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The Dental Diet: The Surprising Link between Your Teeth, Real Food, and Life-Changing Natural Health
Throughout the years, dental health has often been characterized as a reflection of our overall health, where bad oral health results from issues with other parts of our body. But what if we flipped the paradigm? What if we thought about dental health as the foundation for our physical health as a whole?Dr. Steven Lin, an experienced dentist and the world’s first dental nutritionist, has analyzed our ancestral traditions, epigenetics, gut health, and the microbiome in order to develop food-based principles for a literal top-down holistic health approach. Merging dental and nutritional science, Dr. Lin lays out the dietary program that can help ensure you won’t need dental fillings or cholesterol medications—and give you the resources to raise kids who develop naturally straight teeth. With our mouth as the gatekeeper of our gut, keeping our oral microbiome balanced will create a healthy body through a healthy mouth.Dr. Lin arms you with a 40-day meal plan, complete with the Dental Diet food pyramid, exercises for the mouth, recipes, and cooking techniques to help you easily and successfully implement his techniques into your everyday life. The tools to improve overall wellness levels and reverse disease are closer than we think—in our markets, in our pantries, and, most frequently, in our mouths—if not just a well-chosen bite or two away.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published January 9, 2018
502 people are currently reading
1922 people want to read
About the author
Steven Lin
2 books22 followersDr Steven Lin is a board-registered dentist, writer, and TEDx speaker with work published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The British Dental Journal. He has also written for MindBodyGreen and About.com.
Trained at USYD with a background in biomedical science, he is a passionate whole-health advocate, focusing on the link between nutrition and dental health. His mission is to prevent dental diseases instead of treating them.
Steven’s journey began when, as a practicing dentist, he realized that today, we live with crippling oral disease. Whether it’s cavities, bleeding gums, crooked teeth or wisdom teeth impaction, there’s no doubt our modern mouths are very sick.
Our current dental care is excellent at fixing these problems. However, it is failing to prevent oral disease. Steven soon became frustrated with the lack of answers for WHY dental diseases occur.
When he discovered a book written by a dentist from the 1930s, he was inspired. The author, a pioneer in dental nutrition, seemed to have those answers.
Today, Steven Lin focusses on helping his patients prevent dental disease and so avoid treatment. He looks for the root cause of disease, believing that the mouth-body connection is the best way to monitor our health.
He is also convinced that our diet is the cause of the problems in our mouth, from crooked, rotten teeth to inflamed gums. The oral-systemic link means our mouths affect our body and our bodies affect our mouths.
Healing Your Teeth Naturally Can Heal Your Entire Body
Why have we never eaten a diet designed for healthy teeth?
Nutrition and dental health go hand in hand. Steven can help you to finds the foods that will strengthen your teeth – and make you healthier overall.
Steven’s program helps his patients solve the cause of dental disease. It merges dental nutrition, breathing, airways, functional orthodontics and sleep health. Today the oral-systemic link is clearer than ever. And it’s helping the next generation of children to avoid braces naturally.
Dr. Lin’s Dental Nutrition course is PACE accredited (AGD Council) for continuing education. He has trained healthcare professionals in Australia and UK. He also teaches general health practitioners about the mouth-body connection.
In January 2018, his book The Dental Diet will be released in the US, UK, Australia and Germany. The Dental Diet is a journey of ancestral medicine, the human microbiome, and epigenetics. It explains the foods for healthy teeth based on the Weston A Price Diet – the inspiration for Dr. Lin’s work.
Trained at USYD with a background in biomedical science, he is a passionate whole-health advocate, focusing on the link between nutrition and dental health. His mission is to prevent dental diseases instead of treating them.
Steven’s journey began when, as a practicing dentist, he realized that today, we live with crippling oral disease. Whether it’s cavities, bleeding gums, crooked teeth or wisdom teeth impaction, there’s no doubt our modern mouths are very sick.
Our current dental care is excellent at fixing these problems. However, it is failing to prevent oral disease. Steven soon became frustrated with the lack of answers for WHY dental diseases occur.
When he discovered a book written by a dentist from the 1930s, he was inspired. The author, a pioneer in dental nutrition, seemed to have those answers.
Today, Steven Lin focusses on helping his patients prevent dental disease and so avoid treatment. He looks for the root cause of disease, believing that the mouth-body connection is the best way to monitor our health.
He is also convinced that our diet is the cause of the problems in our mouth, from crooked, rotten teeth to inflamed gums. The oral-systemic link means our mouths affect our body and our bodies affect our mouths.
Healing Your Teeth Naturally Can Heal Your Entire Body
Why have we never eaten a diet designed for healthy teeth?
Nutrition and dental health go hand in hand. Steven can help you to finds the foods that will strengthen your teeth – and make you healthier overall.
Steven’s program helps his patients solve the cause of dental disease. It merges dental nutrition, breathing, airways, functional orthodontics and sleep health. Today the oral-systemic link is clearer than ever. And it’s helping the next generation of children to avoid braces naturally.
Dr. Lin’s Dental Nutrition course is PACE accredited (AGD Council) for continuing education. He has trained healthcare professionals in Australia and UK. He also teaches general health practitioners about the mouth-body connection.
In January 2018, his book The Dental Diet will be released in the US, UK, Australia and Germany. The Dental Diet is a journey of ancestral medicine, the human microbiome, and epigenetics. It explains the foods for healthy teeth based on the Weston A Price Diet – the inspiration for Dr. Lin’s work.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
August 31, 2018
The author put in a lot of study and thought into this book, and my jaw literally dropped at much of the information. However, he missed some very important studies on health, heart disease, the Inuits and Maasai.. I would eagerly look past that, if he had done one thing... PROVE that his diet actually had results past his own personal experience. Because what do I want? Results. And unfortunately there’s too much proof that a whole foods, plant based diet reverses disease and leads to the best longevity, for me to start basing most of my diet on animal products and skipping fruit and intact whole grains - without more proof. Again, though, worth the read.
September 22, 2018
Dr Steven Lin's The dental diet is a fantastic book that develops the ideas of Weston Price and his ground-breaking research from the 1920s and 1930s. Price was a Canadian dentist who visited many countries and found that the indigenous groups who ate traditional diets had much better teeth.
We know a lot more of the science now and this book reveals the ways that the modern processed diet has negatively impacted on our bones and teeth. Not surprisingly he identifies sugar as being one of the biggest problems, but also points out that our modern diets are sorely lacking in the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K, as well as sufficient fibre.
Dr Lin writes about the importance of your microbiome in dental health. Your microbiome is unique to you and is made up of bacteria , fungi and viruses (I know, doesn't sound promising) that are everywhere on and in your body. There are more than 100 trillion organisms in a healthy microbiome. Your microbiome helps digest our food and protect us from getting sick, you can think of them as your private army. Mice who are breed in a lab without a microbiome are small, weak and sickly. A healthy mouth Microbiome protects your teeth from decay and cavities, even if you harly ever brush your teeth!
Some of Dr Lin's tips for healthy teeth are:
1. Oxygen is vital and helps build a healthy mouth and jaw. Breathe through your nose as a habit and try some relaxed deep breathing before a meal.
2. Eat lots of fat-soluble vitamins (A,D and K). Fatty fish, fish oil, butter, natto, cheese and egg yolks are all good sources.
3. Cut back on refined foods like white bread.
4. Try not to cook with vegetable oil, try coconut oil instead.
5. Eats lots and lots of fibre to keep your microbiome balanced (vegetables are a good source)
6. CUT THE SUGAR!! Check labels and try to drink mostly water.
I have been trying to follow most of these recommendations for some time and have noticed a difference. If you feel you need some help getting fat soluble vitamins the Weston Price foundation recommends Green Pastures products. You might want to try the fermented cod liver oil and butter gel - it hasn't won any prizes for taste but it's not too bad.
Enjoyed this book - highly recommended.
We know a lot more of the science now and this book reveals the ways that the modern processed diet has negatively impacted on our bones and teeth. Not surprisingly he identifies sugar as being one of the biggest problems, but also points out that our modern diets are sorely lacking in the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K, as well as sufficient fibre.
Dr Lin writes about the importance of your microbiome in dental health. Your microbiome is unique to you and is made up of bacteria , fungi and viruses (I know, doesn't sound promising) that are everywhere on and in your body. There are more than 100 trillion organisms in a healthy microbiome. Your microbiome helps digest our food and protect us from getting sick, you can think of them as your private army. Mice who are breed in a lab without a microbiome are small, weak and sickly. A healthy mouth Microbiome protects your teeth from decay and cavities, even if you harly ever brush your teeth!
Some of Dr Lin's tips for healthy teeth are:
1. Oxygen is vital and helps build a healthy mouth and jaw. Breathe through your nose as a habit and try some relaxed deep breathing before a meal.
2. Eat lots of fat-soluble vitamins (A,D and K). Fatty fish, fish oil, butter, natto, cheese and egg yolks are all good sources.
3. Cut back on refined foods like white bread.
4. Try not to cook with vegetable oil, try coconut oil instead.
5. Eats lots and lots of fibre to keep your microbiome balanced (vegetables are a good source)
6. CUT THE SUGAR!! Check labels and try to drink mostly water.
I have been trying to follow most of these recommendations for some time and have noticed a difference. If you feel you need some help getting fat soluble vitamins the Weston Price foundation recommends Green Pastures products. You might want to try the fermented cod liver oil and butter gel - it hasn't won any prizes for taste but it's not too bad.
Enjoyed this book - highly recommended.
May 4, 2018
Interesting facts about how our nutrition affects our bone growth in our jaws and our teeth as well as how nutrition effects our dental health as well as overall health. The first part is based on science and the remainder is a 6-week eating plan to regain your dental health as well as your health. Want to try some of the recipes.
August 30, 2021
The Dental Diet was clearly written by a true believer. Most of the author's nutritional advice is banal yet worth repeating: avoid sugar, eat whole foods instead of processed crap, swap simple carbs for complex ones (although this very recent meta-meta analysis shows no evidence that slow carbs are better than fast carbs for obesity and weight loss), low-fat diets are unhealthy (but that doesn't mean the converse is true!) etc. His few positive recommendations, when he tells you what to do instead of what not to do, are founded almost entirely on the research of 2 scientists, one of whom, Dr. Pottenger, is little-known and widely disregarded, while the other, Dr. Weston A. Price, is widely known and roundly criticised. These are small and disreputable pickings on which to base an entire book, and for this reason among others, which I'll outline below, the book reads not as the clarion call of a new kind of dentistry but as a very slick, misinformed screed.
The author, Dr. Steven Lin, is a dentist from Sydney, Australia. Recipes given later in the book confirm what we might rather cynically assume from this short bio: that the author is rich, far richer than his clientele, whom he elsewhere states can rarely afford his services. He is rich and out of touch (more on this later). After years of suffering through one of the most dull and disgusting jobs I can imagine (sincerely, I would rather clean toilets), Dr. Lin wondered what he could do to prevent people from needing dental assistance in the first place. Thus began his admirable journey into holistic and preventative medicine.
The good doctor found his lodestar—and by that I mean his intellectual Messiah whose word would become law and to which all his later research would magically conform—when he chanced upon Weston A. Price's magnus opus Nutrition and Physical Degeneration while travelling in Turkey. Weston A. Price wondered why people in rich nations suffered from such incredibly high rates of tooth decay compared to the traditional peoples he'd heard whispers about from knowing colleagues. (Today, the situation has only gotten worse: tooth decay affects 69-90% of school-aged children and is the most prevalent chronic disease in the entire United States.) So, to answer his question, Dr. Price travelled the world, stopping on all 7 continents and documenting the dentition of numerous traditional societies. What he found was remarkable: an almost total absence of any kind of dental problem. What was their secret?
And here's where our problems begin. Modern diets are undoubtedly to blame for the miserable state of our chompers. Dr. Lin spends considerable time outlining just why this is the case, but I think we can take for granted the fact that ultraprocessed foods, which constitute the majority (almost 2/3rds!) of modern diets, are extremely unhealthy. Instead of simply advocating that we remove them from our diets, Dr. Lin champions Dr. Price's (anthropological, not clinical) research which said that the secret to "traditional" diets was their abundance of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. He then proceeds to construct a diet meant solely to maximise our intake of these nutrients, assuming, and he says this explicitly and without any evidence whatsoever, that a diet with ample amounts of these nutrients will supply everything else the body needs to keep it healthy.
Let me say that again for those who didn't hear it: the author read 1 book on dental anthropology and fashioned a diet around it. That's basically this entire book. Sure, Dr. Lin quotes recent clinical studies and refers to people besides Weston A. Price, but it's to Weston A. Price's ideology that Lin is beholden, and all citations of other people are meant to bolster Price's theses. His ideas are falsifiable—for example, it is demonstrably true that modern diets are unhealthy—but many of his recommendations have not been put to the test: e.g., it has not yet been demonstrated, or at the very least, demonstrations were not cited in this book, that eating more vitamins A, D, and K2 lead to healthier mouths.
The body is complex, and more of something good doesn’t make that good thing better. The dose makes the poison. Eating too much vitamin A, which is easy to do if you eat lots of liver (which Dr. Lin recommends you eat every single day), can, ironically, cause hypervitaminosis A and irreversible liver damage. Celebrity chef Pete Evans had a book retracted
because of a recipe containing so much vitamin A from liver and bone broth it could potentially kill the infants meant to eat it. Extreme carnivore and Weston A. Price fanatic Frank Tufano attributed hypervitaminosis A from eating too much liver as a reason for his chronic health issues. While K2 deficiency is associated with increased arteriosclerosis risk, which is good evidence that it helps put calcium where it belongs, such as in the teeth, excess K2 can cause heart palpations, so we should advise caution when supplementing instead of getting K2 from whole foods. Lastly, he advises that you can get good amounts of vitamin D from food and that we should try to obtain most of our vitamin D from out diets. That’s not true at all and simply not feasible! See this book for a very clear explanation as to why.
Sure, we have good reasons to believe these vitamins are good for dental health because they all help regulate calcium deposition, but we have no reason to believe that they were the secret dental sauce. Price documented rapid dental decay after traditional people were fed SAD diets, so maybe it wasn’t the presence of these vitamins but rather the lack of SAD nutrition. Are there studies confirming worse dental health in people who avoid all the aforementioned problem foods—sugar, refined wheat, etc.—while eating low amounts of A, D, and K2? No. There are no controlled studies proving this relationship. It remains a hypothesised correlation drawn from anthropological fieldwork. It makes sense, but decades after first being proposed it still remains highly controversial.
But wait, there's more. The author, ever the true believer, takes on board even more dogma and believes that, because many of the traditional diets studied by Dr. Price produced good teeth, and because what's good for the teeth is good for the body, those same traditional diets are preferable to all modern diets. Not only is this piss-poor logic, it’s bad science. It’s an assertion, not a finding. And it’s full of shit.
To wit: he says traditional societies fermented their foods. Well, what percentage of known traditional societies fermented their food? How prevalent was it really? How much of their diet was comprised of fermented foods? Why does he not mention that fermented foods are typically highly acidic and can contribute to dental erosion just as much as eating limes and drinking soda will? He mentions a Chinese food first developed only a few hundred years ago. Well, refined bread was made about that time, too. What does traditional mean, then? He says to eat a handful of Brazil nuts to reduce sugar cravings. Brazil nuts contain so much selenium that eating even 2 or 3 everyday can eventually cause toxicity. He says to eat cured (i.e., processed) meat even though it’s roundly believed to be carcinogenic. He advises 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure everyday at midday. For white people, even global experts on vitamin D such as Dr. Michael Holick, who was the first person to isolate vitamin D3 in the lab, advise only 10 minutes of unprotected exposure per day. 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure at midday in Australia is a recipe for melanoma, full stop. He says that breast milk is a model for human nutrition generally. But there’s a reason infants are weaned off breast milk and why we don’t encourage adults to drink breast milk or go on liquid diets. Duh: adults should not live on milk alone! He then says that we should be wary of milk because of its lactose content. Contradiction? He says coconut oil is an ancestral food. Pretty sure our ancestors couldn’t refine coconuts into oil. One of his recipes calls for half a kilogram of grass-fed butter. Another calls for salmon heads. Another calls for avocado, feta, olive oil, homemade nut bread, and kefir. Remember when he said most people can’t afford dental help? Remember the reference in my opening paragraph which says children now get ~70% of the calories from ultraprocessed foods? Remember when I said he was rich and out of touch? Yeah. His recipes aren't for the people
In the end, the book says this: don’t eat the foods we all know we shouldn’t eat, which is basically sugar, processed foods, and refined vegetable oils. Do eat whole foods containing lots of vitamins A, D, K2, magnesium, zinc, and dietary fats. The former recommendations are uncontroversial and should be followed. The latter recommendations are fine, but they’re based on, for the most part, shoddy reasoning, suspect science, and a whole bunch of misconceptions and flat-out falsehoods. He says nothing that hasn’t been said elsewhere, and lots of that is controversial or unsupported. The central thesis—that eating what’s good for your teeth will be good for you overall—remains unproven.
The author, Dr. Steven Lin, is a dentist from Sydney, Australia. Recipes given later in the book confirm what we might rather cynically assume from this short bio: that the author is rich, far richer than his clientele, whom he elsewhere states can rarely afford his services. He is rich and out of touch (more on this later). After years of suffering through one of the most dull and disgusting jobs I can imagine (sincerely, I would rather clean toilets), Dr. Lin wondered what he could do to prevent people from needing dental assistance in the first place. Thus began his admirable journey into holistic and preventative medicine.
The good doctor found his lodestar—and by that I mean his intellectual Messiah whose word would become law and to which all his later research would magically conform—when he chanced upon Weston A. Price's magnus opus Nutrition and Physical Degeneration while travelling in Turkey. Weston A. Price wondered why people in rich nations suffered from such incredibly high rates of tooth decay compared to the traditional peoples he'd heard whispers about from knowing colleagues. (Today, the situation has only gotten worse: tooth decay affects 69-90% of school-aged children and is the most prevalent chronic disease in the entire United States.) So, to answer his question, Dr. Price travelled the world, stopping on all 7 continents and documenting the dentition of numerous traditional societies. What he found was remarkable: an almost total absence of any kind of dental problem. What was their secret?
And here's where our problems begin. Modern diets are undoubtedly to blame for the miserable state of our chompers. Dr. Lin spends considerable time outlining just why this is the case, but I think we can take for granted the fact that ultraprocessed foods, which constitute the majority (almost 2/3rds!) of modern diets, are extremely unhealthy. Instead of simply advocating that we remove them from our diets, Dr. Lin champions Dr. Price's (anthropological, not clinical) research which said that the secret to "traditional" diets was their abundance of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. He then proceeds to construct a diet meant solely to maximise our intake of these nutrients, assuming, and he says this explicitly and without any evidence whatsoever, that a diet with ample amounts of these nutrients will supply everything else the body needs to keep it healthy.
Let me say that again for those who didn't hear it: the author read 1 book on dental anthropology and fashioned a diet around it. That's basically this entire book. Sure, Dr. Lin quotes recent clinical studies and refers to people besides Weston A. Price, but it's to Weston A. Price's ideology that Lin is beholden, and all citations of other people are meant to bolster Price's theses. His ideas are falsifiable—for example, it is demonstrably true that modern diets are unhealthy—but many of his recommendations have not been put to the test: e.g., it has not yet been demonstrated, or at the very least, demonstrations were not cited in this book, that eating more vitamins A, D, and K2 lead to healthier mouths.
The body is complex, and more of something good doesn’t make that good thing better. The dose makes the poison. Eating too much vitamin A, which is easy to do if you eat lots of liver (which Dr. Lin recommends you eat every single day), can, ironically, cause hypervitaminosis A and irreversible liver damage. Celebrity chef Pete Evans had a book retracted
because of a recipe containing so much vitamin A from liver and bone broth it could potentially kill the infants meant to eat it. Extreme carnivore and Weston A. Price fanatic Frank Tufano attributed hypervitaminosis A from eating too much liver as a reason for his chronic health issues. While K2 deficiency is associated with increased arteriosclerosis risk, which is good evidence that it helps put calcium where it belongs, such as in the teeth, excess K2 can cause heart palpations, so we should advise caution when supplementing instead of getting K2 from whole foods. Lastly, he advises that you can get good amounts of vitamin D from food and that we should try to obtain most of our vitamin D from out diets. That’s not true at all and simply not feasible! See this book for a very clear explanation as to why.
Sure, we have good reasons to believe these vitamins are good for dental health because they all help regulate calcium deposition, but we have no reason to believe that they were the secret dental sauce. Price documented rapid dental decay after traditional people were fed SAD diets, so maybe it wasn’t the presence of these vitamins but rather the lack of SAD nutrition. Are there studies confirming worse dental health in people who avoid all the aforementioned problem foods—sugar, refined wheat, etc.—while eating low amounts of A, D, and K2? No. There are no controlled studies proving this relationship. It remains a hypothesised correlation drawn from anthropological fieldwork. It makes sense, but decades after first being proposed it still remains highly controversial.
But wait, there's more. The author, ever the true believer, takes on board even more dogma and believes that, because many of the traditional diets studied by Dr. Price produced good teeth, and because what's good for the teeth is good for the body, those same traditional diets are preferable to all modern diets. Not only is this piss-poor logic, it’s bad science. It’s an assertion, not a finding. And it’s full of shit.
To wit: he says traditional societies fermented their foods. Well, what percentage of known traditional societies fermented their food? How prevalent was it really? How much of their diet was comprised of fermented foods? Why does he not mention that fermented foods are typically highly acidic and can contribute to dental erosion just as much as eating limes and drinking soda will? He mentions a Chinese food first developed only a few hundred years ago. Well, refined bread was made about that time, too. What does traditional mean, then? He says to eat a handful of Brazil nuts to reduce sugar cravings. Brazil nuts contain so much selenium that eating even 2 or 3 everyday can eventually cause toxicity. He says to eat cured (i.e., processed) meat even though it’s roundly believed to be carcinogenic. He advises 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure everyday at midday. For white people, even global experts on vitamin D such as Dr. Michael Holick, who was the first person to isolate vitamin D3 in the lab, advise only 10 minutes of unprotected exposure per day. 30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure at midday in Australia is a recipe for melanoma, full stop. He says that breast milk is a model for human nutrition generally. But there’s a reason infants are weaned off breast milk and why we don’t encourage adults to drink breast milk or go on liquid diets. Duh: adults should not live on milk alone! He then says that we should be wary of milk because of its lactose content. Contradiction? He says coconut oil is an ancestral food. Pretty sure our ancestors couldn’t refine coconuts into oil. One of his recipes calls for half a kilogram of grass-fed butter. Another calls for salmon heads. Another calls for avocado, feta, olive oil, homemade nut bread, and kefir. Remember when he said most people can’t afford dental help? Remember the reference in my opening paragraph which says children now get ~70% of the calories from ultraprocessed foods? Remember when I said he was rich and out of touch? Yeah. His recipes aren't for the people
In the end, the book says this: don’t eat the foods we all know we shouldn’t eat, which is basically sugar, processed foods, and refined vegetable oils. Do eat whole foods containing lots of vitamins A, D, K2, magnesium, zinc, and dietary fats. The former recommendations are uncontroversial and should be followed. The latter recommendations are fine, but they’re based on, for the most part, shoddy reasoning, suspect science, and a whole bunch of misconceptions and flat-out falsehoods. He says nothing that hasn’t been said elsewhere, and lots of that is controversial or unsupported. The central thesis—that eating what’s good for your teeth will be good for you overall—remains unproven.
October 2, 2022
Nice, interesting book.
Not yet finished reading.
content
Part
I The Truth in Your Teeth (ch 1-6)
II How Modern Food Has Destroyed Our Health (ch 7-8)
III Dental Nutrition
--How to Eat for a Healthy Mouth, Body and Mind (ch 9-11)
paperback, 2nd edition, Februari 2019.
ISBN 978 1 4019 5318 5. 321 p.
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029724 hardcover (?) first edition
https://www.hayhouse.com/catalogsearc... publisher (author)
https://www.drstevenlin.com/ author site (not recommended)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... hardcover $25.99 ($18.19 out of print)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... paperback $17.99 ($ 12.59)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... e-book $9.99 ($ 0.99)
Some notes have room for improvement
(Ch 2, 2-5 give the page number please,
Ch 8, 8 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073... , more countries have national academies with proceedings)
notes on page
very interesting interview with Sayer ji
https://youtu.be/0Gm8PAAm9fA 1:01:21
-
.
Not yet finished reading.
content
Part
I The Truth in Your Teeth (ch 1-6)
II How Modern Food Has Destroyed Our Health (ch 7-8)
III Dental Nutrition
--How to Eat for a Healthy Mouth, Body and Mind (ch 9-11)
paperback, 2nd edition, Februari 2019.
ISBN 978 1 4019 5318 5. 321 p.
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029724 hardcover (?) first edition
https://www.hayhouse.com/catalogsearc... publisher (author)
https://www.drstevenlin.com/ author site (not recommended)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... hardcover $25.99 ($18.19 out of print)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... paperback $17.99 ($ 12.59)
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... e-book $9.99 ($ 0.99)
Some notes have room for improvement
(Ch 2, 2-5 give the page number please,
Ch 8, 8 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073... , more countries have national academies with proceedings)
notes on page
very interesting interview with Sayer ji
https://youtu.be/0Gm8PAAm9fA 1:01:21
-
.
November 3, 2018
Very interesting discussion of cultural impact on our dental health, especially since the adoption of processed foods.
There is a 40 day meal plan presented, but a few options early on were quite off putting to me (salmon head soup for example)! Some recipes were given with specific instructions, others not so much - and many meal options are not common American food selections - so serving size, and alternatives, would be helpful.
Definitely worth reading - and sone great things to try - including oral exercises to strengthen your palate and jaw/roof of your mouth.
There is a 40 day meal plan presented, but a few options early on were quite off putting to me (salmon head soup for example)! Some recipes were given with specific instructions, others not so much - and many meal options are not common American food selections - so serving size, and alternatives, would be helpful.
Definitely worth reading - and sone great things to try - including oral exercises to strengthen your palate and jaw/roof of your mouth.
April 17, 2019
Extremely interesting research. He makes excellent points. Towards the end of the book however, it becomes a severe diet with recipes. I find it way too intense to follow. I will instead integrate his general advice.
March 23, 2018
Big words to describe a small work of shallow documentation.
reference
August 16, 2022First I read about the book in Gebit & Gezondheid V26 no 2 (Zomer 2022).
The book is published by Hay House.
At the moment I'm searching data.
There seems to be be a free pdf .
https://www.hayhouse.com/catalogsearc... publisher
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... hardcover ISBN: 978 1 40195317 1 - 2018 0901
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... paperback ISBN: 978 1 401953195 - 2019 0502
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... ebook ISBN: 978 1 40195318 8 - 2018 0901
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029724 LOC
https://www.worldcat.org/title/dental... 13 editions
https://www.drstevenlin.com/free-ebook/ author not recommended
https://archive.org/search.php?query=... 381
https://archive.org/search.php?query=... 236
-
.
The book is published by Hay House.
At the moment I'm searching data.
There seems to be be a free pdf .
https://www.hayhouse.com/catalogsearc... publisher
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... hardcover ISBN: 978 1 40195317 1 - 2018 0901
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... paperback ISBN: 978 1 401953195 - 2019 0502
https://www.hayhouse.com/the-dental-d... ebook ISBN: 978 1 40195318 8 - 2018 0901
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029724 LOC
https://www.worldcat.org/title/dental... 13 editions
https://www.drstevenlin.com/free-ebook/ author not recommended
https://archive.org/search.php?query=... 381
https://archive.org/search.php?query=... 236
-
.
December 12, 2022
This book was not what I was expecting! I’ve already read another book on holistic dentistry and was naive enough to think I knew enough about the mouth. I thought this book may contain only basic information that I already knew, aside from the actual diet part which was the primary reason I finally picked it up.
While this book is simple and the information is easy to digest (pun unintended), it contained soooo much more than I was expecting, including information about how and why our mouths form the way they do, how it’s formation impacts our long term health and contributes to chronic disease, and why even our so-called “healthy” diets are contributing to dental decay.
Highly recommend for anyone who wants to keep their teeth for the rest of their lives and also wants to eradicate any of the chronic diseases which are so prevalent today.
While this book is simple and the information is easy to digest (pun unintended), it contained soooo much more than I was expecting, including information about how and why our mouths form the way they do, how it’s formation impacts our long term health and contributes to chronic disease, and why even our so-called “healthy” diets are contributing to dental decay.
Highly recommend for anyone who wants to keep their teeth for the rest of their lives and also wants to eradicate any of the chronic diseases which are so prevalent today.
April 25, 2018
Very interesting read. The principles discussed in this book not only help with dental health, but also, overall health. There are specific goals and meal plans to help get you on the right track.
November 29, 2021
Really interesting intersection of familiar science and new info, especially for anyone who is familiar with orofacial myology! I skipped over the recipes but liked learning about the health benefits/risks of certain food groups/dietary practices as they pertain to oral structures and overall health.
August 18, 2020
Mindblowing...Not only does this book contain vital information everyone should have for good health/good teeth, but there are tons of recipes.
April 4, 2021
I was expecting it to explain more about anatomy and breathing, but it basically just said to eat healthy food.
April 22, 2021
I had to borrow a book from a friend to use during a wait at the car dealer's. She had just been to the library and picked up this one. It is by an Australian dentist who got bored with fixing people's teeth and wondered why people had so many problems with their teeth when anthropology shows that our hunter/gatherer ancestors had great teeth and strong jaws. Apparently since the Industrial Revolution our jaws have gotten weaker and hence our wisdom teeth don't fit anymore. I'm not sure where I read about Weston Price in the past--probably back in the 80's when I was trying to understand obesity but he pops up again here.
Dr. Lin made me think about teeth in regard to overall health. He says that most of us just go to the dentist and have them fix our teeth but don't ever think that the reason we are having tooth problems is that something is wrong with our general health and in particular our diets. Fortunately I am an old person and hence had my early childhood before 1965 when junk food became readily available and the drug of choice for generations to follow. It is true that in the 50's popcorn and a small Pepsi maybe once a week was the extent of snacking (Saturday night with Gunsmoke). In the 60's my mother learned to make homemade pizza as it became popular and eventually my parents could afford to take their 4-5 kid family out for pizza in the days when one $2 pizza was enough for that many people. All of that said we did eat sugar (not so much in the form of candy but in homemade cookies and cake---although not on a daily basis and fruit was the "sweet" that mom put in our school lunchbox. But by the mid 60's and teenage I was drinking Dr. Pepper and eating Doritos on a regular basis. Since my siblings and I turned out to be obese by middle age, our good beginnings were not a guarantee of lifelong good habits or health. However I have had relatively good teeth and still have my wisdom teeth in comparison to my husband and other friends.
After a heart attack at age 69, I stopped eating meat although I do still eat dairy, eggs and fish. So some of the diet that Dr. Lin recommends I am already following. I do restrict sugar because I don't want diabetes but I have not abandoned it, I just make choices to have the best sugar on limited occasions. I just realized the other day I don't even remember the last time I had a donut. But in my readings in the 1980's someone said that eating a donut is like taking a bullet and that has always stuck with me. Some of my grandparents had false teeth and I have never wanted to go that way. He advocates no sugar and no white flour. Again I am not going to his extent. We need to find what works best for us and moderation in things is usually a good idea.
However for anyone who is constantly having dental issues, I would advise checking out Dr. Lin's book and thinking heavily about what I am putting into my mouth and what is going on in my life.
Dr. Lin made me think about teeth in regard to overall health. He says that most of us just go to the dentist and have them fix our teeth but don't ever think that the reason we are having tooth problems is that something is wrong with our general health and in particular our diets. Fortunately I am an old person and hence had my early childhood before 1965 when junk food became readily available and the drug of choice for generations to follow. It is true that in the 50's popcorn and a small Pepsi maybe once a week was the extent of snacking (Saturday night with Gunsmoke). In the 60's my mother learned to make homemade pizza as it became popular and eventually my parents could afford to take their 4-5 kid family out for pizza in the days when one $2 pizza was enough for that many people. All of that said we did eat sugar (not so much in the form of candy but in homemade cookies and cake---although not on a daily basis and fruit was the "sweet" that mom put in our school lunchbox. But by the mid 60's and teenage I was drinking Dr. Pepper and eating Doritos on a regular basis. Since my siblings and I turned out to be obese by middle age, our good beginnings were not a guarantee of lifelong good habits or health. However I have had relatively good teeth and still have my wisdom teeth in comparison to my husband and other friends.
After a heart attack at age 69, I stopped eating meat although I do still eat dairy, eggs and fish. So some of the diet that Dr. Lin recommends I am already following. I do restrict sugar because I don't want diabetes but I have not abandoned it, I just make choices to have the best sugar on limited occasions. I just realized the other day I don't even remember the last time I had a donut. But in my readings in the 1980's someone said that eating a donut is like taking a bullet and that has always stuck with me. Some of my grandparents had false teeth and I have never wanted to go that way. He advocates no sugar and no white flour. Again I am not going to his extent. We need to find what works best for us and moderation in things is usually a good idea.
However for anyone who is constantly having dental issues, I would advise checking out Dr. Lin's book and thinking heavily about what I am putting into my mouth and what is going on in my life.
December 31, 2018
The best introductory history of functional medicine that I have ever read.
Because of the author's unique approach, this book does not parrot what other functional medicine practitioners say but has unique contributions, especially on matters surrounding oral health, jaw formation and structure, pregnancy and child dental health, breathing, and snoring. He gives tongue exercises, breathing exercises, tips on how to beat sugar cravings, and much more, including a wise discussion of supplements. I found it immensely practical and am already reaping the benefits.
There was a bit of unnecessary repetition, but other than that this is one of the best health books I read this year.
Because of the author's unique approach, this book does not parrot what other functional medicine practitioners say but has unique contributions, especially on matters surrounding oral health, jaw formation and structure, pregnancy and child dental health, breathing, and snoring. He gives tongue exercises, breathing exercises, tips on how to beat sugar cravings, and much more, including a wise discussion of supplements. I found it immensely practical and am already reaping the benefits.
There was a bit of unnecessary repetition, but other than that this is one of the best health books I read this year.
July 11, 2020
The book begins by outlining the evolutionary history of our teeth before describing how our modern diets have eroded our dental health. A lot of information here maps onto what writers like Gary Taubes and Robert Lustig write about — which is essentially that the modern western diet has been undermining our health and wellness for decades.
This is a recommended read if you're interested in dental health or diet. I have been following something approximating the dental diet for about 5 years and it has definitely improved my teeth (recent broken tooth crisis notwithstanding!) — you own milage may vary.
This is a recommended read if you're interested in dental health or diet. I have been following something approximating the dental diet for about 5 years and it has definitely improved my teeth (recent broken tooth crisis notwithstanding!) — you own milage may vary.
February 20, 2022
Excellent
This is the first time I’ve heard of how to take care of your teeth with a proper diet. Throughout my life, I’ve always been told to avoid sugar and brush. Despite doing this, my dental health was horrible. The author explains so much in this book, and his recipes look delicious!
This is the first time I’ve heard of how to take care of your teeth with a proper diet. Throughout my life, I’ve always been told to avoid sugar and brush. Despite doing this, my dental health was horrible. The author explains so much in this book, and his recipes look delicious!
March 27, 2022
Ich habe sehr viel aus diesem Buch gelernt
March 14, 2024
Answers to dental problems lie in our food
The book presents a groundbreaking exploration into the roots of dental problems and diseases, offering readers a fresh perspective that challenges conventional wisdom. It is greatly emphasized that the key to oral health lies not just in dental treatments, but in the food we consume daily. It was an eye-opening revelation that the modern diet, particularly after the Industrial Revolution, has been identified as the primary culprit behind the prevalence of crooked teeth and tooth decay. Through insightful revelations and a practical 40-day Dental Diet meal plan, this book seeks to empower readers to take control of their dental health through nutrition.
By juxtaposing the conventional USDA (U.S dietary recommendations in 1990s) food pyramid with Dr.Steven Lin's Dental Diet pyramid, readers gain valuable insights into the types and quantities of foods that promote dental health. Through this holistic approach, "The Dental Diet" offers readers a roadmap to revitalizing their oral health and overall well-being.
Here are some intriguing lines (as-is) from the book:
1. Dental school had taught me how to treat these issues, not prevent them.
2. Seventy-five years ago, it took a cow four or five years to grow big enough for slaughter. Today, by feeding them grains like corn and giving them protein supplements, anti-bloating medications, and growth hormone, cattle can be slaughtered at just 14 to 16 months of age.
3. Teeth are an excellent indicator of health—they tell us about the foundation of our skull, brain, and airway—which is why we humans are drawn to attractive teeth.
4. No matter how well we take care of our teeth from the outside, we often can’t avoid tooth decay unless we radically change how we eat.
5. Two major moments in human history where our diets went off course. The first shift came when humans stopped living as hunters and gatherers and started farming. The second shift in our oral microbiome took place in the 1850s, during the Industrial Revolution.
6. It’s misleading to look at fats in isolation because nature intended to them to fit together, like pieces in a puzzle.
7. One of the main lessons I’d like you to take away from The Dental Diet is that you shouldn’t focus on eating the right amount of food; you should focus on eating the right kinds of food that are rich in the nutrients your body needs most.
The book presents a groundbreaking exploration into the roots of dental problems and diseases, offering readers a fresh perspective that challenges conventional wisdom. It is greatly emphasized that the key to oral health lies not just in dental treatments, but in the food we consume daily. It was an eye-opening revelation that the modern diet, particularly after the Industrial Revolution, has been identified as the primary culprit behind the prevalence of crooked teeth and tooth decay. Through insightful revelations and a practical 40-day Dental Diet meal plan, this book seeks to empower readers to take control of their dental health through nutrition.
By juxtaposing the conventional USDA (U.S dietary recommendations in 1990s) food pyramid with Dr.Steven Lin's Dental Diet pyramid, readers gain valuable insights into the types and quantities of foods that promote dental health. Through this holistic approach, "The Dental Diet" offers readers a roadmap to revitalizing their oral health and overall well-being.
Here are some intriguing lines (as-is) from the book:
1. Dental school had taught me how to treat these issues, not prevent them.
2. Seventy-five years ago, it took a cow four or five years to grow big enough for slaughter. Today, by feeding them grains like corn and giving them protein supplements, anti-bloating medications, and growth hormone, cattle can be slaughtered at just 14 to 16 months of age.
3. Teeth are an excellent indicator of health—they tell us about the foundation of our skull, brain, and airway—which is why we humans are drawn to attractive teeth.
4. No matter how well we take care of our teeth from the outside, we often can’t avoid tooth decay unless we radically change how we eat.
5. Two major moments in human history where our diets went off course. The first shift came when humans stopped living as hunters and gatherers and started farming. The second shift in our oral microbiome took place in the 1850s, during the Industrial Revolution.
6. It’s misleading to look at fats in isolation because nature intended to them to fit together, like pieces in a puzzle.
7. One of the main lessons I’d like you to take away from The Dental Diet is that you shouldn’t focus on eating the right amount of food; you should focus on eating the right kinds of food that are rich in the nutrients your body needs most.
January 24, 2023
Ревью, что я узнал или напомнил себе от прочтения этой книги:
1. нужно быть достаточно обеспеченным человеком, чтобы позволить себе серьезное лечение зубов. Стоимость курса лечения у многих моих пациентов составляла от 10 до 20 тысяч долларов, и не так уж и редко пациенту может понадобиться процедура стоимостью 60 тысяч. Если ты бедный - то может быть беда.
2. В природе болезни зубов – редкость. Современная цивилизация во всем виновата, посмотрите какие зубы у наших предков. Этот пассаж понятен, но очень спекулятивен.
3. У некоторых людей здоровые зубы, хоть они за ними и не особо ухаживают - это потому, что они кушают хорошо и правильно. А вы чистите, чистите - и получите распишитесь.
4. Многие люди думают, что зубы – это неживой объект, о котором можно заботиться только снаружи. Зубы очень даже живые изнутри, и чтобы оставаться здоровыми и крепкими, им нужен определенный баланс витаминов и минералов.
5. Главная причина беспечного отношения к сахару и кариесу – мнение, будто самое худшее, что может произойти, – это появление дупла в зубе. Стоматолог его заделает, и они снова быстро вернутся к обычной жизни. Но большинство людей не понимают, что дупло в зубе – это нечто большее, нежели признак неумеренного потребления сладостей и сладких напитков. Это знак, что какие-то важные процессы в организме идут не так, как должны, – процессы, о существовании которых мы можем даже не знать.
6. Витамины Д, А и другие очень важны, кушайте хорошо и много разного, но не всякий мусор, наполненный сахаром.
Ну и как можно понять из названия книги, в ней представлено меню с советами как что готовить, но как по мне оно малоценно.
p.s. а три балла книге я ставлю за то, что про сами зубы было очень мало сказано, упомянули про зубы мудрости со сравнением, мол, мезинцы вы не удаляете же, а зубы мудрости вон удаляете - до чего страну довели, ну и примеры кривых челюстей были со структурой самого зуба. Маловато будет, маловат.
1. нужно быть достаточно обеспеченным человеком, чтобы позволить себе серьезное лечение зубов. Стоимость курса лечения у многих моих пациентов составляла от 10 до 20 тысяч долларов, и не так уж и редко пациенту может понадобиться процедура стоимостью 60 тысяч. Если ты бедный - то может быть беда.
2. В природе болезни зубов – редкость. Современная цивилизация во всем виновата, посмотрите какие зубы у наших предков. Этот пассаж понятен, но очень спекулятивен.
3. У некоторых людей здоровые зубы, хоть они за ними и не особо ухаживают - это потому, что они кушают хорошо и правильно. А вы чистите, чистите - и получите распишитесь.
4. Многие люди думают, что зубы – это неживой объект, о котором можно заботиться только снаружи. Зубы очень даже живые изнутри, и чтобы оставаться здоровыми и крепкими, им нужен определенный баланс витаминов и минералов.
5. Главная причина беспечного отношения к сахару и кариесу – мнение, будто самое худшее, что может произойти, – это появление дупла в зубе. Стоматолог его заделает, и они снова быстро вернутся к обычной жизни. Но большинство людей не понимают, что дупло в зубе – это нечто большее, нежели признак неумеренного потребления сладостей и сладких напитков. Это знак, что какие-то важные процессы в организме идут не так, как должны, – процессы, о существовании которых мы можем даже не знать.
6. Витамины Д, А и другие очень важны, кушайте хорошо и много разного, но не всякий мусор, наполненный сахаром.
Ну и как можно понять из названия книги, в ней представлено меню с советами как что готовить, но как по мне оно малоценно.
p.s. а три балла книге я ставлю за то, что про сами зубы было очень мало сказано, упомянули про зубы мудрости со сравнением, мол, мезинцы вы не удаляете же, а зубы мудрости вон удаляете - до чего страну довели, ну и примеры кривых челюстей были со структурой самого зуба. Маловато будет, маловат.
April 21, 2023
Interesting topic and one I am just starting to examine - the relationship between our oral microbiome and our gut microbiome, which ultimately determines our overall health. I hadn’t considered the role that our oral microbiome played before recently, and am glad that I read this book because I learned quite a bit.
However, with that said, the author makes an enormous amount of claims that he does not even attempt to back up beyond quoting two researchers he admired. The diet he is suggesting would radically change the eating habits of most people and I have serious doubts as to the overall and long-term impacts it would have on the entire body. Some things, such as eliminating sugar and most grains make sense based on so many other studies I’ve read supporting gut and oral health, but again are not backed up with hard evidence (particularly the need to eliminate all grains). His heavy focus on fat, dairy and organ meats could be dangerous for some, as well, not to mention difficult to acquire (salmon heads, anyone?).
Again, I’m glad that I read it and can see some logic in parts of his arguments. I will likely even try to adapt bits and pieces in my never-ending attempt to achieve ultimate gut health, but I will not be doing his very intensive, expensive and difficult to follow diet plan anytime soon.
However, with that said, the author makes an enormous amount of claims that he does not even attempt to back up beyond quoting two researchers he admired. The diet he is suggesting would radically change the eating habits of most people and I have serious doubts as to the overall and long-term impacts it would have on the entire body. Some things, such as eliminating sugar and most grains make sense based on so many other studies I’ve read supporting gut and oral health, but again are not backed up with hard evidence (particularly the need to eliminate all grains). His heavy focus on fat, dairy and organ meats could be dangerous for some, as well, not to mention difficult to acquire (salmon heads, anyone?).
Again, I’m glad that I read it and can see some logic in parts of his arguments. I will likely even try to adapt bits and pieces in my never-ending attempt to achieve ultimate gut health, but I will not be doing his very intensive, expensive and difficult to follow diet plan anytime soon.
January 30, 2020
Many of the nutrition books I've read in the last few years seem to converge on a low carb, paleo-style eating plan. Whole foods, low sugar, no processed foods, good fats, etc. This was right in line. Another theme I come across is the value of fermented foods. Those fermented at home are the best because they haven't been pasteurized and therefore retain the full spectrum of probiotics. Yet another common theme that seems to emerge is the value of bone broth. The thing this book adds is the value of vitamin k2. Apparently this vitamin is key to utilizing calcium properly. Without enough k2, calcium accumulates in the wrong places, most dangerously in your arteries contributing to arteriosclerosis. With sufficient k2 the calcium goes where it's supposed to, namely to strengthen your teeth, the topic of this book. K2 can be tricky to get in your diet in sufficient quantities. One food I tried that contains a lot of k2 is natto, fermented soy beans. While I didn't hate it, I also found it unsustainable to include in my regular diet so I opted to supplement.
The knowledge about k2 is worth the book price alone. For those not familiar with this style of eating, it's a solid introduction.
The knowledge about k2 is worth the book price alone. For those not familiar with this style of eating, it's a solid introduction.
May 29, 2023
Answers the question of why some people seem to have perfect dental health despite minimal brushing. I am confused and curious about why Lin has completely avoided talking about fluoride in a book about dental health.
Main Points:
* Eat more fat soluble Vitamins A, D, K2, preferably from food directly including organ meats, grass fed, pasture raised meat sources. K2 was a surprise to me and apparently was only recently discovered to be a major contributor to dental health, as recently as 2005. Calcium and Vitamin D do nothing for bone health without vit K and essentially just deposit calcium in the blood vessels without it as an activator. Of course temper this if at risk of PE/DVT/clotting disorders.
* Avoid all non-whole fruit sugar. Sugar itself actually doesn't do all that much to teeth directly. The main mechanism for its effects on dental health is that it increases populations of sugar-feeding bad oral microbes that increase acid and promote tooth decay
* Eat pre and probiotics such as vegetables, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha to feed the good oral microbes
* Eat crunchy vegetables, meat on the bone and promote breast feeding in children to promote proper dental formation and prevent dental crowding
Main Points:
* Eat more fat soluble Vitamins A, D, K2, preferably from food directly including organ meats, grass fed, pasture raised meat sources. K2 was a surprise to me and apparently was only recently discovered to be a major contributor to dental health, as recently as 2005. Calcium and Vitamin D do nothing for bone health without vit K and essentially just deposit calcium in the blood vessels without it as an activator. Of course temper this if at risk of PE/DVT/clotting disorders.
* Avoid all non-whole fruit sugar. Sugar itself actually doesn't do all that much to teeth directly. The main mechanism for its effects on dental health is that it increases populations of sugar-feeding bad oral microbes that increase acid and promote tooth decay
* Eat pre and probiotics such as vegetables, sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha to feed the good oral microbes
* Eat crunchy vegetables, meat on the bone and promote breast feeding in children to promote proper dental formation and prevent dental crowding
June 4, 2024
I knew this book would get 5 stars from me while reading the first chapter.
Dentistry is an incredible field, but from the moment I stepped foot into it I felt that there was so much more research to be done. So many more answers to find. And this book outlines some of the most basic but important of those unanswered questions in dentistry.
Why does one patient have severe periodontal disease when they are regularly keeping up on home care routines while another patient rarely brushes and flosses and has no issues? Could it be diet and its effects on our health? Its effects on our epigenetics?
I LOVED how in depth the information was in this book. It was also well outlined for those who are in it to make a change to their oral, and therefore overall, health.
Of course, the specific diet outlined has to be flexible to fit the needs of each person, but the author does discuss that in the book. This is a good start for more research on diet and health from a dental perspective.
I've already been using this information to encourage my patients. And I think every healthcare professional, especially dental professionals, should read this!
Oral health IS health!!
Dentistry is an incredible field, but from the moment I stepped foot into it I felt that there was so much more research to be done. So many more answers to find. And this book outlines some of the most basic but important of those unanswered questions in dentistry.
Why does one patient have severe periodontal disease when they are regularly keeping up on home care routines while another patient rarely brushes and flosses and has no issues? Could it be diet and its effects on our health? Its effects on our epigenetics?
I LOVED how in depth the information was in this book. It was also well outlined for those who are in it to make a change to their oral, and therefore overall, health.
Of course, the specific diet outlined has to be flexible to fit the needs of each person, but the author does discuss that in the book. This is a good start for more research on diet and health from a dental perspective.
I've already been using this information to encourage my patients. And I think every healthcare professional, especially dental professionals, should read this!
Oral health IS health!!
May 5, 2018
What an excellent book! It’s very well organized. He may have been preaching to the converted a little with me so I’ll admit my bias upfront. I’m already loosely following a Weston A Price diet and have read Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel which promotes similar things. I just finished the TMJ Healing Plan which talks a lot about tongue and jaw posture and the importance of adequate oxygen via nasal breathing.
His four main principles are:
1. Keep the jaw, face, and airways healthy and strong.
2. Give the mouth the nutrients it needs.
3. Keep the microbiome balanced and diverse.
4. Eat food with healthy epigenetic messages.
The dietary recommendations as per WAP revolve around the importance of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2 (activator x)
with supporting elements Magnesium, Zinc, Calcium, Dietary fat and Gelatin. The recipes in the back look great and fairly simple.
It helps that he’s an Aussie and my American dentist recommended it...
Apparently his website is good but I haven’t explored it much - drstevenlin.com
His four main principles are:
1. Keep the jaw, face, and airways healthy and strong.
2. Give the mouth the nutrients it needs.
3. Keep the microbiome balanced and diverse.
4. Eat food with healthy epigenetic messages.
The dietary recommendations as per WAP revolve around the importance of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2 (activator x)
with supporting elements Magnesium, Zinc, Calcium, Dietary fat and Gelatin. The recipes in the back look great and fairly simple.
It helps that he’s an Aussie and my American dentist recommended it...
Apparently his website is good but I haven’t explored it much - drstevenlin.com
February 12, 2021
Growing up, I always feel helpless about the state of my teeth. Even in my bad dreams my teeth are falling apart. That's why this book truly hits home.
I enjoyed reading this book, especially the first part where Steven Lin explains the complex dynamics of, not only the teeth or mouth, but the whole cranium. He also made an analogy of a house: Like a house, our body is built from the foundation to the interior. And our tooth is but one couch. Without a proper floor and wall the couch wouldn't be able to sit nicely inside the house.
However I find the last part where Steven Lin explains his dental diet program and recipes to be largely western-centric. I understand that he grows up and lives in that western context, but it's just not relatable for me.
I enjoyed reading this book, especially the first part where Steven Lin explains the complex dynamics of, not only the teeth or mouth, but the whole cranium. He also made an analogy of a house: Like a house, our body is built from the foundation to the interior. And our tooth is but one couch. Without a proper floor and wall the couch wouldn't be able to sit nicely inside the house.
However I find the last part where Steven Lin explains his dental diet program and recipes to be largely western-centric. I understand that he grows up and lives in that western context, but it's just not relatable for me.
September 1, 2022
This book is a keeper. One of my favorite reads this year.
This book debunks a lot of myths: the idea of dental care we have all been fed - 'brush twice a day, floss and visit the dentist twice a year but still why do we have dental problems?
I enjoyed the following:
1. Canola oil, unlike Sunflower or Groundnut, isn't named from the source seed. It's simply Canadian oil :D
2. America's war against fats making them enemies. Was mostly commercial, similarly now making bacteria enemy -- 'Bacteria is bad'.
3. Epigenetics - Why paying attention to where the food is sourced from is quite important and how DNA from the source is connected with us and forms our DNA after we consume
Importance of fiber, cellulose which is only obtained from plants
This book debunks a lot of myths: the idea of dental care we have all been fed - 'brush twice a day, floss and visit the dentist twice a year but still why do we have dental problems?
I enjoyed the following:
1. Canola oil, unlike Sunflower or Groundnut, isn't named from the source seed. It's simply Canadian oil :D
2. America's war against fats making them enemies. Was mostly commercial, similarly now making bacteria enemy -- 'Bacteria is bad'.
3. Epigenetics - Why paying attention to where the food is sourced from is quite important and how DNA from the source is connected with us and forms our DNA after we consume
Importance of fiber, cellulose which is only obtained from plants
February 2, 2023
The internet memes are true! Dental exercises really work to improve jaw development. I was a believer in this before I read this book but was happily surprised to have these beliefs confirmed in this book.
Although I don't a hundred percent agree with the dietary advice, the 'whole food' diet while eliminating processed food cannot be disputed. I especially liked the information about increasing certain nutrients such as fat, k2, and A to help develop the jaw.
I was already aware of the maleffect of orthodontic work as I can always recognize the underdeveloped chin and jaw line in those who have had braces. It was reassuring to read this book and learn there are other ways than the traditional paradigm.
Although I don't a hundred percent agree with the dietary advice, the 'whole food' diet while eliminating processed food cannot be disputed. I especially liked the information about increasing certain nutrients such as fat, k2, and A to help develop the jaw.
I was already aware of the maleffect of orthodontic work as I can always recognize the underdeveloped chin and jaw line in those who have had braces. It was reassuring to read this book and learn there are other ways than the traditional paradigm.
December 7, 2023
It's all connected. Your oral microbiome and your gut microbiome. How you sleep affects how you eat. Your mouth health can indicate the health of your immune system. There is a reason why dentists now ask you upfront if there have been any changes to your health.
Dr. Lin is a functional dentist from Sydney who is connecting the dots between what we eat and the state of our teeth.* The mouth is the gatekeeper of the gut. His dietary approach includes organ meats, and fermented food.
What he did not mention: mouthwash and fluoride, both of which destroy the oral microbiome.
* Aside: I've been following Patrick McKeown who states that how we breathe affects the shape of our jaws.
Dr. Lin is a functional dentist from Sydney who is connecting the dots between what we eat and the state of our teeth.* The mouth is the gatekeeper of the gut. His dietary approach includes organ meats, and fermented food.
What he did not mention: mouthwash and fluoride, both of which destroy the oral microbiome.
* Aside: I've been following Patrick McKeown who states that how we breathe affects the shape of our jaws.
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