Is there a link between our oral health

and our fertility?

Yes. This is some of the newest research

that's coming out and they found that

over 90% of men who wasn't able to

conceive with their partners had an oral

disease. With those who got treated,

there was a 70% improvement in

pregnancy. Now, research has also found

that if a woman has gum disease, it

takes them 2 months longer to conceive.

And I'm the only one who's talking about

it.

And who are you?

I am the saliva queen.

Dr. Dr. Victoria Samson is the

trailblazing dentist

whose datadriven research has uncovered

the shocking link between our mouths

and some of the world's most destructive

conditions. More than 90% of diseases

can be traced back to our microbiomes.

And we now understand that having an

imbalanced oral microbiome increases

your risk of high blood pressure, heart

disease, Alzheimer's, rheumatoid

arthritis, and even men who have gum

disease are 2.85 times more likely to

have erectile dysfunction.

Really?

Yeah. And then another study also showed

there's oral bacteria that can make

cancer more aggressive and harder to

treat as well.

But what is it that causes all of this?

Poor oral hygiene, sugar, stress, but

also some of us genetically will have

mutations which can cause disease. But

there's ways to fix it. For example, I

had a patient who had terrible arthritis

and terrible gum disease. And when I

treated the gum disease, her rheumatoid

arthritis got better to the point where

she was actually able to walk again.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, let's talk about what we can do

about it. Is there any time where I

shouldn't brush my teeth? Do I spit or

rinse after I've brushed my teeth?

Chewing gum, coffee, mouthwash, good or

bad for me?

Let's go through all of that. So,

weirdly,

this has always blown my mind a little

bit. 53% of you that listen to the show

regularly haven't yet subscribed to the

show. So, could I ask you for a favor

before we start? If you like the show

and you like what we do here and you

want to support us, the free simple way

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the subscribe button. And my commitment

to you is if you do that, then I'll do

everything in my power, me and my team,

to make sure that this show is better

for you every single week. We'll listen

to your feedback. We'll find the guests

that you want me to speak to, and we'll

continue to do what we do. Thank you so

much.

Dr. Victoria Samson, what is the mission

that you're on?

Um, my mission is to show people that

the mouth is the gateway to the rest of

the body. And if they really want to

achieve full body health, it starts with

the mouth first.

I've never heard of the term oral

microbiome

really until I met you and went through

all of your work and your research and I

think many people listening to this now

also probably aren't familiar with that

term or and also the importance of that

term. So if you had to make a case to

someone like me who's really unfamiliar

with this subject as to why it's so

important from a very topline

perspective,

what would you say? I think everyone

knows that their gut has a microbiome.

And for the past 10 years, we've always

talked about how you can change your

diet, probiotics, prebiotics for the gut

microbiome. But what a lot of people

don't understand is that the oral

microbiome is the second largest and

most diverse microbiome after the gut.

It's also a lot easier to change and

actually it's been shown to have a

massive impact on general health. So,

uh, having an imbalanced oral microbiome

increases your risk of oral diseases

like gum disease and decay, but also can

increase your risk of other systemic

diseases like high blood pressure, heart

disease, infertility, Alzheimer's. Um,

and it's something that is so easy to

manage and balance.

How many people does this impact and how

many people is it relevant to? So, an

understanding of my or oral microbiome

is going to help me in a number of ways

as it relates to my overall health. But

how many people does it really really

have an impact on?

I think it depends on what you're trying

to get out of the oral microbiome

testing. Um, I would argue that it

benefits everyone. We all have teeth. We

all have mouths. Um, and everything that

we do, every time we breathe, we eat, we

drink, we kiss, uh, we are impacting our

oral microbiome every single time. And

then every time we swallow or we breathe

that bacteria that is putting into our

mouth will travel elsewhere to the rest

of the body and cause problems

elsewhere.

You said it's the second biggest

microbiome in the body.

Yeah.

How many bacteria are in my oral

microbiome?

So you have 700 approximately 700

different bacteria which make up two

billion bacteria overall. And what's

also very weird about the oral

microbiome compared to any of the other

microbiomes is that you've got lots of

different environments or niches within

the same mouth. So, if you think about

the bacteria that would like to live

under the gums or at the back of your

throat or on your teeth, they're all

very different environments. Some are

hot, cold, you know, wet. And so, you've

got lots and lots of different parties

of bacteria within the same microbiome

in the mouth.

Okay. And you mentioned a second ago

that things like kissing, breathing,

swallowing have an impact on my oral

microbiome.

Yes.

In a significant way that I need to know

about.

Uh, yes. So, it's more about how often

you're doing those certain habits. So,

you know, for example, with kissing, the

research has shown that you need to kiss

more than 11 times a day for you to be

sharing the same bacteria or microbiome

as your partner. Um, but also even the

habits that we have, um, the air quality

that we have, everything will dictate

the environment that our mouths are

living in and therefore what bacteria

will live in our mouths. And on the

subject of oral diseases and things like

tooth decay, how many people are

impacted globally by oral diseases?

So the World Health Organization has

come out um saying that 3.5 billion

people have some sort of oral disease.

They've also found that 10% of our world

population are suffering from severe gum

disease which makes gum disease one of

the most prevalent inflammatory

conditions um in the whole body. this

conversation around the oral microbiome.

Have you seen it developing over the

over recent years, have you seen it

become more sort of pertinent to people

in society?

Massively. I think I've been doing this

for for years. It's been something that

I've loved. Um, and no one really knew

what I was talking about most of the

time. They all thought I was a bit of a

dreamer. Even dentists, patients, they

all thought, okay, well, doesn't really

matter, does it? But in the last year or

two, I've had people traveling from all

around the world just to get their oral

microbiome tested to understand more

about what's going on in their body. And

I think we're seeing a shift in the

generations in terms of this new

generation want to understand their

health a lot more. So we're all sitting

there wearing, you know, trackables,

wearables. We're, you know, calculating

how much sleep we have, how much we're

eating. And for uh now we're actually

also wanting to understand our oral

health. So that trust between a dentist

and the patient is not necessary

anymore. We want to actually understand

what's going on in their mouths and

actually, you know, be able to track

things, see what bacteria we have, how

much inflammation we have, our risk of

diseases, and what we can do to change

that.

Last question before I ask you a more

sort of personal question about

yourself. Um, what other diseases in my

body or sort of implications in my body

are linked and can be traced back to the

oral microbiome? We now understand that

more than 90% of diseases can be traced

back to an imbalanced microbiome. Uh if

we zone into just the oral microbiome,

it's got connections with infertility,

heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's,

rheumatoid arthritis. Um and the list

goes on. Erectile dysfunction. Um and

what's also very interesting going back

to your question about you know is there

been a new interest in this in the last

few years we've actually been able to

show that there is a strong connection

and causation between the oral

microbiome and general diseases whereas

prior to maybe 5 years ago there was a

lot of kind of is this correlation is it

just that okay there's the same risk

factors with gum disease and with heart

disease for example smoking and now

we're actually seeing that no it's not

just correlation there is strong

causation between the two.

And who are you?

Um, I am Victoria Samson. I'm a dentist.

Um, I do a lot on the oral microbiome.

Um, people call me the saliva queen.

That's my name on the streets.

And what's your sort of what

professional experiences and education

have brought you here today? And how

long have you been doing that? How many

mouths and how much saliva have you

seen? Give me a a sort of a a big view

on the the wealth of experience you have

on this subject. Um so originally I

trained as a dentist. Um and that's six

years of training. Um I would say I was

a pretty traditional conventional

dentist as I graduated. Um I'd done some

training um at the Karolinska Institute

during my university and the the

Karolinska Institute is the best dental

school in the world. Um but they're very

focused on the mouthbody connection on

testing saliva. Um, and what they

thought was that, you know, you go to

your doctor and you have a blood test.

Why don't you go to your dentist and get

a saliva test? So, from even dental

school, I had this in the back of my

mind, but I still didn't have the

training. And so, I just became a

dentist. Um, I was working half NHS,

half private, and then as time evolved,

I then, um, shifted to fully private.

Um, and then when COVID happened, um, I

started doing a lot of research and all

the dental practices were closed across

the country. Um, and I thought that was

crazy because basically the government

was saying dental practices, uh, or

dentistry is not a necessity. So, uh, I

thought that was insane. And so I

decided to do a lot of research and I

wrote a paper which was connecting, um,

oral health with poor with CO

complications. So what we found was that

patients who had poor oral health or gum

disease were at a much higher risk of

COVID complications. Um and then that

evolved into me doing some studies with

universities and hospitals. But the

issue was that we couldn't go into um

hospitals and check people's teeth and

gums because they had CO. So instead

what we did was we would collect their

saliva and we would take it to the lab

and we had this beautiful snapshot of

what was going on in a patient's mouth

at that moment in time just from their

saliva. So we did a lot of research and

we found that uh COVID sufferers or

patients who had gum disease were nine

times more likely to have COVID

complications. But also what I took from

that was that why aren't we using saliva

you know more regularly? Why don't we

use this in more commercial aspect and

for our patients. So after that I

devoted a lot of time into developing

oral microbiome testing. We had gut

microbiome testing. you've got urinary

microbial, you've got every single

microbiome has a test, but the oral

microbiome didn't really have one. So, I

built one of the first oral microbiome

tests in Europe um and that was a couple

of years ago and then now have come out

and uh kind of left and created my own

one um about a couple of weeks ago.

That research you mentioned,

specifically the research paper which

was titled, could there be a link

between oral hygiene and severity of co

infections

was the first research paper to link gum

disease with worse co complications and

I was reading that it was the most cited

research paper by the one of the sort of

dentistry publications.

Yeah. Yeah. So the British dental

journal is one of the most cited and

viewed articles. Um and what it also

helped do was um the World Health

Organization and SAGE picked that up and

they said, "Oh, wait a second. I think

that oral health is really important for

general health and also we should reopen

dental practices." So this also paved

the way for dental practices reopening

later on.

What's going on there? Can you explain

that to me like a 10-year-old? So if I

have a bad or a unhealthy oral

microbiome, I'm nine times more likely

to end up in ICU with CO complications.

What what's the link?

So there's a few. So the first one is

inflammation. So CO we know um it

releases a lot of inflammatory markers.

So it's what we call the cytoine storm.

So it's essentially the storm of lots

and lots of inflammatory markers. And

gum disease separately um is essentially

inflammation of the gums. And so what

gum disease does is it releases lots of

inflammatory markers from the mouth

elsewhere to the rest of the body. So

then when you add those together and you

have your cytoine storm from COVID and

you've got your inflammatory markers

from gum disease, it's just adding

petrol to the fire. So you're just

making that cytoine storm even worse.

Um but then on the separate side, it's

also bacteria. So if you look at the um

autopsies and the research of CO uh

patients um most of them didn't die from

the virus itself. You no one really died

from COVID 19. They died from

complications. So the number one

complication was actually a bacterial

infection. So imagine your body you've

got COVID you are really unwell and your

immune system is on absolute overdrive.

This is the prime time for bacteria to

come into your body and to cause what we

call a bacterial super infection. And so

actually when you looked at the

autopsies of a lot of these patients,

they had oral bacteria from their mouth

traveling to their lungs and causing

bacterial super infections which would

result in things like pneumonia. And

that's actually the cause of death for

most patients.

You don't really think that your oral

microbiome can be fatal. It can kill

you.

No. And even I think as a dentist we

weren't really taught how important

bacteria was or how important the mouth

was for the rest of the body. Uh the

number the only one that we ever learned

um and a lot of people would know this

one is that if you um have heart surgery

you can't actually have a hygiene for

about 6 months after the heart surgery.

A dental hygiene.

Yes. And the reason for that is because

you're at a very high risk risk of

something called infective endocarditis.

So this is oral bacteria which travels

down to a faulty heart valve um and can

actually cause death. Um so we know that

but we never really look at it for other

diseases or other problems.

I want to um I want to take a step back

before we go through the links between

our oral microbiome and all of these

diseases. But also I really want to also

talk about how what we can do about it

because I've got so many questions

around it. I've got all of these

products down below my chair from

mouthwashes to toothpaste to all these

kinds of things which I want to talk

about as well. But just taking a step

back to something that one of my guests

previously was telling me about. I think

it was James Nester. He was telling me

that the the mouth itself and the jaw

because of processed foods is an

abnormal shape. And when I say abnormal,

I mean um in relation to how it was

supposed to develop because we're eating

so many processed foods which aren't,

you know, which are designed to be easy

to chew. the mouth itself and the jaw

have changed. Is there any truth in

that?

Yeah, 100%. So, there was a man called

Western Price um and he was a dentist

and he basically suspected that and he

was like, "This is strange. Why is it

that um people who are in more

industrialized and westernized areas

have higher levels of decay and they

have loads of crowding?" So, they had

basically lots of crowding of the teeth

um and sper jaws. And so he basically

traveled around the world and he looked

at lots of different um tribes,

villages, countries and he compared the

teeth of uh for example twins. One twin

would be in a very industrialized

westernized area and the other one was

not. And what he found was that in the

twins who were in these

non-industrialized areas, they were

eating harder foods. Uh they were having

less sugar and actually their jaws

developed a lot better. So they didn't

have crowding. They had perfect teeth

actually and they had no decay compared

to the children or the the twins who are

in more industrialized areas and it is

because our food now has become so

processed. A lot of children are not

having hard foods. Um and so we don't

develop the jaws and the muscles at an

early age and so the teeth haven't

changed size. The teeth are exactly the

same size as they were previously. But

what we're seeing is that those teeth um

don't have any space to grow anymore and

that's when we're getting crowding. And

can you see that in any of those models?

So, uh, yeah, in this model you can

actually see at the very back. So, a lot

of people will have wisdom teeth. Um,

and, uh, one of the biggest issues at

the moment is that a lot of people have

impacted wisdom teeth. So, this is

basically, imagine your teeth are all

upright. Your wisdom tooth is coming out

at a completely horizontal angle and

it's pushing on the rest of the teeth.

It's an absolute nightmare as a dentist

to take out. It's even more of a

nightmare for a patient to have to

endure. But also we're seeing that there

are a lot more impacted wisdom teeth um

in the last 30 40 years than there were

previously

uh because the diets have changed.

Because the diets have changed a lot

more children are needing orthodontic

treatment now as well just because they

have crowded teeth. Teeth are

overlapping um and so they need braces

to straighten those teeth out. If you

think about cavemen, cavemen didn't have

dentists. They didn't have braces. They

didn't even use toothpaste. But they

didn't die from gum disease or decay or

crowded teeth. So, it's been something

in our industrialized or more kind of

westernized diet that has changed that.

My wisdom tooth is coming through on my

left side at the moment and I think

actually also my right side at the same

time. And I'm 32 years old now. So, I'm

like, why why the hell am I growing

teeth at 32 years old? I thought I was

on my way out or something. Um, so I got

two questions just before we crack on,

which is what the hell is a wisdom

tooth? Why is it called a wisdom tooth

and why is it coming through at 32 years

old?

Um, so we have teeth erupting at

different kind of times of our lives. So

usually you have your baby teeth, they

will erupt up to the age of about 6 or 7

years old. Um, and then you have your

adult teeth coming through and usually

they will stop erupting around 12 years

old. Um, and then you have nothing.

You're chilling. You have nothing,

nothing, nothing nothing until about

maybe 18, 19 years old. And that's where

you start to get your wisdom teeth. The

name behind wisdom teeth from what I

understand is because it's it erupts

when you're older. It's when you have

more wisdom and you're more wise. So I'm

wise now.

So you're just very wise.

Okay, makes sense.

And so some people will get it at 18.

Some people don't have any wisdom teeth.

Some people will have wisdom teeth which

erupt perfectly and are all completely

fine. and others will have their wisdom

teeth tooth erupt at 32 years old and

maybe be a little bit impacted or cause

problems. So, they're also very strange

teeth. Um, they're very unpredictable

the way that they are.

Is there any evolutionary basis for why

we need them? There must be some kind of

evolutionary reason for them.

Not that I understand. What is also

happening is that um apparently and this

is some research is that less people are

having wisdom teeth because more

children or or adults are getting their

wisdom teeth taken out and as evolution

goes um eventually some people are

actually not having wisdom teeth at all

because their ancestors haven't had

wisdom teeth so why would they have

wisdom teeth? Um but overall no there's

no real need for wisdom teeth. I never

like to take them out unless needed

because I mean more teeth

the better

the better and you never know if you

have to have something taken out and we

can use your wisdom teeth for something.

If I were to look at my ancestors from

500 years ago, you said they don't have

dentists, they don't have toothpaste and

all those kinds of things. But you also

said they don't have tooth tooth decay.

Yeah.

Does that not therefore mean that I

shouldn't need a dentist and I shouldn't

need toothpaste or mouthwash or floss?

If you had a caveman diet, then

potentially you might not need

toothpaste, floss, or even a toothbrush.

Um, and there's a lot of argument as to,

you know, there's a lot of people out

there saying, you know, you don't need

to use any toothpaste, you don't need

floss, anything like that. And fine, go

ahead, do that. But only if you are

going to be eating, you know, meat, raw

meat sometimes, and you're only drinking

water and you're not having anything in

your diet which has any sugar or

carbohydrates in it.

I mean, doesn't that speak to what the

perfect diet is supposed to be? Can't we

tell what the perfect diet is supposed

to be by looking at the mouth?

Yeah. So, uh, another issue is that with

a lot of the food that we eat now, um,

they have a lot more sugar in them and

that will impact the acidity of your

saliva. And essentially what decay is

is, uh, you have sugar or you have some

sort of carbohydrates and you've got

this bacteria in your mouth and they

feed on that sugar. And as they feed on

that sugar, they release acid. Um, and

if that acid is left there, then it can

cause demineralization of your teeth.

and that demineralization will end up

with decay.

Okay. So, let's talk about the personal

oral microbiome. Um, is my oral

microbiome different from say Jack's

over there and from my girlfriends?

Yes. Massively.

Massively different.

Yes. Maybe massively I would say. Um, so

one of the issues that I used to have

was I was doing lots of oral microbiome

testing. Um, and I would have, you know,

let's say you and your girlfriend do an

oral microbiome test and both of you, I

would see your results and they would

come out pretty much the same because

we're only looking at certain bacteria.

We can't look at all 700. So, we would

look at the top 20 bacteria that cause

problems. So, I would look at both of

them and then I would look inside your

mouth and one of you, I don't know in

this case, had raging gum disease and

terrible, terrible oral health and the

other person would be completely fine.

So then I realized that actually it's

not just bacteria that causes disease or

problems, it's how your body responds to

that bacteria and the strains of

bacteria that you have as well. So for

every bacteria um there'll be multiple

strains and some of those strains can be

really aggressive and really horrible

for your mouth and other strains are

completely fine and are not going to

cause you any problems. So when I

developed my test, what we did is we

looked at strains. So we looked at the

strains of certain bacteria um and we

would be able to differentiate between

patients who had the really bad strains

and the really good strains. But then

also we looked at the ratio of good and

bad bacteria in someone's mouth. So

their diversity as well as their genetic

mutations and also their inflammation.

So when you put all of it together and

you it's like a puzzle piece then you

can actually have a better insight into

someone's oral health. So, I guess my

answer is that everyone's oral

microbiome is a little bit different,

but it's also how your body responds to

that microbiome and bacteria that really

dictates whether or not you're going to

have disease or problems.

So, you could be someone who takes care

of their teeth really, really well, but

still have a bad oral microbiome

relationship with the rest of your body

effectively.

Yeah. And I see it every day. And we

have a lot of patients who suffer from

terrible gum disease and they come to me

and they brush three times a day.

They've never touched a cigarette. They

have immaculate oral hygiene. They eat

very well, but they have terrible gum

disease. And for those patients, they

might have genetic mutations that

predispose them to gum disease and to

inflammation. So even the smallest

amount of bacteria, their body responds

in a very aggressive and inflammatory

destructive way, which can cause

disease.

When I was speaking to I think it was

Tim Spectre about the gut microbiome, he

was telling me that the gut microbiome

turns over, i.e. the bacteria dies every

couple of days or weeks or something.

How often does the oral microbiome die

turn over and why does that matter?

So, what's interesting or different

between the oral and gut microbiome? The

oral microbiome, if someone doesn't go

in there and mechanically disrupt the

bacteria and the plaque in your mouth,

then that bacteria can stay forever. So,

the gut, what happens is you've got

something called paristelis. got

movement. So the bacteria moves, it it

changes, it regenerates, there's

turnover in the mouth. So the teeth are

the only non-shedding surfaces in the

whole body. So that

non-shedding surfaces.

So imagine if you if you never had a

shower in your life. Uh you would still

selfwash because the skin cells would

shed.

Mhm.

But if you never brushed your teeth,

then your teeth are not shedding.

They're going to stay like that. So that

bacteria will just keep on growing and

growing and growing and growing and

you'll get this really thick plaque. So

that's why actually the oral microbiome

you need to mechanically remove that

bacteria and that's why brushing your

teeth is super important or um using the

correct toothpaste or etc. going and

seeing your hygienist because you need

to mechanically remove that bacteria

quite regularly.

Okay. And the the two ways I was reading

in your work it said that the two ways

that oral health impacts overall health

are by the spreading of bacteria and the

other sort of central issue is it causes

inflammation.

So on this point of spreading bacteria

I'm always concerned this is a bit of a

superstitious thing but anytime that I'm

sick I'm always like don't part of me is

like don't swallow because in my head I

think if I'm sick in my mouth or if I've

got um like a sore throat or something

I'm like if I swallow it the rest of my

body is going to get sick. It's super

super superstitious, but is there any

truth to any of this?

Um, so not from just being sick like a

common cold. And it's actually really

interesting. I had a patient yesterday

and bless him, he's very young, 7 years

old. Um, and he had exactly that same

mindset. He just randomly woke up one

day and he said, "This is kind of gross.

Why am I swallowing my saliva? There's

all these bad bugs and gross things in

my saliva and I'm swallowing it every

day and it's traveling to the rest of my

body at seven." And so what he ended up

doing was refusing to swallow his own

saliva. And so he would basically just

dribble and he would just wipe his the

saliva off with a sleeve or he'd carry a

towel with him and just wipe it. So

bless him, he had a big rash around his

his um his face. Um and it it was a bit

of a weird moment for me because I was

like, you're kind of right. Like I mean

it is a bit weird especially as a child

to sit there and think like yeah you've

got 700 different bacteria two billion

bacteria overall and then you're

swallowing it and it can travel

elsewhere to the rest of the body. So

yes in in short yes bacteria from your

mouth when you swallow it can travel

elsewhere to the rest of the body.

However a lot of the bacteria um dies.

So the acid in the stomach can kill a

lot of the bacteria. So it's only the

really really bad bacteria that are able

to survive and cause problems. And

that's why it's so important that you

have a good oral microbiome and you

balance it well.

And the other central way that it can

cause

negative impacts to your overall health

is via inflammation. What is the link

between inflammation and my my oral

microbiome? So it's uh something that we

call lowgrade chronic inflammation and

imagine so you've got this delicate

balance of bacteria in your mouth which

is your microbiome and we all have bad

bacteria in our mouths but most of us

hopefully have better levels or higher

levels of the good bacteria. So there's

always that balance and what happens in

an imbalanced oral microbiome is that

shift changes. So you get higher levels

of bad bacteria and you don't have

enough good bacteria. These bad bacteria

firstly yes they can travel elsewhere to

the rest of your body as you discussed.

The second is that they can release

inflammatory markers. So they basically

release inflammation and this

inflammation can travel from your mouth

to the rest of your body and contribute

to inflammation elsewhere. So for

example if you had rheumatoid arthritis

and then you had inflammation from your

gums that inflammation from your gums is

making your arthritis in your wrists

worse. So it's contributing to it. Now

what's also interesting and that's why

it's called lowgrade chronic

inflammation is often you wouldn't even

know that you have it. I have so many

patients who say oh you know my gums

bleed but that's normal. If your eye

bled or if your foot was bleeding every

day you would be worried and you would

think actually there's inflammation

here. There's a problem here. But so

many people have bleeding gums and they

don't understand that bleeding gums is a

sign. It's your gums screaming to you

saying that I have inflammation and that

inflammation can travel. And then the

third mechanism as well. So there's one

more is um it's damage to your blood

vessels. So again the same bad bacteria

in your mouth. It releases these

enzymes, these toxic enzymes and they

can travel through the rest of your body

through your blood vessels and they can

actually damage your blood vessels. So

these blood vessels are not able to

dilate and constrict as well as they

used to.

On that point of arthritis, I read a

stat which um I believe is true. I think

it actually came from some of your

research that said people with

rheumatoid arthritis are eight times

more likely to develop gum disease than

patients without rheumatoid arthritis.

Yes.

Which is shocking.

Yeah. So there's a really strong um

birectional relationship between

rheumatoid arthritis and gum disease. So

that means that if you have really bad

rheumatoid arthritis, you will have

pretty bad gum disease. And if you treat

your rheumatoid arthritis, your gum

disease will get better. and vice versa.

If you have if you treat the gum

disease, your rheumatoid arthritis will

get better. And that was actually one of

the um first patients that really got me

on my journey of the mouthbody

connection. So like yeah, I was doing

the saliva testing. I got it. You know,

I was like, "Okay, cool. We are

quantifying oral health. We're tracking

things." But even me, I wasn't really

fully sold on this whole mouthbody

connection, how our mouth is connected

to the rest of the body. So, I had a

patient who was sent to me by um her

functional medicine practitioner and she

had been seen by uh four or five

different practitioners. She had

terrible rheumatoid arthritis and she um

went to this final guy and he was the

first guy to ever ask her, "Have you

ever had your teeth checked? What's

happened?" And she said, "Oh, I've had a

few teeth taken out in the last year or

two, about six teeth, but you know, it's

just it is what it is." And he was like,

"I I don't think that's normal." So he

sent her to me and he was like, "Can you

do your saliva stuff that you do and see

if there's anything up going on there?"

And we did do a saliva test, we saw that

she had super high levels of

inflammation, of collagen breakdown, um

high levels of bad bacteria. And what

was the most important was that when I

treated her gum disease, she had

terrible gum disease and that's why she

was losing her teeth. When I treated the

gum disease properly and aggressively,

um, yes, her gums healed, but more

importantly, her rheumatoid arthritis

got better to the point where she was

actually able to get off steroids and

medication and be able to walk again.

Wow.

Yeah.

By treating her gum disease.

Yeah. And I think that, you know,

sometimes as a dentist, we treat a lot

of gum disease and we treat a lot of

things and we don't necessarily see the

systemic consequences because the

patient doesn't come back or you know um

or it's such a small impact that you

don't necessarily see it. But this was

the one time where I was like wow like

what we do is actually really really

insightful and really important. And you

mentioned alongside that um inflammation

also has an impact on cardiovascular

functioning and health. I believe it's

the case that cardiovascular disease is

the biggest killer in the world from

what I understand. Um so I was wondering

if if you knew any of the stats that

show the impact or the the increased

likelihood of me having a heart attack

or a stroke or something based on my

oral microbiome.

So um the research has shown that if you

have gum disease you are at a 20% higher

chance of high blood pressure. Um but

also they are now saying that up to 30

to 40% of cardiac um issues in hospital

can be traced back to an oral bacteria

um causing problems in the heart valve.

Um so the reason for this connection so

yes inflammation but also going back to

that third mechanism I told you which

was about the vasoc constriction so the

blood vessels constricting and dilating.

So these toxic enzymes which are being

released by the bacteria they travel

through the blood um and they basically

stop the blood vessels from being able

to widen and lots of blood to travel to

the heart and also to constrict and that

also is um one of the biggest

connections with uh heart disease.

I found this stat which might well be

from your work or someone else's. It's

from the study called the association

between parodontitis and blood pressure

highlighted in systemic systemically

healthy individuals.

Not mine but okay. And it found that

people with gum disease were twice as

likely to have a heart attack and three

times as likely to have a stroke than

those without inflammatory gum disease,

which is absolutely staggering.

Yeah. And then another study also showed

that when you treated someone's gum

disease, their levels of CRP, and CRP is

an inflammatory marker that you can

check in your blood, the levels of CRP

significantly reduced. And for a lot of

patients who suffer from heart

conditions, they will get their CRP

quite regularly checked through blood

testing.

And so this is a way of reducing their

inflammation is just by having a a

simple hygiene. And I've even seen um

particularly in America, there's a lot

of um uh cardiac surgeons and um doctors

related to to heart health um who are

now actually working with dentists

because they understand that if they

work together, then they're going to

have far better results for their

patients. And this is this is that

swallowing thing we're talking about.

This is because you're swallowing that

bad bacteria.

Yeah. And your heart valve um imagine if

it's been it's faulty. Imagine you just

had surgery. I always think of it like

it's sticky. It's like velcro. So it's

really prone to infection and problems.

It's just like if you fell over and you

had a scab and you were rolling around

in mud all the time, you would get

bacteria going into that scab and

causing problems. There's the same thing

with your heart valves.

Doesn't the bacteria just travel on its

own anyway? Cuz I feel like it's in my

mouth. So I feel like it I don't know

these are living organisms don't they

just like find their way down even if I

don't swallow.

Yeah even through your blood um and also

through your gums as well. So you can

swallow your bacteria breathe it or it

can go through your blood.

At the start of this conversation we're

talking you mentioned the sort of

implications for your cardiovascular

system and one of the things you said

was erectile dysfunction and that was

slightly alarming to me as a man

um who's trying to stay away from

erectile dysfunction. What is what is

the research that supports this idea

that my oral microbiome can have an

impact on my erectile functioning?

So men who have periodontal disease are

2.85 times more likely to suffer from

erectile dysfunction.

2.8 times.

Yeah.

Is I'm pretty sure that's 280% isn't it?

Yeah.

Okay. So what is this perodontal

disease?

Gum disease. Okay. So uh it's kind of I

would say it's a bit of a spectrum. So

the early stages of perodontal disease

or gum disease is just gum inflammation.

So that's that patient who is brushing

their teeth, spits in the basin and sees

blood. So that's the you know the early

inflammation. If they don't get that

checked out and sorted that will just

continue and continue and continue to

what we call gum disease. Um and that's

where yes you've got inflammation but

actually you have really high levels of

bad bacteria now. And this bacteria is

essentially eating away the gums and

also your bone. And uh it's it's now

become irreversible.

I'm just going to have a swig of this

for your thought this

and then at the very end of the spectrum

is people who are losing their teeth

having really terrible gum infections

and all of these kind of mouthbody

connections that we're talking about.

Okay. And that can you just explain

again as if I'm 10 the how my how that

gum disease that parodontitis is it

called

has an impact on my penis I don't

understand like I don't understand the

link it makes all of my blood vessels

exactly

yes so it essentially stops your blood

vessels from dilating

and so you've got reduced blood flow to

your penis

okay

and therefore

doesn't work

okay so this is an emergency this stuff

this is really is important

that's the one statistic whenever I have

a and in the chair and he's like, "Oh, I

don't want to brush my teeth." I'm like

2.85 times more likely to have erectile

dysfunction. They usually will go

straight to the bathroom to brush their

teeth.

The other thing, no, but it's true, but

also the other thing that I I read in

your research, which I found really

really um shocking is the link between

my oral health, my oral microbiome, and

cancer.

Yeah.

I was reading specifically about female

breast cancer,

um which I know is affects a lot of

women. um what is the link there between

breast cancer cancer generally and our

oral microbiome.

So this is um I would say some of the

newest emerging research that's coming

out. So with breast cancer um I didn't

know this before this research came out

but your breast has uh its own

microbiome. So that tissue within the

breast um different bacteria are able to

grow. And what they found was that in

women who had breast cancer, they had

high levels of certain oral bacteria in

their breast microbiome. So the oral

bacteria is called fusobacterium

nucleatum. And they compared the breast

microbiomes of patients who didn't have

breast cancer versus those who had

breast cancer.

Sorry, what's an oral what's a breast

microbiome?

Just the collection of bacteria in your

breast.

Okay.

Yeah. Um I didn't even know there was a

microbiome in your breast either, but

apparently so. And um so when they

compared a healthy um woman uh her

breasts to a woman who had breast

cancer, the woman who had breast cancer

had very high levels of the specific

oral bacteria called fusobacterium

nucleotum in their breast. Um there's

also been research on colurectal cancer.

Um and actually Apple News came out with

something couple of months ago which was

nice to see them kind of just spreading

the word. But what they found was that

in patients who had colarctal cancer um

more than 50% of them had the the exact

same oral bacteria from the breast

cancer study that fusobacterium

nucleotum in the colons and what they

found was that oral bacteria uh made the

cancer more aggressive and harder to

treat as well.

I was reading about a study in mice um

that linked that oral bacteria to tumor

growth. Mhm.

Are you familiar with that study?

Yes. And it's that specific oral

bacteria. So the fusacter nucleotum

which has been shown to accelerate tumor

growth um within mice but also um for

colorectal cancer and breast cancer as

well.

And what's your belief there? I know

this research is fairly new but do you

think there is a a causal relationship a

significant causal relationship between

the health of our oral microbiome and

our probability of developing some form

of cancer?

I wouldn't yet say causal. I think that

for most cancers it is multiffactorial

and there are a lot of things that can

impact whether or not you get the cancer

and how aggressive the cancer is. Um I

do think that oral health and some

specific oral bacteria um are risk

factors and can definitely increase the

um aggression of those cancers or even

the initiation of them. Um there's also

been research and I think I'm waiting

for the research to be published on what

they're doing is they've created a

antibiotic which only kills that oral

bacteria that I was talking about. So

fusobacterium nucleiatum and they are

going to be issuing that uh antibiotic

to those patients who have the colctal

cancer which has the oral bacteria to

see whether or not it slows down their

progression or improves their their

prognosis. So if I see those results and

it shows it, then there's for sure a

strong positive link between the two.

But for now, I would say that it's

multiffactorial and it's definitely a

risk factor.

That oral bacteria that you're

describing that you called it fuzo

bacterium.

Yeah.

What is it that causes that? Is it

something that I'm eating? Is it a

lifestyle choice I'm making?

Uh multiple things. Poor oral hygiene.

Um some of us genetically will have

higher levels of it. Um it's what we

eat. It's who we're kissing. It's what

we're breathing in.

Does my girlfriend have it?

So, we would have to see. Um, but it's

uh and that's the thing. That's the

beauty of being able to test these

things now is that you can actually see

and also what's it's strange is that

green tea um you know something so

simple is extremely effective at killing

fusoacterium nucleotum. So, it's just

knowing those types of things, being

able to do the test, knowing the right

treatment plans and recommendations

based from that. We know green tea is

good for us and now we can really

understand why.

Okay, that's interesting. You you have

actually tested Jack over there, right?

And you said to me before we started

recording that he's got a ton of that

fuzo bacterium.

Uh yes, he does. Yeah.

And it's really getting out of control.

That's what you said.

Really badly out of control. Yeah. So,

I've um

I've given him a big vat of green tea as

a gift.

Green tea?

Yes,

green tea.

This guy's going to edit that out. This

is the problem.

me up.

Green tea.

Yeah,

that's good for my own microbiome.

Yeah, really good. Stains, but really

good. Um, it's anti-inflammatory. Um, it

helps with what we call oxidative

stress. So, this is um, basically stress

of for the body. Um, and it's

antibacterial. So, it actually is very

effective at killing fusobacterium

nuclei.

What is your opinion of the impact that

coffee has on my oral microbiome? I'm

slightly biased because I love coffee.

Okay.

But there is no negative impact of

coffee on the oral microbiome directly.

Um coffee does dry your mouth out. Um

and so you have reduced saliva and that

can actually cause problems for the oral

microbiome. So the saliva is super

important in your mouth. It provides all

of the food, the proteins, everything

for the bacteria in your mouth. So, it's

kind of like this delivery service. Your

delivery roots traveling around

providing all the food and bacteria um

sorry, food to the bacteria and that's

what keeps the good bacteria alive and

happy. So, when you have a dry mouth,

let's say you're drinking lots of coffee

or you're very nervous or you are on

anti-depressants for example, um which

are a big one, then you just don't have

as much saliva. So you those bacteria

don't have as much food and those

bacteria die and then you get bad

bacteria growing in replacement.

What about tea? We're a nation of tea

drinkers in the UK.

Um similar. So it also does dry your

mouth. Not as bad as coffee, but

otherwise no problems other than

staining.

What about if I put loads of sugar in

it? Cuz a lot of people put a lot of

sugar.

Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. Never. No. No.

So actually sugar in your tea is even

worse than you having a biscuit for

example. Um so because the sugar

dissolves in your hot tea and the tea is

hot when you drink it um it can actually

cause more problems. Uh another thing

with sugar is um I have a sweet tooth. I

love sugar. But it's about how you eat

your sugar. So let's say if you have

your hot tea with five lumps of sugar in

there and you're sipping it over an hour

or two, that's where you start to see a

lot of problems. So actually you need to

be having a sugar attack. So just all

the sugar in one go. And that way your

mouth has all the sugar in one go and

it's able to neutralize the saliva and

get back to a good state as quickly as

possible. Every time you sip your your

tea with sugar, what happens is that the

saliva has to go from acidic back to

neutral, acidic, back to neutral,

acidic, and then it starts to just not

work properly and the saliva just stays

acidic and that's where you start to see

decay.

So you want to just down the tea,

down the tea or I don't know if you're a

M&M guy, have all your M&M's in one go.

Don't snack on M&M's every 10 minutes.

What about other drinks like, I don't

know, you know, Coca-Cas and these other

sort of fizzy drinks that might have

artificial sweeteners in things like

that.

So, they're not as bad as your natural

sugars. Um, but for example, something

like your Coke or or Fanta or whatever,

it's also um very acidic. Um, and it can

actually cause erosion as well. So this

is essentially where the outer layer of

your tooth, so the enamel is just worn

away from having lots and lots of these

fizzy drinks.

Okay. So that it's not going to cause

decay in the same way, but it might

change the acidic balance which then

decays my tooth, which makes me more

susceptible to when I eat sugar to

having a problem. Okay, got

so going back to what we were talking

about the the implications of an oral

microbiome and the rest of my body,

brain health is one thing that I was

really curious about. Um, we've had lots

of conversations on this show about

Alzheimer's and dementia and just

general sort of optimal cognitive

performance as I age. Something I'm

thinking a lot about. I want to have a

sharp brain. It's quite important

because of what I do. Um, so is there a

link between my oral microbiome and my

cognitive and brain health?

Yes. Um so if we look at actually just

the the occurrence of Alzheimer's um and

gum disease or oral health, a lot of

research has shown that um if you have

gum disease for more than 10 years, you

have a 70% increased chance of

developing Alzheimer's. So that was a

study that was done on over 20,000

people and they followed them for 20

years and they saw okay if you had gum

disease um at baseline whether or not

you get Alzheimer's at 10 years or 20

years so a 70% increased chance of it um

they've also done a lot of research

where uh they've been looking at oral

bacteria and what they found was that

there are certain oral bacteria so uh

one called p gingeralis that's one of

the worst oral bacteria I would say out

of all of them. So this penjavalis is

able to travel from your mouth to your

brain. It's only it's quite close by

anyway. And what's unique about this

bacteria is it's able to cross the

barrier between uh in your brain. So the

bloodb brain barrier um and it releases

these toxic enzymes. So these enzymes

are called gingipes and they're imagined

these like horrible firefighter things

and they can break down neurons. They

can break down um a lot of brain tissue.

And so when they looked at the cerebral

spinal fluid and the brain fluid or

tissue of Alzheimer's sufferers, they

found that 97% of them had these toxic

enzymes, these ginger pains in their

brains compared to zero for the patients

who did not have Alzheimer's. So this

is, you know, the first study shows,

yes, there's some sort of correlation,

but there's a lot of other risk factors.

The second one, which is looking at your

ginger pains, is showing that there's

definitely a strong causitive factor um

between the two. And then another study

which was very interesting was um

looking at cognitive cognitive decline.

So okay fine you have Alzheimer's

unfortunately um is it is it too late

should you stop brushing your teeth or

what's the point? And so what they did

was they had uh patients um who had

Alzheimer's and they checked their

cognitive function and they also checked

their oral health. And then uh six

months later they reviewed them and they

found that the patients who had gum

disease had a much more rapid cognitive

decline than those patients who didn't

have gum disease. So again, it is still

important if you do get Alzheimer's that

you maintain your oral health, that you

have someone help you brush your teeth

because your cognitive decline um will

be faster.

How do they unpick that from other

causal factors that might be going on

like bad food choices? Because in my

head I was thinking, well, if someone's

drinking sugary, fizzy drinks every day,

they're more likely to have gum disease,

but maybe also that the chemicals within

that fizzy drink are impacting their

chances of dementia. Maybe they're also

someone that has an unhealthy lifestyle.

Maybe they're more sedentary. If they're

eating bad things, maybe they're more

sedentary. And maybe it's that that's

causing the rapid cognitive decline

versus the gum disease itself. Is it

possible to untangle all of this?

I mean, it is very difficult. I think

that for those types of things, you

either, you're right, diet, lifestyle is

super important and we know that

Alzheimer's is again multiffactorial. Um

I think it's really about the quantity

of patients that they check. So they

need to be looking at a huge number of

patients and they did um to check

whether or not there is a strong

correlation between them. Um, also going

back to the ginger pain study, so the

one about the bacteria that shows it

doesn't it's not diet or lifestyle or or

nutrition. It is a specific oral

bacteria that has traveled to the brain

and released these enzymes which are

then breaking down neurons. So there

there's definitely a strong positive um

effect.

That is um fascinating. It's really

really fascinating because dementia and

Alzheimer's still seem to be a bit of a

mystery. it is and and I work um with a

team for Alzheimer's and what they've

done similar to what you were saying is

that they've kind of separated all of

the the causes of Alzheimer's that we

know um or the risk factors and

thankfully they've put oral health as

one of them as well and I think from all

of the other risk factors so uh you know

for example if you have uh the genetic

mutations you got the APO4 or any of

those mutations that's you can't change

that unfortunately some of us have

mutations which means that we are at a

much higher risk of suff of getting

Alzheimer's in the future. But something

like that oral bacteria p gingalis and

those gingi pains you can get rid of p

ging javalis really easily again if you

tested it you can even test for gingi

pains um and then you can get rid of the

bacteria before it starts causing

problems.

The test that you offer does it test for

gingi pains?

It does. Yeah. So, we're the only ones

um on the market who do because that was

something that I thought was super

important. What's the point in us

telling you that you have a bacteria if

we can't tell you that that bacteria is

being really bad in your mouth and

causing a lot of problems?

And people think I'm joking, but you

have actually tested several members of

my team, including myself. So, I am

actually going to find out the results

today. Um on the subject matter of the

brain, is there a link between my mental

health, depression, anxiety, and my oral

microbiome?

So again, there's been a lot of

research. Um I think it's difficult for

something like mental health and um and

gum disease, which you know, with the

chicken and the egg, which one came

first? Um because one of the issues is

if you have a decline in your mental

health, you are less likely to take care

of your oral health. um and therefore

that can exacerbate issues. So there has

been a lot of research to show that you

know

uh there's a correlation between poor

mental health and poor oral health. But

in my personal opinion that causitive

connection is not there yet. Um there's

also been some research with things like

schizophrenia, but again it's the jury

still in my opinion.

Are you able to tell the state of

someone's mental health by looking at

their oral microbiome in your view?

um you can know if something's up. Like

for example, I I had a patient

relatively recently. I've been treating

her for five, six years now, and I know

that she takes good care of her her

teeth. She she takes good care of

herself. And a few weeks ago, she came

in and she was not taking care of her

gums or her teeth at all. Everything was

an absolute mess in there. And um so I

did pull her aside and I was like,

"What's wrong?" Like something's

happened here. And I think it is quite a

big um sign for a lot of people. It's

the first thing that they kind of let go

of is their oral health.

And is that because of, you know, they

start certain self soothing behaviors

because they're stressed in other parts

of their life. So if they're having a

bad time in their relationship or work

and they're stressed, they might start

eating sugar more or

or just not brushing,

smoking or drinking more. Okay.

Or just not brushing. Like with this

woman, she just wasn't brushing her

teeth anymore. Another thing that we can

also see, I mean it's kind of a bit on a

tangent, but also um eating disorders as

well. So things like bulimia um or even

sometimes anorexia, you can see in the

mouth. So there's a lot of times where

we'll see young teenagers um and I'll

know that they are bulimic because they

have certain issues in their mouth which

they shouldn't have and that again is a

telltale sign.

Is that because the stomach acid is

coming through their mouth?

Yeah. So they get a lot of erosion on

the on their teeth and then in some

cases you can also get these marks on

the roof of your mouth. So if they're

trying to force themselves to to vomit

then you can see that. Um and that's

something that you know you have to pull

the patient aside or tell their mother

and explain that to them as well.

And is there a relationship between

stress and my oral health? So if I'm

more stressed and my cortisol levels are

higher, is that going to make everything

in my mouth worse?

Yes.

Even outside of the lifestyle choices I

might make in such a state.

Yes. just that stress will increase your

inflammatory markers, your inflammation.

Um, it also will dry your mouth out and

all of those things will be linked. Um,

uh, we do a lot of testing at my clinic

and so one of the tests that we look at

is collagen breakdown. So, um, we have

lots of different types of collagen all

over our bodies and our gums are made up

of a certain collagen. So we look at an

enzyme called ammpn and this enzyme is

responsible for breaking down that

specific collagen. Um so we test the

coll that enzyme all the time with our

patients. It's a really nice way of

knowing like um whether or not someone's

about to have gum disease. Um how much

collagen breakdown is happening from a

biomolelecular level. So I had a woman

very healthy, always been fine. Um and

then she had her collagen breakdown

tested and her levels were through the

roof. her gums looked fine. She didn't

look like she had any problems, but I've

never seen such a high level in my life.

And so, you know, I'm trying to think of

what could be causing it. All of that.

And she had lost her baby a couple of

days before. And that type of intense

stress on someone's body can have so

many effects and impacts on the rest of

your body. Um, and that was one of them.

When we retested her six months later,

she was back to normal again. But you

can see even your mouth, you know,

stress can really impact you.

On this subject, I was thinking about I

mentioned Jame James Nester earlier who

was telling me about the research of um

how the the mouth has changed shape

because of the foods we're eating and

how that that's caused a bunch of

downstream implications for us. One of

the also one of the other things he also

mentioned was about mouth breathing and

nose breathing. Yes.

And there's a lot of people that have

become incredibly interested in whether

we should be breathing through our

mouths or our nose. And I was wondering

if you had a perspective on that. Um,

and also the other thing that he

mentioned to me was that there's a link

between mouth breathing and things like

ADHD. What is your point of view?

Uh, completely agree with all of that.

So actually my sister, she is an

orthodontist. Um so she works at our

clinic and um we run it together with

our mother and um she is very very hot

on um mouth breathing. And what she um

mainly does is she basically tries to

stop children in particular from

breathing with their mouths open. And

what she has found is that most of her

patients um who come to her um are mouth

breathers. They often have some sort of

um ADHD. they have or some sort of

attention deficit. Um they are uh bed

wetters. They grind their teeth a lot of

the time. Um and they have a whole

cascade of other problems and uh she can

treat it then and it's relatively easy.

She would argue that it's very

difficult, but to me I think it's easy.

I'm like, "Yeah, there we go. You can do

what you do." Um and because the the

jaws of a child are very malleable, so

they haven't fully solidified, so you

can still move things. You can um get

the teeth to meet. So if you get the

teeth to meet correctly then uh the

child won't want to breathe with their

mouth open. The annoying thing is is

that uh a lot of adults are mouth

breathers because their teeth do not

meet correctly or their jaws are in the

incorrect position and uh at that point

it is quite difficult to move the jaws

into the correct position or to get the

teeth to close in a way so that the lips

are at rest and you breathe with your

nose instead of your mouth. But again, I

see those types of patients because they

all come to me with a lot of other

problems. So again, same thing. A lot of

them have uh a lot of them have suffered

from long COVID. A lot of them have

inflammatory conditions. Um are always

tired. They a lot of them chronic

fatigue. It you know there's a lot of

connections now uh between mouth

breathing and those types of issues as

well.

Is there a link between the health of my

oral microbiome and whether I breathe

through my nose or mouth? cuz James was

explaining to me that the nose is

effectively like a a filter system.

Yeah.

There's a certain temperature in there.

Yeah.

Um there's like sinuses and stuff which

are have some kind of mucus which helps

to catch bacteria. So if I'm breathing

through my mouth, am I more likely to

have unhealthy oral microbiome?

100%. So exactly the same thing. You're

you're you've got a filter in your nose

and so it will stop a lot of bad things

from coming through. But the mouth uh

there is no filter. I mean you breathe

it in, it goes straight into your lungs.

So, there's no way of stopping anything.

A lot of people now are starting to

mouth tape. Um, and that's become kind

of trendy and cool. Um, it's not the

easiest thing to do. If it seems a bit

weird to tape your mouth at night time,

um, but for anyone who's worried that

they breathe with their mouth open,

mouth taping, in my opinion, is a really

nice way of just like testing it out and

seeing whether or not you do breathe

with your mouth open because you'll do

some mouth taping and you can see

whether or not you sleep better. So, if

you have a wearable, you can see, "Oh,

wow. My oxygen levels are so much

better. I had such a deep sleep." And if

that's the case, you might be more

inclined to straighten your teeth or

sort out the reason that you're

breathing with your mouth open.

I I uh took notes of a study which kind

of is interconnected to the point we

were making about mouth brea breathing

which said in a six-year study of 11,000

children. It was found that children who

suffered from sleep disordered breathing

were 50 to 90% more likely to develop

ADHD like symptoms than were normal

breathers who breathe through their nose

correctly which is absolutely

staggering. 50 to 90% more likely to

suffer from ADHD like symptoms just

because they breathe through their mouth

at night and disordered breathing.

And it's it's mainly to do with also

oxygen being delivered to your brain,

right?

So there's not as much good oxygen um

like real rich oxygen, filtered oxygen

traveling to the brain and so that's

basically not allowing your brain to

function as well.

You mentioned kissing earlier on.

Yes.

Um I'm still supposed to kiss my

partner, right?

Yes. I hope you do many times.

You you said if I kiss her more than 11

times a day or something then our oral

microbiomes synchronize in some way.

Yeah. So there is um passage of bacteria

from you to her and her to you. Um they

have also shown that uh for example they

did a study where one uh partner chewed

lots and lots of probiotics or like good

bacteria and then had a super long

smooch with their partner and actually

was able to transfer nearly 60 or 70% of

that good bacteria into their partner.

So it's not necessarily longlasting. I

wouldn't say that um you know if you

kiss someone once on a night out that

you are going to terribly impact your

microbiome. it's fine. You can go and

kiss, but it's more for long-term

partners. If you're kissing regularly

and for a long time, then yes, your

microbiomes will start to um be quite

similar. Um, another factor as well is

that obviously your lifestyles are

probably pretty similar. You're probably

using the same toothpaste, eating the

same food. So, it's difficult to fully

put it on just kissing, but yeah.

What about oral sex and the implications

that will have? So, if we're if me and

my partner are doing oral sex on each

other, is that going to impact our oral

microbiome? Yes. So, actually there's

been a few case reports which have shown

um uh there's one in particular and I

had a patient as well who had this a

woman who um had a new partner and she

liked to perform oral sex on him and

then she came to me because she was

complaining of very inflamed gums and

she was getting gingivitis

and you know it's not something I really

ask like I'm not going to be like how's

your how's your sex life going these

days like so I didn't ask it but she

kept on coming back to me No, my gums

are still inflamed. No, my gums are

still inflamed. And then she asked, she

was like, "Is it maybe because I have a

new partner?" I was like, "Okay, maybe

you guys are kissing a lot." And she was

like, "No, no, no, no." And and then she

explained to me. Um, and then I was

like, "Okay, fine. Why don't you go and

test and ask him whether or not he has

any issues." Um, and it turns out that

he was having recurrent urinary

infections. And so, actually, they were

transferring bacteria and she was having

inflammation in her gums because she was

Yeah. performing her oral sex. So, yeah,

there is transfer. Again, I wouldn't be

scared and say never do it. Um, I once

made an ex-boyfriend do an oral

microbiome test uh just to check and

just to make sure everything was okay.

You made him do it.

Yeah. I don't It's not a It's not a um a

prerequisite anymore, but it was at the

time. I was like, "H, let me see. Let me

You must think that when you meet

people. You must think, God, I wonder

what their own microbiome is saying like

in a romantic context cuz you know the

significance of it."

Yeah. I think it's a, you know, I spend

a lot of time and energy making sure my

oral microbiome is very nice and

balanced. So, I wouldn't want anyone

messing that up for me. So, it's

important.

Are you in a relationship now?

Yes, I am.

Have you tested their oral microbiome?

I've been trying to, but he won't let

me.

You've asked him.

Yeah, of course I have.

And what did he say? Mind your own

business.

But I did give him an oral microbiome

test. So, hopefully he will just use it.

I said, "You can even use a fake name. I

don't care. I don't I'm not going to

test. I'm not going to check it. I just

want you to do the test for me.

For for you?

For me? Yeah.

And what's his what's his rebuttal? He's

like, I don't

He was like, what happens if you break

up with me if I have a really imbalanced

oral microbiome? And I was like, I hope

that our relationship is stronger than

just your oral microbiome. But there's

ways to fix it. And that's the beauty of

the oral microbiome is that it's

actually pretty easy to to fix and to

change.

If his results came back and he had a

terrible oral microbiome, one of the

worst you've ever seen.

Yeah.

Are you less likely to kiss him that

day? that day. Yes.

There you go. Don't do the test, my

friend.

No, no, no. Don't do the test that day.

Yes.

There's no upside to him doing this

test. I completely understand.

And then I would go and creep into his

bathroom and change all of his oral

products. This is what he's scared

about.

Personalize everything for him. And then

you've done that already.

I already have. He tests everything out

for me as well because I get a lot of

products sent to me. So, I'm always

getting him to to try things out for me

as well.

Okay. So, no if they've got um

issues down there.

Yeah. Okay.

And we don't really know if they've got

issues down there unless they admit it

or do some kind of test.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. What about fertility? Is there a

link between our oral health and our

fertility?

Yes. Um so if we look at men to start

with um there was a study done and they

found so they looked at a group of

subfertile men. So, men who um weren't

able to conceive with their partners and

they checked all of their mouths and

they found that over 90% of these men

had some sort of oral infection or

dental disease of some sort going on.

They split the group into two. Half the

group had the uh treatment that was

needed. So, I don't know if they had gum

disease or decay. They they got it fixed

and the other half were left to their

own devices. Um after eight months there

was a 70% improvement um in their

success for pregnancy. The men who'd had

their oral infection sorted um and they

had a much better improvement in their

sperm quality and motility as well.

And what did they do to those men in

that group where they saw the

significant improvement? So, for

example, if the man had um gum disease,

they would treat it with hygiene or if

they had an infected tooth, maybe they

would take it out or do a root canal or

etc. They would just have to treat that

infection. So, I speak a lot about gum

disease all the time, but actually

there's so many other oral diseases like

decay um or tooth a types of things that

can also contribute inflammation and

problems. In that study, 6 months after

that, their sperm had improved by 20%.

And after 8 months, 50% of their wives

were pregnant.

Yes.

That is staggering.

Yeah.

What about women though? Is is there a

similar sort of result as it relates to

women's fertility?

Yes. So, um research has also found that

if a woman has gum disease, um she is

less likely to ovulate. Um and also

she's going to have uh issues with

conception. So they found that women

with gum disease it takes them two

months longer to conceive versus a woman

who doesn't have gum disease. Um but

once the woman has conceived um the

issue is still not over. She still has

to maintain her gums. So firstly a lot

of women will have um pregnancy

gingivitis. So this is basically super

inflamed puffy gums because of all the

hormones. Um and so they should be going

very regularly to see their hygienist.

Um but also what the research has found

is that women who are pregnant and have

gum disease are at a much higher risk of

preterm birth so premature uh babies low

birth weight um and also preclampsia as

well. So they did a study in Malawi um

it was on 10,000 women. So Malawi has

the highest rate of preterm birth in the

world at just about I think

just under 20%. Um, and preterm birth is

a a big issue for for governments, for

hospitals. It's really expensive. You

need to keep the woman and the child in

the hospital for a lot longer, but also

that child will have a whole myriad of

problems afterwards as well. So,

weirdly, Wrigley's um the sugar the

chewing gum company sponsored this uh

study. They went to Malawi. They had

these 10,000 women. They split them up

into two. 5,000 of those women uh were

given sugar-free chewing gum,

toothbrush, and some toothpaste. And the

other half were left alone. And they

found that there was a 20% improvement

um or 20% sorry, reduction in preterm

birth in the woman who'd had the

sugar-free chewing gum compared to the

woman who hadn't had it. So something so

cheap and so easy like chewing gum was

able to actually reduce the risk of

preterm birth for these women.

How and why? So, if you look into the

research a little bit more, um you're

going to get your chewing gum now.

Yes.

Um so, sugar-free chewing gum um has

been shown to um stimulate your saliva.

So, it helps with what we were talking

about earlier, saliva is super

important, um and it provides all the

good food for uh your bacteria. Um but

then also, if it's sugar-free, um let's

say it's using xylitol, that's naturally

antibacterial, so it's killing a lot of

the bacteria in the mouth. And what they

found is that there are certain oral

bacteria that can travel down to the

placenta um and can also uh cause

problems there and essentially um

increase the chance of preterm birth.

You sufficiently convinced me that

saliva is an important thing and I

actually did one of your tests. Let me

go grab the results.

Okay.

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