how to reverse a cavity
I had a client once who came to me looking in shock. She said she’d just come from her dentist and was told she had 12 cavities – 12!!! This all happened in a years time as she had her check ups once a year. She asked her dentist how that was possible, he said, poor oral hygiene and lots of sugar. She said she did suck on hard candies and drank sweet coffees all day long and sometimes forgot to brush her teeth before bedtime. I am an oral hygiene fanatic so I just couldn’t wrap my head around her lack of. But on the flip side my husband ate 2 packages of Jolly Ranchers every single day for as long as I can remember since being married to him, and he ate a lot of sweets in general but nerve drank sweet drinks yet his teeth are perfect and zero cavities. The only differences between him and my client was he rinsed his mouth often throughout the day and he never missed brushing his teeth and we always have out dental cleanings every six months.
WFPB as much as possible
💚🌱💚🌱💚