The Connection to Chewing and Oral Health
While reading the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor, I was struck by an extremely perceptive insight regarding chewing, jaw development, and oral health. During a section referencing Weston Price’s research in Nutritional and Physical Degeneration, he noted the profound negative changes of jaw and teeth development in one generation when indigenous people changed to a western diet from their ancestral diet. However, the focus of that research was always nutritional in nature, with the focus on fat-soluble vitamins and the x-factor known later as vitamin K2.
What Nestor points out is that yes, nutrition was a contributing factor to the degeneration. Not only did it cause nutritional deficiencies, but it also altered the oral bacteria, leading to flora imbalances and subsequent cavity development, and poor oral health has been linked to a higher rate of heart attacks and strokes. Perhaps what was overlooked is that the western diet, full of processed food that included white bread, canned fruit, and sugar, was also extremely soft, and no longer challenged the muscles of the jaw.
This gave me a flashback of an oral surgeon I knew who also traveled around the world and inspected the teeth of indigenous people. Like Weston Price, he found perfectly straight teeth and little to no cavities. What stood out to me was his comment regarding the constant chewing of sugar cane on one of his trips, yet he didn’t see any dental issues. He said that “all of that sugar should have led to cavities.”
Bone Loss and a Youthful Face: A Lack of Chewing?
As our face ages, the result of sagging skin, hollow eyes, and sallow cheeks is a result of bone loss. Besides obesity, it is also a reason for sleep apnea and snoring getting worse with age. However, the doctors and scientists interviewed in Breath challenge the idea that this can’t be stopped with case studies showing patient’s mouths and faces growing younger as they got older with intervention to stimulate bone growth.
Similar to how weight-bearing exercise helps build bone density, chewing helps release stem cells, bone density, and therefore a younger-looking face and better ability to breath. Something to consider in an age of smoothies, juices, and soups with soft cuts of meat.
The History of Chewing Sticks to Clean Teeth
When we think of chewing sticks, the first image is probably a dog. Bones and chewing sticks are for dogs, right? When I started trying chewing sticks after meals, my family started pretending to mix my name up with our dogs.
What did we do before toothbrushes? How did we keep our teeth and mouth clean? Does it seem that it was an impossible feat without complex bristles and bright colored handles? Well, before we started manufacturing toothbrushes, chewing sticks of plants were prehistorically used by the early Arabs, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman societies for cleaning teeth.
When you start looking at the analysis of plant sticks, you will actually recognize similarities and perhaps superiority over a toothbrush and toothpaste.
Chemical examinations have revealed ascorbic acid, tri-methylamine, chloride, fluoride, silica, resins, salvadorine, volatile oils, tannic acid, sulphur and sterols in chewing sticks. These compounds heal inflamed and bleeding gums, produce stimulatory effect on gingiva, remove tartar and stains from the teeth, re-mineralize dental hard tissue, whitens teeth, provide enamel barrier, increase salivary flow, and possess anti-septic, astringent and bactericidal properties. All these help reduces plaque formation, provides anti-carious effects, eliminates bad odor, improves the sense of taste, and cure many systemic diseases.
Chewing Sticks vs. Toothbrushes
I’m not saying anyone should stop using their toothbrush, but I think it is interesting to research nonetheless. I think that chewing sticks are a great addition to get assistance beyond the toothbrush for those who need more help with their teeth, jaw, and gums.
In a study of fifty subjects comparing chewing sticks and toothbrushes, chewing sticks parallel and at times showed greater mechanical and chemical cleansing of oral tissues as compared to a toothbrush. The anti-plaque efficacy of chewing sticks was significantly demonstrated in this study. This “indicates that it may effectively and exclusively replace the toothbrush.”
In other research, the antimicrobial actions of the chewing sticks, the risk of dental caries was 9.35 times more in subjects using a toothbrush than those using chewing sticks. Other findings also found a lower occurrence of dental caries due to fewer plaque deposits has been observed in populations using the Neem and Arak miswak sticks.
The Best Chewing Sticks to Clean Teeth and Bonus Oral Care Tips
While I haven’t been able to find Neem and miswak sticks in the US, I could find licorice sticks. Licorice root promotes anti-cavity action, reduces plaque, and has an antibacterial effect. I’ve also included some other additions that I have adopted in my own routine.
Licorice root promotes anti-cavity action, reduces plaque, and has an antibacterial effect. I found these to be surprisingly sweet since it looks like you just picked up a stick off the ground and started chewing on it. I break each one in half and chew on it for about 15 minutes after breakfast and dinner.
If a chewing stick seems a little too eccentric for you, finding gum that challenges your jaw is an alternative. Mastic gum will give your jaw the workout it needs to get results. I’ve tried Falim gum, but I wasn’t pleased with the ingredient list. So far, this is the best one I’ve been able to find.
After finding out I had gum recession, likely from braces earlier in life, I wanted to be proactive to keep my gums as healthy as possible. What I found was that vitamin C, amla, bilberry, and hawthorn appear to be some of the best researched for gum health.
In Ayurveda, amla is considered a general rebuilder of oral health. Amla works well as a mouth rinse as a decoction or one to two grams per day can be taken orally in capsules for long-term benefit to the teeth and gums. Amla supports the healing and development of connective tissue when taken internally, but also benefits the gums. The healing effect of amla appears to take longer to become apparent since they must saturate the whole body in order to work on the gums, but is thought to have a more lasting effect.
Upon further research, amla has even more incredible benefits as a bonus. A clinical study found that 500mg twice showed a reduction of total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides, and an increase in HDL. What was impressive (and rare) was that the results were similar to a statin drug.
This is one I already started using to help protect my eyes from excessive screen time. Something I think we could all use now. The fact that it also helped gum tissue was a bonus.
Researchers found that bilberry fruit and hawthorn berry stabilize collagen, strengthening the gum tissue. I didn’t feel that bilberry and hawthorn were necessary, so I just picked bilberry.
5. Orawellness Shine Teeth Whitening Powder
I tried the entire Orawellness package. Out of all the products, this is the one I decided to continually use. It is hard to find teeth whitening products that are natural, actually work, and strengthen your teeth at the same time.
The ingredients include Microcrystalline Hydroxyapatite* (powdered bone from grass-fed New Zealand cattle), Sodium Bicarbonate, Xylitol (sourced from birch), White Kaolin Clay, Calcium Lactate (non-dairy), Magnesium Carbonate, Peppermint, Spearmint, Himalayan Salt, and Menthol.
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