#68 Improve your oral and dental health (64 non-drug ways to lower BP)

I came across a book “Teeth are our organs” by Dr. Kazumasa Muratsu. (2009)    The book is fairly unreadable as I believe it is a computer translation from Japanese to English.   It also tends to be bit sensational and at times not well documented – although to be fair if you dig into the book, there are some detailed technical sections explaining  various  biological causality processes with referenced studies by himself and others.

That aside, Dr Mursatsu a dentist, (a doctor of dental surgery, and Ph.D. in preventive dentistry)  was for a while director of Dental Oral Internal Medicine for outpatients at Kyushu University Health Science Center,  then became part of Oral health Science Center Kyushu.   He also runs his own Muratsu Dental Clinic In Fukuoka, Japan.

The center of his thesis, as I understand it, based on 6000+ dental cases over last 20 years,  is that he claims a surprising huge connection between various disease conditions and dental conditions.   His observation is that many of his patients obtained on having oral health fixed surprising large improvement and even cures in other conditions such as sleep problems, high blood pressure, depression, headaches, heart diseases, various neuralgia, arrhythmia, eczema, itching, rheumatoid arthritis, fertility problems, back pain, knee pain and knee osteoarthritis, fevers, tiredness, various eye disorders, infections (colds &flu) , neck pain, jaw pain, deafness, and tinnitus.   His original work started in graduate school in which he was studying the connection between dental conditions and high blood pressure.

Dr Mursatsu came up with a holistic theory which he calls “Hazo”, which I understand means “teeth-organs”, in which he considers teeth as part of the nervous system of the body, and deeply involved in information flow of large number of nerve centers. The theory is combination of extensive western medical thinking mixed with some Asian Qi energy thinking.  While interesting, I didn’t find any of the evidence provided as conclusive, much of it was correlation based, such as people with fewer teeth had higher blood pressure.

Besides getting your bite fixed, Dr. Mursatsu noticed that when he told patients to more thoroughly chew their food, and when he encouraged the chewing of gum, that often the patients began to experience a surprising reduction in weight, and blood pressure.   It could be that chewing your food more thoroughly and slowly reduces the total amount of food intake, and less calories lower weight, which lowers the blood pressure.  But, Dr. Mursatsu also noticed significant improvements just in patients he advised to chew gum.  One would think that the sugar in the gum would be bad for the teeth, cause cavities, and increase calorie intake.  But, instead, Dr. Mursatsu found that chewing consumes 11 food calories per hour.

Dr. Mursatsu believes that chewing stimulates sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves, and help reset autonomic nervous systems.  Furthermore, Dr. Mursatsu quotes research that diabetic patients when instructed in good chewing have greatly improved blood glucose levels. Apparently factors in the saliva influences hormones produced by the stomach.

My personal experience is that teeth do indeed affect the entire body.  Anything that can be done to improve oral and dental health is usually a good investment.  Yes, dentists are expensive, but find a good one, and invest in best oral and dental care you can afford.   Even more important, preventative dentistry is actually cheaper, start early, keep your dental health at highest possible level.   I would suggest that hour of gum chewing per day would be a nice start.  Try it, see what happens.  Be sure to floss and brush your teeth after each chewing session, and also work on chewing your food longer.    I haven’t noticed any great BP reduction from this, but it does seem to help stimulate the jaws, and lower jaw pain.  As usual don’t overdue it, and if you suffer any discomfort stop.

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