Personal Experience in Health

Here’s Why You May Need to Consider Oral Probiotics

Like your gut, oral probiotics are essential items you should consider taking for your overall health

I first discovered the term “oral probiotics” after I had an almost-like-death toothache. The kind of inflammation that won’t stop even after I took 2000 mg of Mefenamic acid in 2 hours. The pain was so unbearable that the doctor even sweated because I scream during the Novocaine injection procedure and other cleaning stuff that I better not remember again.

The overall event has opened awareness for my oral health. Besides brushing my teeth properly, I started to take my oral health seriously like flossing, which is culturally uncommon in my country, the ideal time to use mouthwash, xylitol, and oral probiotics.

Oral probiotics are a strange concept because at first, I thought it was about taking lots of yogurt as a mouthwash. Perhaps, I could share this experience-based information so you would start to consider adding this item to your overall oral hygiene routine.

• What is Oral Probiotics?
• Are Oral Probiotics Different from Gut Probiotics?
• Benefits of Oral Probiotics
• Your Sources for Oral Probiotics
• Conclusion

What is Oral Probiotics?

You must have heard the general information about probiotics. Probiotics are good bacteria mostly known for their impact on our digestive health system. Although further research found probiotics also play an essential part in sleep quality, cognitive reactivity, and mood.

For oral probiotics, I need you to realize how oral or mouth is essentially the main gate for every nutrition that your digestive system needs. For that, our mouth is heavily influenced by the “general” oral microbiome.

Some of the microbiome species can create acid by fermenting sugar. In the human language, your coffee, chicken tikka masala, 11 pm craving with ice cream is technically THE superfood for the bad bacteria to create lots of problems for your teeth' health.

You want to create a healthy and balanced microbiome ecosystem for your mouth and by that start to include good bacteria or probiotics as your loyal guest.

Are Oral Probiotics Different from Gut Probiotics?

Oh Yes.

Quite simply, every animal has their habitat to live in. You can’t replace water with cat litter in the aquarium for your koi fish and neither you can’t put 24/7 your cat or dog inside a massive water tank.

Your gut probiotics inhabit the gut to colonize so that it would positively affect your digestive system while oral probiotics remain within the area (including throat, teeth, and gum) and contain microorganisms that benefit the overall oral cavity and mouth.

Benefits of Oral Probiotics

The benefits of oral probiotics are evident in every part of the mouth because a healthy oral microbiome is the key to your oral health. You don’t want the bad bacteria population to be dominant in your mouth.

The good bacteria in oral probiotics can create biofilms to replace those created by undesirable bacteria. And imagine your biofilm works as a screen protector for your mobile phone. These new biofilms support your teeth and gums health plus they can also block bad bacteria from reaching enamel or gum tissue to avoid something like my experience.

Oral probiotics may prevent or address most oral diseases, including:

1. Fight Bad Breath
2. Prevent Cavities
3. Prevent gum disease or Gingivitis
4. Oral Thrush (fungal infection of the mouth)
5. Improving Your Mouth Immunity
6. Prevent Oral Cancer (Research in 2013)

Your Sources for Oral Probiotics

Supplements are a great way to ensure that you are not lacking good bacteria or microorganisms inside your mouth. Oral probiotics supplements are meant to sit in your mouth while they dissolve, thus allowing enough time to inoculate your oral microbiome. But, you can’t take the oral supplement and all you eat are junk food or highly proceed food.

Taking probiotics is unlikely to be effective without prebiotics present in the mouth. For that, you should balance your diet to ensure that probiotics are well-represented but also prebiotics which you can get from super food like sauerkraut, raw oat, kimchi, cheese, onion, tempeh, and tofu. Basically, foods are high in fiber.

Besides eating fiber, you want to consider replacing your regular toothpaste with probiotic toothpaste. When you eat a lot of sugary foods and refined carbs, basically food for your bad bacteria, that’s when they take on negative qualities and cause decay in your mouth.

Probiotic toothpaste, unlike regular ones, some of the product contains Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) which could kill off the bad bacteria and good bacteria. Probiotic toothpastes are aimed at keeping bad bacteria from wreaking havoc. Plus, for Indonesian reference, your regular toothpaste often makes your mouth dry, and for a toothpaste that’s a lot of foam!

Please, don’t wash or rinse your mouth with water immediately after brushing your teeth!

• And then, perhaps you will think, should I brush my teeth every freaking time I put some food inside my mouth?

Logically, brushing your teeth after each meal sounds ideal but that may not be very realistic for people with busy jobs or hectic schedules. It has been clinically proven and tested now that brushing your teeth too frequently damages your teeth.

• This is where I found xylitol.

Xylitol, like any other sweetener, promotes mineralization by increasing the salivary flow when used as chewing gum or large xylitol pastille. There is a decrease in levels of mutants streptococci (your bad bacteria that promote decay), as well as the amount of plaque when there is habitual consumption of xylitol.

Xylitol is well tolerated by the human body as a sweetener, but its absorption rate in the small intestine is very slow. I usually take Xylitol chewing gum 20 minutes after lunch and evening snacking. For Indonesian reference, xylitol is not just regular mint chewing gum. You can buy at the nearest “red” or “blue” convenience store (which I swear for Americans it’s not some political store preference). It’s Japan brand and it’s 9000 IDR.

Conclusion

Oral probiotics in a very simple way are how you take care of your overall health. You can’t expect to have healthy teeth by discrediting your gut health.

Brush and floss are a whole packet to your teeth health daily routine, something you CAN’T forget, miss, or even ignore.

• DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or a nurse. All content in this article is for informational and educational purposes only. Don’t forget to consult a dentist in the area of your particular needs for your best medical advice.

References:

Bristle Health, Scottdale, Ask the Dentist, Healthline, Benbrook Family Dental, WebMd, Shape, National Library of Medicine, NHS.