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May 24, 2022

What your mouth has to say about your health with Dr. Kami Hoss

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You may have heard that your dental health reflects your whole health. It's true. On episode 539, we discuss Dr. Kami Hoss' book, If Your Mouth Could Talk: An In-Depth Guide to Oral Health and Its Impact on Your Entire Life.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:36.910] – Allan

Hey, Ras. How are things going?

[00:02:38.870] – Rachel

Good. How are you today, Allan?

[00:02:41.010] – Allan

I'm a little frustrated. Just a little.

[00:02:43.300] – Rachel

oh dear. Oh, gosh. How come?

[00:02:45.880] – Allan

Okay. Now, you know, not long ago, I guess it's been a little while now. We went through that pick the music for this podcast, right?

[00:02:54.270] – Rachel

Oh, yeah.

[00:02:54.860] – Allan

And I went on a site where you were supposed to be able to get royalty free license, free music to play and use.

[00:03:05.170] – Allan

Okay. And what I did, to be fair, I didn't have to because this site offers these things for free is I went in and I donated on PayPal a little bit of money, not a lot to all three of them. I said, if I'm considering your song, then I'll pay all three of you because I downloaded your song. And now because I'm posting my podcast on YouTube, I'm getting Copyright infringement letters from a company that works for the guy I bought the songs from or got the songs from.

[00:03:40.340] – Rachel

Oh, my gosh.

[00:03:41.000] – Allan

I've emailed him. I've tried to refute it. And the risk I have is if I keep trying to refute it, then YouTube will just take my channel now.

[00:03:52.570] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:03:53.260] – Allan

And so it's one of those things where they're giving him the benefit of the doubt. And my only opportunity to really fight it is to go in with the death deal. I'm either going to win or I'm going to die.

[00:04:08.200] – Rachel

Right.

[00:04:08.810] – Allan

And he's doing it, pinging every show now as it comes out. And they're going through and finding these obviously on YouTube, there's billions of videos. So they're scrolling through those videos. They're finding that song in my show. And I got a nasty email once a week now, and I can go and refute it, but they almost immediately are just sitting there ready to say false. And they're not looking at the evidence I'm sending them because I show them that it's on a particular site. I can show them the licensing from that site, and I can show them the YouTubers. I mean, I'm sorry, the PayPal receipt where I sent these guys money. This guy money. So I'm really frustrated. So here's what I want to ask. If anyone in the audience I usually don't try to talk in the plural, but I know there's a lot of you out there. If any of you are musically inclined, maybe in a band or something, and you want to come up with something that I can use for a new theme song for the show, please get in contact with me. Okay, allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com, it needs to be uplifting.

[00:05:16.240] – Allan

It needs to be cool and vibey. You know me and you don't know where I'm at. You've listened to maybe some of the songs that I've used in the past and what got voted up this time, which I'd love to keep because it's what you wanted to listen to as an intro and an outro for the show. But I just don't want to keep putting up with this guy hitting him, because if at some point the podcast on YouTube could ever or would ever monetize, he's going to be the one monetizing it. So the whole other rest of the podcast gets nothing because he's claimed to this 30 seconds or so or even two minutes or so of music that I got legitimately off of a share site. He put it out there, I got his email, he got paid, and now he's trying to come after my revenue. Whether it's not if I were making revenue or ever do ever to monetize that site, he is going to be the one that gets all of that. So I'm like it's frustrating.

[00:06:15.950] – Rachel

That's crazy.

[00:06:17.310] – Allan

Well, it is the fact that the guy is not responding in a fair way. I have his email because I paid him on PayPal. I have his email, so I emailed him directly. He's not responding to me. So I'm going to send him a couple more emails. But if you are musically inclined to play the different instruments, maybe put something together for me, then I would love to feature a listener's music on the show, give you full credit for doing that for me. So if you can just get in touch with me, allan@40Plusfitnesspodcast.com and let's connect and let's make this a project. Let's have some fun with it.

[00:06:55.550] – Rachel

Yeah, that would be awesome. It'd be great to have our own listeners music. How cool is that?

[00:07:00.050] – Allan

Yeah. So hopefully we can work that out. I mean, there's a lot of you out there. The podcast gets about 5000-6000 downloads per episode. I know some of you are really in the music and good at music. So if you've got something for me, I want to hear from you.

[00:07:13.410] – Rachel

Awesome. That sounds great.

[00:07:15.380] – Allan

How are things up there?

[00:07:16.970] – Rachel

Great. Beautiful weather, beautiful time to be outside, enjoying the trail and getting ready to plant our garden. Just having a good time this spring.

[00:07:26.230] – Allan

So the ground is not frozen anymore.

[00:07:28.480] – Rachel

Not right now. No. It's actually pretty good. We're getting a lot of Sunshine. The weather is warming up. We're just getting the soil ready because it is still definitely too early to plant. But yeah, we're just planning out our garden and getting ready to get moving.

[00:07:45.010] – Allan

What does the Almanac say?

[00:07:47.170] – Rachel

Yeah, don't plant anything until the beginning of June.

[00:07:49.870] – Allan

Okay. All right.

[00:07:53.150] – Rachel

Better safe than sorry.

[00:07:54.580] – Allan

All right. Well, are you ready to have a conversation with Dr. Hoss?

[00:07:57.680] – Rachel

Yes.

Interview

[00:08:29.770] – Allan

Dr. Hoss, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:32.570] – Dr. Hoss

Thanks for having me.

[00:08:34.210] – Allan

You know, in over six years of doing this podcast and this being episode 539 of the podcast, I've never had a dentist Orthodontist. We've never talked about oral health. And I'm like so to see your book, I was really excited to get an opportunity to have a conversation with you because we hear a lot about, well, if you have mouth disease or periodontal disease, then there's a higher probability you're going to have heart disease and there's a connection there. So today we're going to kind of get into some of that.

[00:09:05.030] – Dr. Hoss

Let's get into it.

[00:09:06.140] – Allan

Yeah. And then I'm really excited about it because again, I think it's just one aspect of our health. That's really important. And, of course, when was the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. When was the best time the second best time is right now. When was the best time for us to take care of our oral health was when we were babies. But when is the second best time is What We Can do right now?

[00:09:29.280] – Dr. Hoss

You got it.

[00:09:30.030] – Allan

That's where I want to go. The book is really good, though, if you've got grandchildren or children and you want to make sure you're giving them the best opportunity for a healthy mouth, a healthy life. The book is really good about giving you that guidance and giving you the things you need. So I really appreciate this opportunity to have this conversation with you.

[00:09:49.220] – Dr. Hoss

Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:09:51.910] – Allan

Now, the name of your book is If Your Mouth Could Talk, an In-Depth Guide to Oral Health and the Impact on Your Entire Life. And as I mentioned earlier, this is about what our mouth is doing for us or to us. And some of those things are there's going to be a little bit of water into the road onto the bridge? We're going to have to deal with that. But we are in a place where we can start taking control of our oral health. And this book gives you a lot of that. So thank you. You went through a lot of this in the book, and there were studies about all these chronic diseases that we're dealing with, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancers, on and on, diabetes, on and on. There's a link to our mouth and not just what we're eating, because I think that might be part of it, too. But there's a link to our mouth health and these other chronic diseases. Can you kind of go through a little bit of that and that connection and why that might be so?

[00:10:49.110] – Dr. Hoss

Yes, of course. Again, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be talking about this. So like you said, you've been doing this for so many years, and I'm the first dentist really talking about oral health connection to the physical health and chronic diseases and longevity. And that's not surprising because unfortunately, because how our teaching institutions were established 200 years ago, that dental schools and medical schools have always been separate over the last two centuries, we used to know it. The early Egyptians and the Greeks, they were aware of the connection between oral health and physical health. In fact, they wanted to check someone if they were healthy, they would ask them to open their mouth. They would look at the mouth. They kind of had a good feeling for what was going on beyond the mouth. But over the last two centuries, unfortunately, we've forgotten this because of the education process and then insurances. They don't cover dentistry. And then we've been taught as a dentist, I'm a dentist. I'm an orthodontist and then to facial orthopedics. As you know, my wife is a pediatric dentist. We have a very large group practice with oral surgeons and with general dentists and with hygienists and with all sorts of other specialties.

[00:11:55.930] – Dr. Hoss

And so I've had the pleasure, but also the experience of working with all these different specialties, seeing kids and adults and young and elderly go through oral health issues. And I think it was time that I put this together. So a few years ago, I actually first wanted to write this book about the oral connection to the physical health of the chronic diseases that you're mentioning, because I thought the biggest disconnection that people have. Right. They really don't connect it together. As you mentioned, more and more studies are coming out. If you ask me what chronic disease is connected to our health.

[00:12:29.240] – Dr. Hoss

Let me just tell you the one that I don't know yet.

[00:12:31.490] – Dr. Hoss

Because almost everything else is right. It's easier just to more and more are found. Over the last 20,30 years, we've had just a flood of information and clinical studies correlating oral health to almost everything. Like you mentioned, many types of cancers and heart disease and pregnancy complications and diabetes and Alzheimer's and dementia and all sorts of things. So there are two really main connection. There was a long answer to your question, but there are two primary connections. I want your listeners to think about this. Your mouth is the opening to your body. Think about this. If you had an infection on your arm, a big infection the size of your mouth or on your leg.

[00:13:10.210] – Dr. Hoss

That connection would be very easy to know that, oh, my God.

[00:13:12.660] – Dr. Hoss

If I don't take care of this infection on my arm or leg, I may lose my arm or leg or I may have chronic problems, right? I may have organ failures, I may die. That connection is very easy. But when you have an infection in the mouth, I. E. Dental infection, cavities or gum infection, periodontal disease, people don't connect those two things, which is really incredible. And again, my profession is to blame really as much for that because we don't go around and educating people because we don't get that education in schools. We all get to learn how to fill cavities and straighten crooked teeth. So there are two ways primarily that your oral health impacts chronic disease. These two ways are your mouth is filled with microbes. In fact, we have more microbes in our bodies than we have human cells. We have about 30 trillion human cells and somewhere around 100 trillion microbes. And our mouth is filled with billions of microbes, somewhere between 5 billion to 100 billion. So if you have an infection in the mouth, those bacteria or the toxins can enter the bloodstream. And where does the blood go?

[00:14:15.420] – Dr. Hoss

Everywhere. So it can go to the heart and cause a local infection or cause systemic inflammation, go to the brain, the joints, anywhere in the brain, and then cause problems or the inflammation in the mouth in response to the bacteria can cause chronic inflammation that can cause also systemic health issues.

[00:14:36.250] – Allan

Now in the mouth, one of the things that kind of came out of my reading your book was kind of an understanding that we all kind of knew well, we all know there's a gut microbiome. It's getting more and more pressed that's the hot kid on the block right now, take care of your gut, take care of your health. But our mouth actually has its own microbiome.

[00:14:55.840] – Dr. Hoss

In fact. What do you think the gut microbiome comes from? The mouth. Right. This is such a wonderful question, by the way. So when a baby is born, when the baby is in the womb, there's no microbes involved, right. The baby gets the first dose of its microbiome traveling through the birth canal. And that's why when babies have had the moms have had natural vaginal birth, they just have a better mix of microbiome to begin with. Right. And then they get more additional microbes through breastfeeding and obviously passing between the parents and the siblings and all the caregivers and all that. The first place that these microbes get seated is in the mouth. And every time we swallow all those microbes, we're swallowing millions of microbes. Every time we're swallowing to our gut. And that's where the gut microbes come in. So you're 100% right. People have at least started talking about the gut microbiome and how important that is to our overall health. But I think the disconnection, again, is where the gut microbes come from. It's the oral microbiome, which is the collection of all the buildings of microbes in your mouth. And so if you don't have a healthy oral microbiome, that whole ecosystem is out of balance.

[00:16:06.260] – Dr. Hoss

And then you get unhealthy gut microbiome and all of these, everything the body is connected to everything else. But unfortunately, because dentists and physicians, we have different worlds and we have our own specialties we all forget this connection. And so you're 100% right. The microbiome, our microbes has evolved alongside us for millions of years, and it's key to our survival and it's key to our health, to our immunity, to our digestive system, all sorts of things.

[00:16:35.390] – Allan

Now, for most of us, when we think about oral health, Besides coming to visit someone like you on a regular basis, we're thinking about brushing our teeth, flossing, mouthwash, that type of thing.

[00:16:48.010] – Dr. Hoss

Exactly.

[00:16:49.070] – Allan

But in many cases, what we're doing is actually causing more harm than good.

[00:16:54.220] – Dr. Hoss

In many cases, in fact, you would think in the last 30 years, with all the advancements in science, technology and medicine, our mouths would be healthiest ever. Right. But actually, they're the unhealthiest ever. More than 50% of adults over age 30, by the way, these are CDC numbers. And more than 70% of people age 65 have gum disease. I think if we didn't do anything, we would be in a better position than using anything oral health that we currently use. So I actually started my book with the first sentence of this is not a book about brushing and flossing because I really wanted to make sure that people because I think that's all we are educated about. When we go to the dentist, just brush your teeth for your teeth and you should be good to go. Right? But I just told you that's just not the case. We're very unhealthy as a society. As you know, unfortunately, as Americans, we do many things right. But our health is not one of them. That's why I love being on podcasts like yours, because I feel like this is our passion, yours and mine to get this message out to everybody, we want to make sure that we look at your oral health more than brushing and flossing.

[00:18:01.550] – Dr. Hoss

And like you said, let's take the mouthwash, which was an example that you said. Let me just give you this very simple, the most common mouthwashes that people use, first of all, they use it because they want to mask their bad breath. And where is this bad breath coming from? Is because you have terrible, poor oral health, gum disease, right? Again, if you had that infection on your arm that was starting to produce this terrible odor, you wouldn't just pour like something that smells good over it, right? You would go take care of the infection. But what we do with our mouth, we use these very strong, potent antibacterial antiseptic mouthwashes that literally on the bottle sells, kills 99.9% of germs twice a day. So let me ask you a question, if I told you, hey, I found the best cure for all the diseases, take this antibiotics twice a day indefinitely to prevent disease.

[00:18:53.780] – Dr. Hoss

This is going to kill 99.99% of the germs in your body. You would tell me, call me, you're crazy. I just told you, gut microbiome is so critical to our but we do that in our mouth and we don't even think about it. I literally met a person three weeks ago. That when I asked him, what do you use for oral health? Because he has this terrible oral health and he said, I use this mouthwash that kills 99.99% of germs. I won't say the name. And then on the other hand, he uses probiotics. So he tried to put billions of microbes back in his mouth. When I told him one of them is just killing all the microbes and the other one is just full of microbes. You never really thought it through just because he just saw the ad for one and then the other. And just like, hey, I'm going to try to do everything I can. So our oral health is at worst it's ever been. And it's partially due to diet. It's partially because our diet has just changed so much since the agricultural revolution and then the Industrial Revolution.

[00:19:47.820] – Dr. Hoss

Everything is processed foods and nothing close to what it was intended to do, but partially is because of the oral care products that we're using. It's just a terrible marketplace right now.

[00:19:56.950] – Allan

Yeah. And they do a really good job of marketing. I had read a story one time about why our toothpaste foams and it foams because that showed people it was working.

[00:20:09.610] – Dr. Hoss

Exactly.

[00:20:10.320] – Allan

And so it wasn't that it was valuable. It was just that became the famous tagline for that product.

[00:20:17.210] – Dr. Hoss

In fact, the two things that companies do manufacture So-called oral care products, companies with toothpaste and mouthwash to make you think it's doing something. There are two things. One, they make a foam, like you said, because more foam, you feel like you must be cleaning doing something. Right. In fact, too much foam is terrible because you can't even see what you're doing anymore. A very little bit of foam using a very natural foaming, like Tiago or something not like SLS or something that's really damaging or soft tissue that could be toxic when you swallow all those things, which most manufacturers use. But that's on the phone because they just trying to tell you that they're working, which is actually doing the exact opposite. The other trick they use is they put a very strong Mint flavor, like something like peppermint oil. Essential oil, which is terrible. Essential oil is another thing that they may have other properties, but they don't belong in your mouth. And so a very common one is peppermint oil, which is really very dangerous for children, in addition to being terrible to the microbiome because it's a very important antibiotic bacterial essential oil.

[00:21:19.430] – Dr. Hoss

But what it does is you feel like you have the foam and now your mouth smells like this minty for at least 30 minutes. So it makes you feel like it's doing something. So those are the two things that I think you should just put aside when you're thinking about what oral care products you want to use for yourself and your children.

[00:21:37.130] – Allan

Now one place where I think it kind of surprised me, I guess, for a lack of better word was seeing how much the mouth can interrupt our sleep. So sleep disordered breathing. And I think many of us would know that because if we're over 40, I would say a large percentage of us probably snore. Some people even have sleep apnea or something you actually introduced me to now is upper airway resistance syndrome. Can we talk about those? Because for a lot of folks, they're going to go to the doctor and they may have a sleep issue, they may get diagnosed, go to a sleep clinic, and the doctor is going to say lose weight. But some of this is already kind of a little bit dawn because our mouth is already where it's going to be. Can you talk about how the mouth, the teeth, and then how that all relaxed our sleep.

[00:22:30.500] – Dr. Hoss

Yeah, great question. In fact, if you notice, the longest chapter in my book is about the breathing and the sleeping chapter, because I think you're right. People don't like why is a dentist talking about sleep? I don't understand. So here's what it is. So when I talk about oral health, I'm talking about two different areas. One is the microbial health. And my goal is to educate the public. Let's move from killing the microbes and disinfecting our mouths and sterilizing our mouths to cleaning, protecting and supplementing our mouth. Right. That's really what I want to be. From the microbial perspective, we want to protect and nurture our microbial community. That's in your mouth called the oral microbiome, which leads to our gut microbiome, all of that. So we can talk about that at some point later again. But the other side of it is the growth and development of the mouth. Now, contrary to what most people think, your mouth is not just this little area where you have your teeth, right? Your upper jaw, called the maxilla, goes all the way under your eyes. The bones under your eyes is still part of the maxilla, part of your cheekbones.

[00:23:38.770] – Dr. Hoss

It forms the bones of the nasal cavity. And then the lower jaw, of course, houses the tongue. And it's the rest of your face. So other than your forehead, your eyes, everything else in your face is your mouth. And so your mouth impacts your airway. Of course, it's the upper jaw with the nose and the lower jaw with the tongue. And so it has a dramatic impact on your breathing. Right. And during the day, of course, breathing, I don't have to tell you, oxygen is critical for everything, right? It's the number one nutrient that we need. It's even more critical in a child, especially the first five years, because their brain is exploding goes from 2020 5%, the maximum size at birth to 90% of its size by age five. So during those five years, the growth of the mouth is critical for their airway, breathing, oxygen intake and sleep. What happens during sleep is if you don't have good Airways, if you're not breathing incorrectly, that gets even worse at night because your muscles relax. So the tongue goes and blocks the airway. And as you mentioned, half of the people snore, which means really, we're all affected because either snore yourself or your partner snores, which keeps you up at night and many other problems.

[00:24:50.080] – Dr. Hoss

And snoring, even though we always joke about it when I meet my friends, that's the number one thing that they joke about with their partner. They always blame the other partner. Of course, it's never done that. They snore. But snoring is the first step of this downhill thing. First of all, it could be a sign that you already have something, like you said, UARS or sleep apnea, which they're all at the range between when you say sleep disorder breathing, which is really all the breathing issues that cause you not to have a good night's sleep. It really starts with snoring, which basically is a vibration of your soft tissues with your nose and your mouth because you're supposed to breathe with your nose. Now, why am I talking about the nose even though I'm a dentist, is because your palate, which is the roof of your mouth, is also the floor of your nose. It's the same bone. So when your mouth is small, your airway is small, you can't breathe your nose right. When your mouth is small, your tongue doesn't sit against the palate. So it goes and blocks your airway and you can't breathe at night.

[00:25:44.920] – Dr. Hoss

So really we should be the dentist community should be the leading the charge against sleep apnea and sleep disorders. And we should work hand in hand with sleep physicians. Right. They can make the diagnosis. We can make the dental appliances that help with breathing. And as you very well said, it the best time to do this is when you have a child and they have airway breathing issues. And that's why you should see a pediatric dentist when your baby is born immediately, because it literally starts from even health of pregnancy impacts these things. But really the latest you should see a pediatric dentist is right at birth before the baby is coming in because let's just say your baby has a tongue tie. Now, the tongue doesn't move around. That means it doesn't sit against the palate, which means the baby can't swallow, they can't breastfeed. Then they're going to start breathing through their mouth, cause mouth breathing. When you start breathing through your mouth, the nasal airway doesn't get stimulated. So the mouth and the nose don't grow correctly. And so as you can see, these little things start becoming really big problems over time during childhood because your mouth, the bones have not formed and they're still growing and the sutures have not used as orthodontists as pediatric dentists, we can actually fix problems, right?

[00:27:00.990] – Dr. Hoss

We can actually permanently fix it. We expand the upper jaw, we bring the lower jaw forward and we permanently fix airway issues. In adults like me and you, we can still fix it, but it usually involves wearing something up to bed, right? Yes, you can do some surgical treatments, but I'm not a big fan of it for majority cases. But some of the common things is obviously we can lose weight or become more healthier in general. But if those things are not working, then you need to wear an oral device that kind of keeps your jaw and your mouth open during night time so you can sleep better or you can wear a CPAP, those devices and some of those things, of course, it's different for everybody. They're like 100 devices that are out there that could work differently for different people. And so really, people need to visit their dentist and or sleep position and find something because it doesn't matter what you do. You need to breathe. I need to breathe. As we said, you can't really joke around with oxygen and take every single cell in your body will suffocate if you're not breathing correctly, which again, it gets exaggerated when we're sleeping.

[00:28:02.280] – Allan

Yes. And the reason I brought this up is sleep is so fundamental to our overall well-being and health. If you're not sleeping well, you can eat well, you can exercise, you can do pretty much everything else you want. Still not going to be optimized now. So if you are struggling with snoring or sleep apnea, go see your dentist and your sleep specialist and have some conversations because I think that's something we'll all want to look at because like I said, like you said, it's happening. There's so many of us exploring very common.

[00:28:34.730] – Dr. Hoss

And because of the obesity epidemic, this has gotten worse and worse right in the last 20 years. By the way, I just did want to say that not every dentist, unfortunately, and every physician is airway focused or sleep trained. It's just a small fraction of them, unfortunately, are it is not a requirement. But in 2017, the American Dental Association recommended that every dentist does a sleep screening or airway screening during every dental exam. But we just don't because there's one thing for them to recommend. It's one thing for the dentist to go back to school and actually get trained and educated about this. So when you do go to your dentist, make sure that they're trained and they know bad sleep and airway.

[00:29:14.150] – Allan

Now, I'll admit I'm like everybody else and so I'm out there and I'm like I want to do better for my health. I'm going into this health food store and they've got all this different stuff, toothpaste, mouthwash.

[00:29:32.460] – Dr. Hoss

I know about it.

[00:29:34.610] – Allan

But this is a health store. So they have this clay. It's basically dirt is what it was. And they flavored it cinnamon, which I don't know if that was good or bad. But in your book, you go through and talk about some of the ingredients that we're going to see in our dental care products, like you called one of them the mouth Rageous ingredients. And then the mouthstanding ingredients kind of plays on building words. So some of these are really bad for us and we probably shouldn't have them in our health care or oral care. And some are probably really good for us. Can you kind of go through and talk about some of the good ones and some of the bad ones?

[00:30:14.910] – Dr. Hoss

I'm happy to do it. Like you said, I know when I go to the grocery store and I see that toothpaste aisle, I'm like, how does a person supposed to make that decision? We as dentists, I'm on the board of UCLA Dental School, and we get little to no education, almost none in dental school about oral care products. You would think your dentist knows what's in a toothpaste. Our education and knowledge of it is just as much as you'd be surprised. We just know, like, okay, maybe Fluoride. I've asked 20 dentists, what's in a toothpick fluoride. What else is there? I don't know. How does the fluoride work? I don't know. If you don't want to use Fluoride, what else do you use? I don't know. Like you go to a natural health store and you're like, I don't know, maybe this is just good and that people will make it. They have no idea because they're not oral health experts. And so, of course, people don't know what to use. Dentists don't know what to use. So the manufacturers just kind of do their own thing, and then people end up buying something that has the boldest claim or has the nicest packaging or for the kids has the best flavoring.

[00:31:17.070] – Dr. Hoss

Nothing based on science and fact and clinical research and something that's safe and effective. Those two things are critical. For kids, playfulness is even important because we want to make sure they build positive associations. But safe and effective and effective. These are the two things that are always like anything we put in our bodies. We want to make sure it's safe and effective food. Like you said, I think many of us are educated about reading what's in our food or educating about what's healthy food, what's organic, what's natural, what's whole food, what's fermented, all of those things. But when it comes to oral care products, because nobody has this information, I thought I got to put this in the book. So people have a reference. So what's mouth sounding good? What's mouth rage is terrible and you should never put it. By the way, what other food do you put in your mouth twice a day, every single day, other than your toothpaste and mouthwash? Nothing. Right. So this is such an important thing. Right. Let me just tell you, with the toothpaste and the mouthwash, all our products that you put in your mouth, they get absorbed through your mouth, through the mucosa, through the mucosa membranes.

[00:32:19.550] – Dr. Hoss

And then, of course, it goes through the blood, goes everywhere in your brain. Of course, we swallow some of it. There's no way that you're not going to swallow. So that's why these ingredients in your oral care products are so important, not just for the health of your mouth, but for the health of your body. So let's go over a couple of the very important ones. One is Fluoride, can we just start with the most controversial toothpaste ingredient or mouthwash ingredient on Fluoride? Okay. So Fluoride is a drug is a medication. It's FDA regulated one. It's currently in the United States, the only compound that is approved for anti-cavity. By the way, in other countries there's another ingredient, which is my favorite, and I'll tell you about it in just a second. So fluoride. Fluoride, how does it work? You're enamel your teeth are made out of this, by the way, your teeth are alive. And that's another thing that I want everybody to remember because I think we treat the mouth like we have to just have these 20 or 30 dead objects in our mouth and we need to sterilize them and Polish them from the outside twice a day and get it to the dentist so they can really Polish it good twice a year.

[00:33:18.480] – Dr. Hoss

But our mouth is alive. Our teeth are alive. They have internal cells and nervous system and all of that. And so we want to give it nutrients and everything. So fluoride is a drug. In fact, anything that comes with fluoride, any toothpaste or mouthwash FDA has a warning sign on it. You are mandated by putting that that says warning, keep it away from children under age six, something like this. By the way, if you swallow it over what we need to use it for, toothpaste, you need to call the nearest poison control center. This is an FDA regulation. So of course that means that if you fluoride at high levels is toxic to your body, right? It's not me saying it. Now, fluoride does work the way you get cavities. When you eat something acidic or sugary, your PH of the mouth, which is the acidity of the mouth, which is really something important everybody should learn about. It's usually a neutral round seven, but then it drops when you eat something. When it reaches around 5.5, those enamel crystals called hydroxyapatite, 97% of your enamel is made of this mineral phosphate mineral called hydroxyapatite.

[00:34:29.300] – Dr. Hoss

It a little bit of a dissolved away in that acidic environment into the saliva. When then the saliva Bates the teeth after 30 minutes or so, then these minerals get deposited back into the teeth called demineralization of the teeth. So when there's a balance between this demineralization and rhymeralization, you don't get a cavity. But if you eat too much bad food or feed it too frequently, there is too much demineralization, not enough rhymeralization to get a cavity. Okay. And so what fluoride does? Fluoride mixes with hydroxyapatite forms this new mineral called fluorapatite. And that fluorapatite is stronger to acidic attacks because it doesn't get dissolved until the acid reaches 4.5. And then 4.5 to 5.5 difference is a big difference. And that's why fluoride works. So there's definitely fluoride works, but because it has all these potential toxicities, I don't recommend it for majority patients, especially with younger children, because dental fluorosis, which is one of the side effects of too much fluoride, usually happens in kids and because it's such a common thing in our society now. So if you have young children and they're not prone to getting cavities and they're not a high risk child, which means they don't have genetic problems, again, genetic things are just 10% of the situation so for majority of the kids, you can replace that fluoride.

[00:35:46.980] – Dr. Hoss

Don't just remove the fluoride and don't put anything. But you can replace it with something else called hydroxyapatite, which is the synthetic version of what's already naturally in your teeth. And that is around since 1970s. It's been tested and tested and tested and tested. It's completely safe. And it reminisces. It just as good or better than fluoride. In fact, it's been already approved in Canada since 2015 for Anticavity. In Japan, they've been using it for about 30 years. And so in US, I'm hoping FDA is going to catch up with some of these other countries. We're going to hopefully approve it. But right now, it's already available in some products. And so don't just remove fluoride. Replace it with this. Now, if you're a high risk person, which means you get cavities, you have a dry mouth, your PH is low. Whatever. I go through this more in detail in my book. You should use some fluoride. And so you can also even mix it with hydroxyapatite, because also for older people, you don't swallow as much. You're swallowing reflexes that develop. So, again, for the average of fluoride, for maybe 20% of the population, older people and higher risk people, and for younger people and lower risk people, I would use hydroxyapatite, specifically Nano hydroxyapatite, which mimics the natural enamel which naturally wipes the teeth.

[00:37:02.550] – Dr. Hoss

It reminds the teeth, it reduces sensitivity. It even buffers the teeth against cavities and acidic attacks. That's one another ingredient you asked me for. Like, but as you can.

[00:37:13.280] – Allan

That's good. No, it is. It's great. There was another one that was kind of surprising to me was when you got into some of the sugar alcohols that we're trying to obviously brush your teeth with sugar. But we like that we like that bubblegum flavor, right?

[00:37:29.560] – Dr. Hoss

Yeah.

[00:37:30.190] – Allan

So we want something a little sweeter, something a little bit more of a taste. And so it's going to be sweetened. Yes. But not all of the sugar alcohols are the same.

[00:37:38.140] – Dr. Hoss

Exactly. Not all sugars are the same. Right. By the way, I hate this name. Sugar alcohol. I wish somebody would. It because, by the way, it has no sugar and no alcohol. That's just what I repeat this. No sugar and no alcohol in this sugar alcohol. So I don't know, whoever came up with his name is like just terrible, terrible naming. So just like everything else, if I ask you, hey, is food good or bad? You say, well, tell me what food. There are foods that are fantastic or foods that are terrible. Is mouthwash good or bad? There are mouthwashes that are fantastic. They're alkalizing mouthwashes. They use really great ingredients. But most the ones that you see, there are these fluorescent colors or neon colors, and you can't keep them terrible. It's the same thing with sugar alcohols. They're like cheaper ones, like sorbitol, which is very common. And the only reason they are used because they're very cheap. They're not as good because the bacteria causes cavity. They can still ferment and use that as food and then they can excrete acid and cause cavity. So my two favorite sugar alcohols, again, I hate that name.

[00:38:38.830] – Dr. Hoss

That are naturally present in fruits are xylitol and erythritol. And those both have been really especially xylitol. Xylitol has been extensively studied. There was a study that just came out that looked at over 200 studies on xylitol and concluded that it acts like a prebiotics. And just quickly, the difference between probiotics and prebiotics and probiotics is bacteria. Prebiotics is food for the microbes. So prebiotics are compounds that naturally produce, like, for example, in breast milk, the third most common ingredients is prebiotics already. So nature already does this, right? And so we want to mimic nature. And so prebiotics inulin is another great probiotics that it doesn't kill the Microbes your mouth, it feeds the good bacteria and stores the bad ones, but also xylitol and erythritol, like you mentioned, they have great taste because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we encourage people to use it. And that way it gives them a great flavor. At the same time, it provides the food for the good microbes. It also raises the PH because it stimulates salivary glands to produce saliva. So it works in different ways to make sure that we keep our mouths healthy.

[00:39:54.660] – Allan

Right. And there's a lot in the book on how to go about doing this. You have a product don't use a product line with super mouth or yeah.

[00:40:03.390] – Dr. Hoss

So we're launching this company called Super mouth. And this is why, again, like you said, we go to the grocery store and we have no idea where to buy, what to buy for ourselves, what to buy for our kids. We go to the dentist. The dentist doesn't know what to do. So how do we do this? What's the solution? The solution is this. You would go on this website, Supermouth.com in July 31st and you would just say, hey, my name is this is my age and these are some of my risk factors. We ask just five or six questions per house family member and then we become your Proactive oral care advisors. So every three months, every six months, every family member will get a box customize oral care products for that individual. That's based on super acronym, Super. Everything will be super. They're completely safe for us. They're unified. They work together as a system. So you don't get like this person that I met three weeks ago that uses antibiotics and then uses probiotics at the same time, right. The P is playful. Again, we want to build positive associations with your aura character.

[00:41:00.350] – Dr. Hoss

They're based on superheroes and villains in movies and augmented reality and storytelling. They're effective e super, because at the end of the day, if they're not working right, I just talked to a good friend of mine, were having breakfast this morning and his wife, when she was pregnant, she got seven cavities after pregnancy because she avoided, quote unquote, conventional aura care products. But they weren't effective. So it was terrible. If we're going to remove something like fluoride, let's just do a pregnancy. What are you going to replace it with? So our oil care products are completely safe and effective during pregnancy and early childhood and beyond. And at the end of the R stands for Reputable because we want you to come to us dental experts, oral health experts, for your information, not Google or social media and random people that you have zero to a little knowledge about oral health. Yeah.

[00:41:51.920] – Allan

Or the tagline kills 99.9%.

[00:41:55.000] – Dr. Hoss

Exactly.

[00:41:57.050] – Allan

Dr. Hoss, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:42:05.400] – Dr. Hoss

I love it. I love it. I would just say I think the three things is because people know about eating healthy. Like if I asked average person, I'm sure you would agree. How do you stay healthy? I think the average person would say, well, eat healthy and exercise. Those are the two messages that we've always heard. But my job and my passion and my goal is to add a third one to that. And the third one is to take care of your mouth, take care of your mouth from the microbial perspective, and take care of your mouth from the protein development perspective, from airway perspective. So that would be my passion. Eat healthy, exercise daily and take care of your mouth.

[00:42:39.050] – Allan

Awesome. Well, they say the smile is a gateway to the soul. So I agree with you there. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about your book. If Your Mouth Could Talk, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:42:51.560] – Dr. Hoss

So you can buy my book from your favorite bookstore in barnes & Noble, Amazon. But you can also go to our specific website about the book themouthbook.com. My dental practice is also thesuperdentists.com, so those are a few places that you can get information about me, my practice and the book.

[00:43:09.210] – Allan

Cool. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/539 and I'll be sure to have links there. Dr. Hoss, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:43:20.000] – Dr. Hoss

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.


Post Show/Recap

[00:43:29.250] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:43:30.750] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. Well, wait a minute. I just got to say what an interesting conversation this was. When you first said you were going to have a dentist on, I was like, what we're going to learn about that? But we learned a lot. And I actually learned that the bacteria in our mouth is very important and I'm killing it with my mouthwash. I had no idea.

[00:43:50.920] – Allan

Yeah. Well, most of the products that we use consumer products, they have a really good marketing company that's going to tell you what you need to know. And what you need to know is that you need a sterile mouth. And it sounds reasonable. When someone tells you that you have a microbiome on your skin, that there's billions, trillions maybe of bacteria crawling all over your skin, it gives you the heebejeebes.

[00:44:21.030] – Rachel

It really does.

[00:44:22.250] – Allan

You're sitting there looking at your arm. It's like, where are those critters? Yeah, I don't want to touch anybody because they got the heebejeebes. The point being is that, yes, we have these microbiomes, a lot of this stuff. We're still figuring out how do these interact with each other, how do they survive together? And what are we doing that's harming them? Because antibiotics, don't get me wrong, they are one of the best medical inventions ever. But they are like a nuclear bomb.

[00:44:54.160] – Rachel

Exactly.

[00:44:55.470] – Allan

Taking out everything. And we're making better nukes, better and better antibiotics as we get more bodies get resistant to the easy ones, and then those bugs are now resistant. We have to go harder and we have to go heavier. And it's a bigger bomb and a bigger bomb. And then your ability to regrow, that is extremely limited because these bugs, in many cases, don't even exist anymore. Everybody has killed them and there's none. So it's not like you get in the soil. We don't do that. Don't let your kid get their hands dirty. Oh, my God. Don't put your hand in your mouth. We were eating mud pies.

[00:45:38.790] – Rachel

Yes. And drinking out of the garden hose.

[00:45:41.940] – Allan

Yeah, sure. But no, it made us healthier. Who knew? And so, yeah, there are microbiomes throughout the body, and they're there as a part of our immune system. They're there to help us stay healthy. And mouthwash, it's a good marketing term. It sounds like you're doing the right thing. I want good, fresh, clean mouth. And you're over cleaning it is effectively the answer.

[00:46:10.680] – Rachel

That was a big surprise. Although I'm not surprised about fluoride. I think a lot of people know that a lot of times our city water is fluorinated. Then you've got the fluorine and the toothpaste. And if you're over time taking in too much fluoride, that can become a problem. So it was interesting that he had an alternative for that.

[00:46:29.860] – Allan

Yes, there are some alternatives and some things. Xylitol is one. It's a sugar alcohol. Again, you don't have to swallow it. You just need it on your teeth. And the other was this I had not heard of before, but Nano hydroxyapatite, and they call it Nano HAP for short. You can look it up. It's available. It's going to be in his product. So realize he's going to be selling dental products, too. So probably toothpaste and things like that, because these toxins, like fluoride and whatnot, they're a cumulative thing. And so if you're having your kid brush their teeth twice a day and they're swallowing too much fluoride, and getting it in their water, there's this build up at a potential. So it's his opinion that children should not be using fluoride in their water, in their toothpaste. But that said, if they are prone to cavities, then they need something to protect enamel. So the two things you look for are how do we reduce the acidity and how do we help the teeth build back stronger the way fluoride would? And so there are these alternatives, and it's worth looking into to help your child not have that much fluoride.

[00:47:52.720] – Allan

There's probably too much maybe drinking having your kid drink filtered water, because I think some of these filters can remove the fluoride from the water and then you can look at the toothpaste and maybe take some there. But if you're going to do that and they need something to help with the hardening of the teeth, then you're going to look at it. And the other thing that we didn't talk about is we're an adult show, not an adult, but we're talking about it and being healthy over 40. But with children, grandchildren, things like that, if they're not taking care of their baby teeth, they're going to have problems with their adult teeth. And I know I always thought, well, they're going to lose it, so who cares? It does matter. The mouth affects your health, but the mouth, as you're growing up, affects what your mouth is going to be when you get older.

[00:48:43.710] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:48:44.970] – Allan

There's zero reason for anyone to have to have teeth extraction, except for the fact that it was a kid. We didn't take care of little problems that later became big problems. So your mouth is not big enough to handle your wisdom teeth. I'm not much of a talker other than being on a podcast, but I have my wisdom teeth because I have a big enough mouth that it was never a problem. Yeah, but it's part of that is genetic. But the other part of it is just taking care of your teeth when you're young. Sure. I never did anything silly other than smash my face and kill one of my teeth. So I have my issues, but not to the point where I didn't have enough mouth for the teeth that were going to come in.

[00:49:35.100] – Rachel

Well, healthy habits need to start at a young age. And if we can teach our children and grandchildren how to care for their teeth and they'll have healthier habits as adolescents and as young adults.

[00:49:46.360] – Allan

But then on our side, yes, the best time for us to have taken care of our teeth for children, the best time you can take care of your teeth right now. That's what we've got. So if you're having some issues with periodontist. Right. But if you're having some issues, it's worth getting it looked into because there is a correlation there there is a heart disease and some of these other lifestyle diseases, there's a correlation. The reason I wanted to have this on was predominantly for the heart disease, So some of this was also eye opening to me Because I was thinking, wow, they've tied this to diabetes, to cancers, To Alzheimer's disease, all these different lifestyle. We're now starting to realize our lifestyle diseases. So while the cause might not be the dental issues, there's an association. And so if we're not taking care of our mouth, we're probably not taking care of our health. So it's a red flag, at the very least, for you to say, okay, why am I having these dental problems? What can I do about it? And is this a lifestyle thing that's causing this versus there's people that brush their teeth Twice a day, Three times a day, they still have issues with this.

[00:51:04.430] – Allan

And so there is a care regimen, there is a hygiene. And that's in his book. He's really good about walking you Through The proper dental hygiene thing, and it includes getting the acidity of your mouth down, which can be the choice of foods. It can be a mouth spray or something like that, but it's getting that acidity down. And then the second aspect of it Is just making sure that you have strong, healthy enamel in your teeth. Your teeth are living things, and they need to be cared for. You can think of them like plants. You have to take care of them or they're going to go away. So that's really why I wanted to have someone on like him, Because it's really the first what I'd say good book or book out, though, I was like we could talk about health in relation to dental health and overall health and what that relationship is. But this is a care manual. I mean, literally, this will teach you how to take care of your teeth, your children's teeth, if they listen to you and your grandchildren's teeth. It's a really good manual for you to go through, get an understanding of the relationships and the things that are good for you.

[00:52:10.440] – Allan

Build a good hygiene and you'll have a better mouth.

[00:52:14.000] – Rachel

That sounds great. I think I need to take a look at that hygiene Because my mind is blown about the whole 99% of killing all the bacteria in your mouth as being a problem. So, yeah, I'd like to see what he's got for us to take better care of our mouths and therefore better care of our health. That sounds really interesting.

[00:52:32.700] – Allan

Well, the name of the book Is Dr. Kami Hoss, and the name of the book is if your mouth could talk.

[00:52:38.830] – Rachel

Perfect.

[00:52:40.750] – Allan

All right Rachel, I'll talk to you next week.

[00:52:43.180] – Rachel

Sounds great. Take care, Allan.

[00:52:44.960] – Allan

Bye

[00:52:45.630] – Rachel

bye bye.

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