Dental Health
Here’s How Altering My Diet Solved the Unbearable Teeth Problems Sustainably.
Oral diseases affect around 3.5 billion people, but lifestyle choices might reduce their effects.
Dental health is a non-trivial matter. The World Health Organization (WHO) informs that “nearly 3.5 billion people are affected by oral diseases.”
Dental health might look relatively minor compared to major diseases causing millions of death yearly. However, from my experience, we only understand its importance when we feel the pain caused by severe teeth problems.
According to WHO, “untreated dental caries (tooth decay) in permanent teeth is the most common health condition in the Global Burden of Disease 2019. There is also a causal link between high sugar consumption and diabetes, obesity, and dental caries.”
WHO classifies oral diseases as “tooth decay, gum disease, oral cancer, oro-dental trauma, noma, and cleft lip and palate.”
Teeth pain caused by decay, cavities, and gum disease caused me suffering, reducing my quality of life in my younger years. Therefore I feel obliged to pass along my tacit knowledge focusing on the dietary aspect.
A Brief Background to My Dental Health
Moving from a terrible situation to sustainable dental health has been one of the most inspiring achievements in my well-being journey. Thus, I’d like to give a high-level perspective from my experience.
In a recent story, I documented five nightmares caused by nutritional deficiencies in my younger years. One of the five nightmares was severe dental problems putting me in a miserable situation from a health and financial angle.
The sign of this poignant issue happened when one of my teeth fell while eating an apple on a fruitarian diet. It badly hurt when it got stuck in the middle of the fruit.
The only option was to see a dentist hoping to reduce the unbearable pain. However, the dentist gave the scary news informing me that my teeth health required substantial investment.
He wanted me to attend dentist appointments once a week for several years. There was no option. As a student, this new expense devastated me. I had to start part-time work to afford the dental costs after full-time school hours. It added fuel to my chronic stress.
As teeth pain turned out to be unbearable, I started the expensive sessions. Fortunately, my uncle agreed to cover some of the costs. The pain lowered my self-confidence and mood, impacting my mental health.
During the investigation, the dentist gave me another piece of bad news. He informed me of severe gum disease, which required heavy antibiotic treatment.
The treatment reduced the symptoms of gum disease but caused an imbalance in my gut, adding more health conditions.
The root cause of teeth problems and associated health conditions were nutritional deficiencies caused by my low fat and high carb diet lacking bioavailable proteins.
In the next section, I introduce how diets affect our dental health and provide the changes I made contributing to my improved health.
How Diet Affects Dental Health
The eye-opening moment in dental health was my first dietary discussion with an anthropology professor who was much older than me and had excellent dental health.
His literature review about ancestral eating regimens gave me valuable clues. Leveraging his anthropological artifacts, I started reviewing dental health literature. The pattern from a dietary angle became apparent.
As documented in this paper, “Inadequate nutrition can affect oral health including dental caries, periodontal diseases, diseases of the oral mucosa, and infectious diseases. Recognizing and treating oral health and nutrition problems are important in improving the health and quality of life.”
I learned that the lack of minerals like calcium, phosphorous, potassium, and vitamins such as Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, and Vitamin A in the diet was one of the significant risk factors for dental health.
However, the most surprising aspects of nutrients for dental health were bioavailable proteins and healthy fats that I lacked. The worst enemy of my dental health was excessive sugar consumption which was part of my unbalanced diet.
Undertaking a comprehensive literature review has shed light on what I was doing wrong. My diet did not support dental health at all. Therefore, I experienced severe issues at such a young age.
I was pleased the dentist solved immediate issues such as treating gum disease and reducing pain. However, I had to take personal responsibility to improve my dental health sustainably.
The first positive difference manifested when I replaced carbs with healthy fats. Within a short time, like six months, I noticed a significant improvement in my teeth health. However, I still needed to visit the dentist regularly to clean my teeth and improve them.
Nevertheless, a radical advancement happened as soon as I started a one-meal day eating regimen with a keto-carnivore diet. My teeth did not need cleaning anymore as there were no plagues. My new diet provided every nutrition needed for my dental health.
All occasional disturbances disappeared. Even though I got older, my teeth got stronger and shinier with no disturbances. When I visited a new dentist after a few years, she couldn’t find any problems.
The dentist was curious about how I looked after my teeth. When I mentioned my eating regimen, she got surprised. First, she said my eating regimen was not sustainable based on her medical knowledge.
I listened to her assertions and opinions expecting them. However, as I researched the literature deeper than her by triangulating with experience and observations, her beliefs did not reduce my confidence in my dietary choice.
After a year, the dental clinic wanted me to visit for regular check-ups. However, there was no need for me as my dental health improved after a year. My dentist was not happy losing a customer, but I was thrilled for sustainable dental health, not depending on dentists.
I always respect dentists. They helped me in difficult situations by treating my condition timely. Moreover, millions of people, from very young to old, depend on dentists’ services. Therefore, I don’t undermine their value and support to society.
Like thousands of people, I am happy to be one of the exceptions who took personal responsibility and resolved the issues with dietary changes.
To conclude this section, I’d like to include two related testimonies regarding the effects of diet on dental health from people of equivalent age who followed matching diets.
Interestingly, a discerning reader who is a medical doctor (Lisa Culton) left an interesting comment on one of my previous articles.
“I know someone who decided to “reduce” meat from their diet, which was already low fat and very fruit- and carb-heavy, and subsequently started experiencing their teeth falling out. I suspected it was diet-related and started researching and found out much of what you wrote in this article. The affected person still thinks I’m a nut for eating plenty of animal fats and meats, but I have a healthy mouth full of cavity-free teeth at age 50+.”
Conclusions and Takeaways
The focus of this article is diet. The critical point is addressing nutritional deficiencies causing teeth problems. A viable solution is a personalized diet with the support of a dietician or a nutritionist.
However, we must also consider other aspects of improving dental health.
One of the measures is increasing the duration and number of teeth brushing. But more importantly, flossing and interdental brushing also can contribute to dental health.
Since regular brushing cannot clean the areas between teeth, daily interdental brushing is essential to keep the teeth clean, remove plagues, and prevent gum disease. I posted an article titled This Simple Solution Helped Me Prevent Gum Disease.
WHO mentions that “Severe periodontal diseases, such as gum disease, affect around 14% of the global adult population.”
According to WHO, “risks of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes also affect dental health.”
As non-communicable diseases are widespread, I published an article titled What Can We Do About Non-communicable Diseases Killing 41 Million People Yearly? for awareness purposes.
According to WHO, we might reduce the risks of dental issues “by promoting a well-balanced diet low in free sugars, stopping use of all forms of tobacco, reducing alcohol consumption, and with adequate fluoride.”
Furthermore, during my literature review, studies indicated that gum disease led to heart problems due to the inflammation in the mouth, affecting the arteries’ inflammation.
As chronic inflammation is a risk factor for significant diseases, I documented my findings and experience in an article titled Here Is How I Defeated Chronic Inflammation via 9 Lifestyle Habits.
The takeaway of this article is the importance of essential minerals, vitamins, bioavailable protein sources, and healthy fats to improve the effectiveness of vitamins like Vitamin D and A. In addition, Vitamin K2 is essential to move calcium from the bloodstream to bones like teeth.
My self-love, self-compassion, and so-called “self-fish behavior” enabled me to self-care for my health, activating the body's self-healing mechanism.
I conclude my story by sharing the six reasons I feel younger and healthier as I get older.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a happy and healthy life.
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Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
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