5. The Bacteria in Your Mouth That's Linked to Alzheimer's & Other Disease

Ready to reset your oral health in 6 minutes? 

Start here: www.mouthymatters.com/start-here

Most people leave a dental appointment with clean teeth, a new toothbrush, and a reminder to floss more. Nobody leaves knowing that the bacteria living inside their gum tissue could be quietly connected to Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, or diabetes. That gap is exactly why Mouthy Matters exists.

In this debut episode, Tosha Kozloski, RDH sits down with her longtime friend Lisa Charles for the kind of conversation most dental appointments never have time for. Lisa is not a clinician. She is a curious, health-conscious person who has spent years asking Tosha the questions her patients wish someone had answered. What follows is honest, specific, and completely free of dental-speak, the real story behind what your hygienist sees and why it matters so much more than most people realize.

What this episode covers

Tosha walks through why bleeding gums are almost always a sign of infection, not a personal hygiene failure, and what those bacteria are actually doing once they leave your mouth and enter your bloodstream. She shares the research connecting periodontal disease to Alzheimer's, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, including a real story about Lisa's father-in-law, who had major oral health issues, a triple bypass, and early-onset Alzheimer's, and what that history meant for the decisions Lisa and her husband made about their own care.

They talk about what it looks like when a hygienist has the findings but not the confidence to recommend treatment, why that happens, and what patients lose when that conversation gets softened. Tosha uses the termite metaphor to explain why waiting on gum infections is never the safe choice, and she closes with practical, affordable steps anyone can take at home to start shifting their oral microbiome right now.

Key takeaways from this episode

Bleeding when you floss is not a sign that you are flossing wrong. It is almost always a sign of inflammation caused by infection, and that infection does not stay local.

The bacteria responsible for gum disease have been found in 98% of the brains of Alzheimer's patients studied. These are not separate problems.

Treating a gum infection is not just a dental issue. Research consistently shows that periodontal therapy with proper home care can lower A1C in diabetics by two points within three months.

Missing teeth matter beyond aesthetics. Each missing tooth correlates to fewer years of life, and replacing them with implants or bridges can reverse that risk.

Implants placed into a mouth that still has active infection are implants placed into a compromised foundation. The bacteria do not disappear because the tooth did.

Your hygienist's assessment, the poking, the measuring, the probing, is the most important part of your appointment. The cleaning feels good. The assessment is what could change your life.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Waterpik Aquarius: https://a.co/d/0dDMvTRy 

Waterpik Pik Pocket Tip: https://a.co/d/0dn7k77l 

IoTech Concentrated Rinse (great for Waterpik): https://iotechinternational.com/products/iorinse%E2%84%A2-professional-concentrate-soft-mint-1-liter-bottle 

PerioBrite Cleanse: https://a.co/d/024emfX0 

DailyDentalCares.com 

PROtektin Lozenge: https://dailydentalcares.com/collections/all, use code TOSH for 10% off

Connect with Tosha

Ready to reset your oral health in 6 minutes? Start here: www.mouthymatters.com/start-here

Find Tosha on Instagram: @toshardh

Dental professionals ready to level up your practice: tosh.care

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner.  Opinions from guests are their own.  This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Transcript

Welcome And The Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Mouthy Matters Podcast. I'm your host, Tasha Kozlowski. I have been a dental hygienist for 20 years, turned coach to dental practices, and I help dental practices better understand the mouth-body connection. Today I'm here with my bestie, Lisa Charles. She has been such a great friend for so many years. She's been on this journey with me. And as I've dug deeper into working with practices, Lisa has actually helped me be my patient in the chair and demonstrate different verbal skills and scripts with me. So, Lisa, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I can't believe this is finally coming to fruition. I remember talking about this in your basement years and years ago when you were first starting your business.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

So I have had on my heart for so long to do a podcast. And it really has been something that I felt like there's a lot of dental podcasts out there, but I haven't really found a podcast that just talks to the general public about the mouthbody connection and what the heck we're actually doing when somebody comes in to get their teeth cleaned, why they're poking around at people's gums and telling them all these dental terms. And so I wanted to spread the word, what in the world are we actually doing when we're doing that assessment as part of somebody's cleaning? Because when you go to the dentist and you're seeing your hygienist, you're going in there expecting to get your teeth cleaned. And oftentimes they're telling you a whole bunch of other information that you maybe didn't even care to know.

unknown 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So what does that all mean? Absolutely. How many times have I asked you, like,

What Hygienists Are Checking For

SPEAKER_01 1:35

okay, wait a minute. So why do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Totally. Yeah. And why do they have to poke your gums every single time? Yeah, there's so many things. So today, what I really wanted to get into is how the mouth, while it seems like just a box, is absolutely connected to the rest of our bodies and how different things, there's different signs and symptoms that could be happening in our mouth that don't really feel like they're connected to anything else in our body, but they truly are. Because what we know now is that there's certain bacteria that we can actually come in contact with that can make our mouths really sick. And because those bacteria live deep inside the gum tissue, not just on top of it, people can have symptoms like reoccurring bad breath. I mean, people that brush and floss and they do a really great job, but they constantly just feel like their mouth just feels a little bit dry. Um, maybe some people have said, like, hey, you got some stinky breath. You know, like my daughter's really great about telling me, you know, after I'm drinking coffee, mom, your breath smells terrible. I'm like, well, I'm drinking coffee, man. It's okay. But I'm also always using a water pick. And I'm also very keenly aware, like, well, is my is my mouth smelling a little bit stinky? Because I also know that that could be a sign of something much larger going on. Right. And so what I like to tell share with people is that if you are noticing that your gums are bleeding or that your gums feel tender or you're getting more recession, where maybe you're getting some little black triangles between your teeth, some spaces, or you're seeing some roots be starting to get exposed. We used to think in dentistry that, well, Lisa, you're just brushing too hard. And I've had so many patients tell me, yeah, you know, I I was told by a pr somebody else that my was brushing too hard and I had and I have recession. And so my thought to that is, well, there is there are there roots exposed on all of your teeth or just a couple of teeth? Because I find it very difficult to believe that somebody's brushing really hard on like the upper back right, but they're not brushing really hard in the front, for example.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Or every other tooth have Yeah, but that patient has accepted what the dentist has told them for 20 years. Like, oh, you're just brushing too.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, science has changed so much. I mean, I remember when I graduated, I mean, what I learned then versus what I know now. Um, I mean, I graduated 20 years ago,

Bad Breath Bleeding And Recession Signs

SPEAKER_00 3:45

and science is always progressing, progressing, but we don't always think that dentistry is progressing at the same pace, and we all have a different level of understanding and education. And so I know throughout throughout time, like you've asked me, hey, Tasha, is this some snake oil here or is this something real? We actually know now that the bacteria that cause gum infections are related to to Alzheimer's disease. We know that certain bacteria, if it's in our mouth, that means it's in our bloodstream. And some of those bacteria can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and they act like little scissors, essentially, cutting some synapses in our brain. And slowly but surely they can actually lead to memory loss and then Alzheimer's disease. And we also know that if you're missing some teeth, each tooth that you're missing actually correlates to less, less years of life that you're going to live. But the opposite is also true. If you replace those teeth with a dental implant or bridges and some of these things, that you actually gain that time back. And so every tooth is so, so important. I'll tell a quick little story here too. A friend of ours, um, they're they're really, really into their overall dental health. And so they went to a local practice and the practice was using a microscope and showed them a little piece of their plaque and showed them all these bugs that were swimming around in their mouth. And she was asking me, she's like, Tasha, she's like, is this just a bunch of garbage? Are they just trying to sell me something that I don't need? And my immediate response was, oh my goodness, no, you're you're going to a super proactive practice. Those bacteria are actually living inside your gums. And yes, you need to do whatever they say because you can get rid of those bacteria and halt the infection before you notice any signs of destruction. So, like I said, this is the most proactive thing you can do, Katie. So she immediately was like, Well, oh my gosh, well, then does that mean my husband has these too? Because we kiss, like, what about my kids? We share drinks sometimes. And I was so proud of her for connecting the dots, just so licking split. She immediately said, Okay, I've got to get my husband in because I said yes to this treatment. So she got her husband in and he went in. Lo and behold, he has these same bugs in his mouth. And the hygienist, I think, was a little bit insecure about telling the husband now that he has the same thing. And so she said, Well, you know, you could consider using a water pick and working on some home care and, you know, kind of dancing around doing treatment. And so he asked me then a couple weeks after his appointment, he said, Tasha, I was really surprised. I felt like the hygienist didn't want to recommend the same treatment

Gum Bacteria And Alzheimer Links

SPEAKER_00 6:10

that she recommended my wife to have. Why is that? And I said, Well, why do you think that might be? And he said, Well, I think she thought I didn't want to pay for it. And I was like, hmm. He said, because it was kind of expensive. And I said, I think you hit the nail on the head. Because essentially what happens is that we do, as clinicians, feel a bit insecure recommending treatment that's going to cost a lot more than what they're used to, especially when it's within the family. We were all taught to be really excellent clinicians, but most of us didn't have a special class in school that talked about how to properly communicate the changes, the findings that we were having in patients' mouths. So, long story short, he got the treatment. He was really glad. He told the hygienist, he said, Well, if my wife just had this done and I don't get it done, he said, I'm just gonna pass it back to her and she's gonna be ticked. And so, so essentially they both got treated and now their their mouths are clear of any creepy crawly bugs on the microscope slide. But what a great objective tool. I didn't have that when I went to hygiene school. No, but you have introduced Lisa to that.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

The very first time that I ever had a microscope slide done was obviously with you. And you you talked about how you weren't given a class on how to communicate these things to your patients. It's one of the things that I tell you time and time and time again that you're so fantastic at. Because if somebody like me, who has zero medical training, can understand and really digest the information that you're telling me, then anybody can. And it's in bite-sized pieces, it's in terminology, words that I understand. You know, when people are talking about profis and things like that, like after all these years, I couldn't go tell somebody what a prof is, but I can tell you what they're doing when they're cleaning their teeth, you know. Anyway, I think that you've well, not I think. I know you've expanded my understanding and my curiosity for overall health. I, as I've gotten older, care more and more about what I'm putting in my body, how I'm treating my body, how I care more about sleep than I ever have. Um, and now through you and these years of getting to work alongside you, I understand that so much of what I care about starts in my mouth. And yeah, so I've been searching for things. Um, you know, you talked about Alzheimer's. My husband, we've been married 10 years, and I swear to you, just two months ago, we were dealing with an issue that he's having with his mouth. Because, Tasha, you've educated me, and through me, I've educated him on the fact that he had a root canal, it failed, he needed to get an implant. He doesn't want to spend that money. Who does? It's so expensive. But him understanding lightly understanding that by replacing that tooth, he gains back those years. That matters to him. And so, in talking through all of this, I learned that my father-in-law, who I only had a few years with, had major mouth issues. He also had like a triple bypass, like heart surgery early. Um, I mean, just like there are he also ended up with Alzheimer's, and that's not what took him out eventually, but but he had early onset Alzheimer's. And I'm certain that that stemmed from years of poor oral hygiene and just not knowing that that was a problem. And so we lost him way too young. And it breaks my heart that there was an opportunity there to reverse the um the poor hygiene that he didn't know about as a kid. Um, there are obviously other things that contributed to his his poor health, like diet and lack of exercise and things

Seeing Mouth Bugs Under A Microscope

SPEAKER_01 10:05

like that. But it definitely like it was this aha light bulb moment when he said, Oh, well, yeah, my dad had like, you know, he was missing these teeth back here and he had this issue and he had gingivitis and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, what? I had no idea. No wonder he had heart disease and Alzheimer's. And babe, you're getting the implant. There's no question now, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Um it was just a a good way to drive home how important that is. Totally. There was a study done, this was some time ago now, and it was a pretty large study, and it looked at patients that have that had passed away from Alzheimer's disease, and they found that 98% of the brains had bacteria from the mouth that cause periodontal disease, that cause bleeding gums, and that cause gingivitis. And so we know that these bacteria are getting to our brains, but it's one of those things that you can't see it. I mean, you can't usually even feel an unhealthy mouth until it's really, really bad. And so so many people are walking around with bacteria and low-grade simmers of an infection in their mouth that doesn't hurt at all. I mean, it's kind of similar to when you just get high blood pressure, you know, before it's extreme high blood pressure, but you don't really feel it. It's not like everyone's walking around with a bright red face because their blood pressure is so high. I mean, that can happen, but that's when it's really ticked up really bad. And yeah, if we can get rid of these bacteria from swimming around in our mouth, then we know they're not going to be swimming around in the rest of our body as well. And, you know, it used to just be, I know my grandmother who just turned 91, she had all of her upper teeth removed at 21 years old because one of her front top teeth um died. And so back then she was told by her dentist that, you know, most people do lose their teeth. So we might as well just pull out all of your top teeth and give you an upper plate, as they call the denture back then.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

So she did now that she's 91 and she's dealing with a dementia, and she has most of her lower teeth. But because she lost her teeth at such a young age, she doesn't have any of the bone that can suction and hold a denture in. And because of her and she's older, she's not a great candidate for implants or anything like that to hold the denture in better. And so, you know, it's like if we could turn back time, we would say, hey, don't do that. Get a bridge later on, maybe get an implant, something like that. But for her, now she has this ill-fitted denture that doesn't feel good. It makes it very difficult for her to eat. She can't hardly eat meat. And we know, you know, especially as women, we need so much protein. Once we hit 40 and beyond, it's hard for her to get protein. And there's just so many different dental needs. But I mean, I've heard this from so many people that another friend of ours has a brother that has some pretty terrible, terrible oral health, and he's probably only 32. And they were his siblings were gonna pay for him to get his teeth fixed. And so he went in and he had the consultation and he has major gum infection, and the doctor said, Hey, we need to get your gum infection under control, then we can restore some of the cavities and things like that that you have in your in your he thought about it, and then ultimately he just decided that he wanted to wait. He was like, you know, I can just get, you know, I've been seeing these ads on these, these denture, um, dentures that are fixed to implants that you never take out and that you just keep in your mouth, and they look great. He's like, so why should I waste, you know, why should you guys waste all this money

Infection Risks With Implants And Dentures

SPEAKER_00 13:30

on me now when I can just restore it later with these, these, with these beautiful looking teeth? And so these friends communicated that with me, and I thought, oh my gosh. Another thing that we're not talking about enough is that if you have a gum infection, we really need to think about those bacteria like termites in the foundation of a house. They live deep, deep inside the gums. And just like termites in your house, you don't see them until the damage is extreme. I mean, if you see damage from termites, you need a gut. Like you need to gut that whole part of your house, and it is a major catastrophic event. And so if he did eventually, so let's say fast forward 10 years, 15 years, and and things are so bad that they start to hurt. Well, now, yes, maybe he does, maybe he's at a situation where he can't even save what he has now. And there's nothing better than the teeth that you were born with. There just isn't, even though implants are fabulous. And so he's then gonna be in a situation where they maybe remove his teeth, but the termites are in the foundation. So now you put implants in a foundation. Totally. And we don't, and again, like these bacteria are translucent. Like we can't see them with our naked eye. We can see them with a microscope, we can do salivary diagnostics to test for them, but you can't see them. I mean, you can see the damage that they've caused, but I mean, you can see termites, I guess, like in a wall, but in the mouth, you can't see these little creepy, crawly bugs. And so my fear was great, now you get these really expensive, beautiful dentures fixed to two of these really great implants, and maybe you get five years until all of a sudden something starts to hurt and your implants falling out. And unfortunately, show us now that half of the dental implants in people's mouths right now, half of them, have what's called perimucositis, which means there's infection. And if it's fixed underneath a denture, how who sees it? Nobody. You can't see it until it's too late. And that means that all that bacteria is getting into your bloodstream, potentially causing diabetes, potentially triggering a heart attack or a stroke. And we just are going, we're we're spinning our wheels because we don't always know that this is happening to us. Like as a patient, we're just like, nobody's talking about this really. I mean, more is getting talked about now, but there hasn't been for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Well, I I think it goes back to what you were saying. So many of these dentists were trained and taught you know 20 plus years ago. And you and I were just at an event that you were hosting, and there was a brand newly graduated hygienist. And I will never forget you saying, Were you taught any of these things? Not a single one. Not a single one. She had just graduated like the week before, and this was in the fall or a year ago.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. So and this is this is common in medical care too. I mean, studies show now that it takes 20 years for current science to get into a private practice medical facility. In schools, it's like 25 plus years to get new curriculum into schools.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Developing the curriculum, I get, especially when we're talking about medical things, right? You have to have all these trials and studies and things like that. Like I get, I get that, but we are learning at an exponentially higher rate than we are able to develop curriculum for the people who are being educated to then educate us. And so I think that's why what you're doing is so important. This podcast

Why Dental Training Falls Behind Science

SPEAKER_01 16:55

in particular, because you are trying to get to people like me, people like my dad, who you've helped so much, which we can talk about in a minute. But I just people are searching for information. And now it's at our fingertips with our phones and computers and iPads and things. You can listen to a podcast, you can watch a podcast and get so much information. And these people can then take it to a dentist that maybe they've seen for 15 years and ask these questions. And we're able to choose who our providers are a lot easier than we used to be able to. And so if they're not giving the care that you're wanting, you can change providers. You can call the office next door and say, Hey, do you do these diagnostic tests? You know, just like you would if you're trying to price out, you know, a vehicle. You're trying to figure out a car, yeah. Hey, I I gotta get an oil change. Well, what's covered in this oil change versus this oil change? So it's the same thing, but we're just able to do it a lot easier now. And we are I think having something like this that's going directly to the patient and the consumer, and while also educating the providers, because you're gonna have a ton of hygienists and techs and dentists watching this as well. I think they're gonna be able to provide a better quality of care and a more holistic approach rather than cool, let's go in and make sure your gums look pretty. Um every time I go in to the dentist, they're like, oh, you have such pretty looking teeth. Cool, I appreciate that. But what's going on underneath matters more to me than what this is. What about the foundation that holds my teeth in? Right, because I know my foundation isn't as solid as it might look. I I need some things to be fixed so that I can continue to have good bone density so that my roots of my teeth are strong and they've got something to bite into. My little eye teeth here are my baby eye teeth that I had little veneers put on. But in middle school, when my adult eye teeth weren't coming down, the orthodontist was like, Oh, go see this oral surgeon. My options were go in with brackets, surgery, brackets, try and pull them down, which now I understand would have been a good choice. Now I wish I would have done that, but super expensive, still a surgery, or the oral surgeon was like, Well, we can just remove those and you can keep your baby teeth as long as they'll last. Thankfully, they're still here. But at some point, I'm gonna have to have implants put in. And I'm dreading that day. So, you know, I think about bone density a lot. And there's also osteoporosis in my family, and but I think about it with my teeth, not just am I gonna be able to stand up when I'm 85? Yeah.

unknown 19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

I mean, there's so much and there's so much that we can do now. And that is one thing that I love with most of us now have AI on our phone in some way or another, even if it's just pulling up Google and turning the AI function on. If there is something that your dental professional is telling you that you don't understand and that you want to know more about, just

Assessment Versus A Simple Cleaning

SPEAKER_00 20:10

ask AI. Like, what other questions can I ask? So if we're being told that we have bleeding in our gums when the dental hygienist is poking around with her notch or his notch metal stick, as I like to call it, which the paranormal pro was invented in 1936. It's some old technology, it's still important. I don't love it as much as I love my microscope, but it does tell us a lot because what we're doing is we're doing an evaluation, we're doing an assessment. And so many paid people, when they are brushing at home and they're, you know, doing the best job that they know how to in terms of, you know, brushing their teeth or keeping their mouth clean, that's keeping your mouth clean, but that's not the assessment. So when we go in before the teeth cleaning part of it, we you guys really, I mean, we we want our dental professionals to do an assessment because that part of it to me is the most important part that I do as a dental hygienist is the assessment. Is there anything that I could potentially find in my patient's mouth that could cause them harm in the future or that's potentially causing them harm now? So the cleaning, sure, it feels good. We want to have nice, shiny, smooth teeth. I want that too for myself. But a cleaning is not gonna save somebody's life. It's gonna make your teeth feel nice and smooth for a little while. But then if the person doesn't keep up with it at home, well, then it feels kind of grimy after a while. And so, and sometimes if there's an infection in there, the saliva's not working right. There's there's all these shifts to that environment that are not very good. And so that assessment piece helps us to know. So if your hygienist is telling you that you have bleeding, that's actually almost always a sign of infection. And that might be in the gingivitis stages where the termites are in the foundation of your gums. But some people have what's called periodontal disease, which means that infection is affecting the bone. And either way, either of these infections means that those same bacteria that are causing this are not just in your mouth, they're in the rest of your body. And that's Where this mouth-body connection truly is. So, you know, if I'm, you know, a person going, well, sometimes, you know, when I floss, and maybe I don't floss every day, but when I do floss, I don't like to because my gums bleed. But what is going on? Why are my gums bleeding? Well, usually it's because they're just ever so slightly inflamed. So when you drag the floss along on your tooth, it's almost like giving your gums a paper cut, like an overfilled birthday balloon. You blow up, inflate a balloon a little bit too much and pop, you know, it it blows up right away. Well, in the gum tissue, it's the same thing. That's the first sign that you may have an infection going on. And so my first line of attack then is get yourself a water pick. I've got a video on YouTube that shows you how to use the water pick. I don't think you're my patient in that one, Lisa. I think you're my patient for the teeth, the teeth brushing video. I think I'm my own patient for the water. You are. You're your own. I am just super and I put it in my own mouth. And so using a water pick does a does a lot of really great things because it breaks up the bacteria that the toothbrush bristles are never going to reach, that the floss is never going to reach. And when it comes to floss friends, I mean, there's a lot of ingredients and plastics in floss. So I mean, make sure that you're using like a really good product because our gum tissue is so, so permeable. Anything you put in your mouth is getting, even if you spit it out, is gonna get into your body. And so we want to be careful with like really clean products as well, because some of them actually can be irritants. And so my first line of defense for any type of gum bleeding is using a water pick every single day. Like throw some peroxide in there. Old, I mean, this is old stuff here. We used to use peroxide and water um a long, long time ago, you know, even before the 80s, half water, half peroxide for a couple weeks can be really, really helpful. One of my favorite supplements.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Like once a week.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Same with me. Same with me.

Daily Tools Waterpik Peroxide Probiotics

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Deep clean. Let's make sure. Yep. Just making sure. Yeah. Going the extra step. The other one is using a probiotic prebiotic blend. My favorite one is Protectin, um, and it's from daily dentalcares.com. And Protectin, one thing that is really cool about their product is it's just a lozenge. So the best, the science shows us that the best types of probiotics are ones that actually take a little while to dissolve in our mouths. And so that's why you like a lozenge or a mint or something like that, is going to work more effectively than some of the pills that we take. Not that they're not not effective, but if you have bleeding, we need to bring out the big guns, so to speak. And so what the protectin lozenge does is it actually has an additional ingredient in it that acts like a sugar decoy and it's actually fiber. But the unhealthy bacteria, the ones that cause cavities and the ones that cause gum infections and bleeding gums, they love sugar. They love carbohydrates. The more processed carbohydrates, the better. The goldfish, the crunchy veggie straws, the things that our children love. They're just the immediate thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Especially in a little kid in there forever.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah, like Oreos. So hard. Yes. I used to have kids that would would snack on things before I clean their teeth. And I was like, I can't even start, dude. Like, you gotta go brush your teeth. Like, let's work on that right now.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah. But with the protectant, when you suck on a lozenge, basically what happens is that the sugar decoy, that's fiber, the bad bugs eat that. And then that makes them very full. And when they're full, they're not able to release their toxins. So slowly but surely, we kind of starve them. So when they're starved, they're not able to release the toxins that are causing the inflammation and the cavities and all that other kind of process. It's super affordable. You can get a bottle of like 120 lozenges for like 30 bucks. I mean it's super, super cheap.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Why why don't I have to?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I don't know. I yeah, I I'll I'll put in in the in the show notes, I'll put like a little coupon in there. Um you can use code Tosh for 10% off. I am an affiliate of this product. I'm not an affiliate for very many products because I'm so dang picky. I want I want the science to be solid. I want it to really do what it says it's going to do. Fun fact, dentistry is considered a beauty product. So the reason that our toothpaste, if you go to Walgreens, Walmart, wherever you, you know, get stuff, when it has the ADA seal on the on the bottle, it's really just talking about the fluoride. Um it's not talking about any of the other ingredients. Dental products are not well regulated, which is why a lot of them have a lot of ingredients that aren't actually so good for your microbiome. A lot of them are the wrong pH. So we don't want acidic stuff in our mouth because it's not good for our saliva. It's not good for our teeth. It's it's hard on our body. But when I was in school, I didn't even have a class on proper products. So when I graduated, I was like, I don't know, whatever's on the show. Here you go. And you have your own kids and you're like, what should I put in their mouth? And I mean, for me, I mean, with my daughter, like when she was a baby, I was laying her down and brushing her teeth really good and doing all the things. But then when it came time to start putting toothpaste in her mouth, I started to second guess myself, like, well, do I even know? And so all of those nitty-gritty details are what I want to dive into um on this podcast. And so I'm so excited to interview people that are way smarter than me so that they can teach me and educate myself and everyone else can come along for the ride and and we can find out what we can all do to empower our oral and whole body health.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Absolutely. I'm excited to be along. Lisa, is there anything else you'd like to add before we close today? I don't think so. I just have really enjoyed the ride with you. And I love that I'm getting to learn so much that is, again, helping me and and my overall health, but I'm able to then share that with my family and and friends, and it's made a huge impact. Um I mean, my dad, like I said earlier, he uh has diabetes and he's got it mostly under control, and uh he's changed a lot of things in his lifestyle over the you know, last handful of years. But the main thing that he's changed is he went and got a test done and figured out what bacteria he had in his mouth and did all the things that they prescribed and told him to do. He's using his water pick. He was able to actually see his A1C numbers go down like two points or something in um span of testing. And we know that that's ultimately due to what you were able to teach him because you came to the house and talked him through it all and uh concierge service his life for me to be able to enjoy, for my kids to be able to enjoy. And uh I mean, if all it takes is brushing your teeth a little more and and

Diabetes A1C Improvement And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 28:40

using proper products, then it's definitely worth it.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I mean, I truly believe that when it comes to how healthy your mouth can be, 70 or 80 percent is what we each what we do every single day. Because I mean, some people go to get their teeth cleaned three or four times a year, and there's 365 days in the year the last time I checked. So if I'm your dental hygienist and I do a beautiful job getting everything in ship shape in there, but then the patient goes home and those other 361 days, they're kind of like, just kind of sort of phoning it in here. No, or maybe they just simply don't know what to do. Yeah, it's it makes a huge difference. The studies on diabetes and gum disease and gum inflammation and bleeding are it's a two-way street. And so we know that there's been tons of science that's shown that if you go into the dentist and they tell you that you need some type of a deep cleaning, scaling and root planning, peridonal therapy, there's a lot of confusing interchangeable terms. But that treatment alone with the proper home care at home can decrease A1C in diabetics by two points within three months very consistently.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

And that's exactly what happened with my dad. He went in and had his treatment done. Um, you told him he was gonna need to have done. And um, and yeah, two points. I was pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Amazing. And some diabetics can work on two on one point for like a year, and it can be so hard because they're doing everything else right. But if they're if their doctor doesn't know that they have an infection in their gums, because these are not people that do a poor job on their home on their home care. I mean, I think there's a really common misconception that people that get infections in their gums are because they're doing a bad job or they don't go to the dentist on a regular basis. That's not it at all. A lot of people do go. And sometimes their dental professional doesn't know what else to do because maybe they haven't been exposed to the the types of dental continuing education um that could have taught them that. Right. So much to dive into. So much. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lisa, for being here. And I will see you guys on the next episode.