Your total health depends on the state of your oral health. Thanks to media coverage, we know this, but how well do we really understand the significance of the recent discoveries of medical research? The connection between gum disease and cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, or Alzheimer's is now uncomfortably clear.
A true Missouri native, Dr. Sindelar was born and raised in St. Louis, and has served the people of this area with excellent dental care since taking the reins of Sindelar Dental in 1981.
In Refresh Life, Dr. Dan Sindelar opens a door to your health, showing you why it is so crucial to care for your teeth and gums, and how to go about refreshing your whole life by simply taking better care of your mouth.
Add ten years to your life by reading this book. www.refreshrightnow.com

Refresh Life

oral health is the missing piece, adding years to your life, and improving your overall well-being!By Dan Sindelar

BALBOA PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Dr. Daniel Sindelar
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-3357-5

Contents

Introduction.......................................................viiChapter 1 Why Refresh.............................................1Chapter 2 It's Costing You $$$....................................9Chapter 3 It's Costing Your Health................................17Chapter 4 Refresh Your Sleep......................................29Chapter 5 Refresh Your Mouth......................................35Chapter 6 Refresh Your Habits.....................................45Chapter 7 Refresh Your Soul.......................................49Chapter 8 Biofilm Is The Enemy....................................55Chapter 9 Dentists/Physicians Unite...............................61Chapter 10 Refresh Your Mouth - Part 2............................65Chapter 11 The Future: Old Model vs New Model.....................71Chapter 12 Refresh Your Life......................................79Refresh Life Bibliography of References............................83

Chapter One

Why Refresh

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, yet many people with cardiovascular disease have none of the common risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and high cholesterol. So what is making people sick? You guessed it: gum disease.

Bleeding and inflammation anywhere will cause the liver to release C-Reactive Proteins. This is a natural reaction of the body that in the case of an injury makes good sense. However, a high level of C-Reactive proteins in your bloodstream is a strong predictor of cardiovascular issues ... even more so than your cholesterol level! In fact, doctors today know that if you are being treated for high cholesterol, you should also be checked for gum disease and be seeking proper treatment if you have it.

Gum disease is one of the most common infections of humans, and these chronic infections are now shown to be directly linked to the "furring" of the arteries. The scientific term for this is atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is the main cause of heart attacks. Inside our arteries, the particular proteins produced from having chronic inflammation initiate atherosclerosis and help it progress.

These C-reactive proteins are also naturally produced after cells are exposed to other kinds of stress conditions that inflammation, such as exposure to toxins, starvation, and oxygen and water deprivation.

Because of this, the proteins are also referred to as stress proteins. They can work as chaperone molecules, stabilizing other proteins, helping to fold them and transport them across cell membranes. Some also bind to foreign antigens and present them to immune cells. Because these proteins are produced by humans as well as bacteria, the immune system may not be able to differentiate between those from the body and those from invading pathogens. This can lead the immune system to launch an attack on its own proteins. When this happens, the white blood cells can build up in the tissues of the arteries, which causes atherosclerosis.

Researchers have found white blood cells called T cells in the lesions of arteries in patients affected by atherosclerosis. These T cells can bind to host stress proteins as well as to those from the same bacteria that cause gum disease. So the similarity between these kinds of proteins causes our body to turn on itself, and reveals the link between oral infection and clogged arteries.

This molecular mimicry means that when the immune system reacts to oral infection, it also attacks host proteins, causing problems for our arteries. Don't you think that information like this should fundamentally change our health policy? I feel it's time we stress the importance of adult oral health because of its connection or our overall health and wellbeing. Now that we see a direct link, controlling gum disease should be essential in reducing the risk of heart disease.

Words From Researchers

Professor Robin Seymour of Newcastle University Dental School, UK, is a leading oral specialist who finished an analysis of the link between poor oral care and coronary heart disease in May of 2010. His findings showed that unhealthy gums led to a higher risk of heart disease, with the key reason being that inflamed gums resulted in higher levels of C-Reactive protein. He also showed that dental cleaning had a profound effect, reducing the levels of C-Reactive protein in the blood and improving the health of blood vessels.

He also believed that most people are unaware of the strong connection between heart disease and gum disease.

"This is a significant step towards a more complete understanding of heart disease and improving treatment and preventive therapies," said Professor Seymour in an article written by medical journalist Susan Aldridge, PhD. "An understanding of all the possible risk factors could help lower the risk of developing heart disease and lead to a significant change in disease burden."

50% of all Americans have moderate to severe gum disease, and if what Professor Seymour says is true, most don't realize what an impact it can have on their health. So why aren't we paying more attention? This is a disease, not just an inconvenience, and we need to build awareness of how important good oral health really is.

Our mouth is the gateway to our bodies. We nourish, breathe, drink, and communicate with our mouth, yet somehow we all got sidetracked into thinking our mouth is not really connected to the rest of our body. We believe it is separate somehow, but research is fast proving this to be a mistake. America's door to better overall health is through the mouth first, precisely because everything is directly connected.

We cannot live without nutrients passing through our mouth. The moment we take a bite, our mouth starts processing our food through chewing and digestive enzymes. It's also a major pathway for our breathing, and the bacteria in our mouth (both the friendly and unfriendly kind) travel in the oxygen we breathe, the saliva-borne food and drink we swallow, and in our bloodstream.

Our mouth has a huge influence on our total health, and our overall lives. Despite this now being pretty common knowledge, most people are not taking action on it. Perhaps the message is not clear? Or maybe it is not urgent enough, not real enough to help us commit to better oral health care? What needs to happen in order for us to take it seriously?

Charles learned to take it seriously, and it changed his life ... perhaps even saved it.

Charles had not been to a dentist in over ten years. He did not know he had any problems, and felt there was no reason to go if he was not in pain. However, he was struggling with his health. He was borderline diabetic, had blood pressure concerns, and high cholesterol.

He was found to have gum disease, bleeding gums, with pocketing. His oral DNA salivary diagnostics revealed he had numerous bacteria associated with gum disease, and several associated with heart disease.

Charles has a family history of heart disease, so he was very interested in reducing one of his major health risks in any way he could. He went through with treatment for his periodontitis, being treated by preconditioning with both a 1064 laser and ozone therapy, followed by scaling and root planing. Once these in-house treatments were done, he also used PerioProtect at home, something I will talk about later.

Here's the great news for those of you who do not like going to the dentist: all of these procedures are pain-free!

The outcome for Charles is an amazing story. He no longer has bleeding gums, his pockets have reduced to normal levels, he is no longer borderline diabetic, and his blood pressure and cholesterol concerns have improved. The man looks and feels much healthier! And the follow up Oral DNA testing showed a virtual elimination of the bacteria of concern.

There is nowhere else in the body that the outside and the inside of us collide so dramatically than the mouth. We are seeing more and more evidence of harmful bacteria gaining access to our bodies due to our poor maintenance of oral health. As we go through and look in detail at some of the things mentioned in Charles' story, you will learn why treating gum disease also has a positive effect on the body.

A Social Impact

It's neat to see that helping people with their oral health can also improve their social lives. There is a definite negative social impact if you practice poor oral health. Our smile is an extremely important part of our emotional and social health. People with better smiles tend to have better jobs, more social interactions, and generally more successful lives.

Our smiles are the most universally recognizable facial expression worldwide. A smile conveys happiness, confidence, an easy-going nature, a willingness to get along. A smile also reveals our teeth and gums. Researchers have found evidence that having gum disease will negatively affect your smile, sometimes even deterring you from displaying positive emotions because of embarrassment of how your smile looks.

Researchers conducted a test on subjects while they watched a comedy program. At predetermined measurement points, the researchers assessed three dimensions of each patient's smile: the horizontal width, the open width, and the number of teeth shown. They also noted when and how often a patient would cover their mouth. They even took into account each individual's perception of how quality of life is affected by oral health.

The findings proved that periodontal disease can impact a person's smile. The more symptoms of gum disease, like loose teeth and red swollen gums, the more likely the patient was to cover his or her mouth or limit how widely the mouth opened during the smile. And the more gum recession seen in the patient, the fewer teeth he or she showed when smiling. Even the way the test subjects perceived their quality of life as a result of their oral health was shown to directly correlate with the number of teeth they had that were affected by gum disease.

The study author, Dr. Marita R. Inglehart, explained how smiling actually plays a significant and essential role in a person's overall well-being. Smiling affects a person's social interactions because it affects their self-confidence. It also has an effect on how people perceive one another. Because periodontal disease is prevalent in such a large number of adults these days, Dr. Inglehart wanted to investigate the link between oral health and a person's smile. You can read about her study in Science Daily's April 1, 2008 issue.

Even the president of the AAP, Dr. Susan Karabin, is quoted as confirming the connection of periodontitis to overall systemic health.

"It is already widely known that periodontal disease is connected to systemic health," said Dr. Karabin. "These results help demonstrate that periodontal disease may affect more than just overall health. It can also impact actual quality of life, making caring for one's teeth and gums all the more important."

It seems the lecture many get at the dentist each check-up ... floss your teeth! ... is not an effective way to get this message out. Flossing and brushing are by far the first, easiest, and most affordable way to improve oral health and prevent tooth decay, gum disease. Yet statistics show that the large majority of Americans are not flossing. I hope that if I show just how important oral care is, and how it can prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and more, that you will take action. You will floss, brush, rinse, and visit the dentist. You will tell your loved ones about what you've learned. The message will get heard.

We need a new awareness. I compare this to how we once doubted the effects of things like smoking on whole body health. Heck, the ancient Maya believed smoking cured asthma! Now it's accepted knowledge that smoking is really bad for you. We need to get that same understanding and awareness that not flossing is just as bad as smoking!

With new awareness of how dramatically our oral health affects our overall health, I believe this is the health message for the new millennium. It might very well be the Golden Age of dentistry, as dentists become the front line of defense against disease, instigating a new standard of health care.

There is an exciting new movement in the dental world, a new mission of bringing awareness to the importance of good oral health. The American Academy for Oral Systemic Health is being created as I write this, with a mission of working to provide relevant evidence about oral disease and its connection to general health. The goal is to offer knowledge and information that will lead to improved health, healing, longevity, and wellness. These dentists, doctors, and other health practitioners are dedicated to working together for a healthier future. If you would like to learn more or join up, visit online at www.aaosh.com.

Refresh Your Life

I used the phrase Refresh Life for the title of this book because my intent is to provide a very positive book about refreshing your life.

Here's a question: what does the phrase 'refresh life' mean to you?

To me, fresh means it hasn't gone bad, it's still full of life and good for you. It's how we want our food. It's lack of decay, not dying, life sustaining. It is fresh water, fresh air, and fresh food. It's also feeling fresh, good, healthy, and full of vitality and energy.

Now let's look at the word 'life'. Life is what we want, what we need. It's why we are here, for without life we are not. Life is a force, it's our being, our soul, our spirituality. Life is our nourishment.

So then what do I mean by 'refresh'? It is making new, renewing, a new start. The prefix is the most important part of the message. Refresh is something that's better than before, and it's everything the way it's supposed to be. We 'refresh' our life by improving it and removing anything that impairs it. I believe we can all heal life, heighten life, and allow life to be fresh again simply by taking better care of our mouths.

All it takes is making a commitment for better overall oral care. What I recommend is not expecting perfection right out of the gate. Instead of trying to be absolutely right all of the time, be mostly right most of the time. If we floss most of the time, brush most of the time, eat right most of the time, exercise most of the time ... well, it will all add up to better overall health.

Is it too much to ask? I hope not. And I hope I can convince you that what I am asking is truly in your best interest. It's not some plug for dentistry. It's not in the interest of spreading fear. It's a simple message backed by solid research and facts that can change the world.

Chapter Two

It's Costing You $$$

Okay, I'd like to cover some basic statistics and explanations. Firstly, what exactly is gum disease, and how does flossing prevent it?

Pay careful attention to this. If you don't floss every day, you're leaving 40% of your teeth surfaces dirty, coated with gummy bacteria that causes staining and yellowing between and around teeth. That overgrowth of plaque eventually leads to gingivitis, the first stage of gum disease, which creates inflammation, bleeding, and tenderness in gum tissue that can lead to gum recession and bone loss ... which in turn leads to an older look because you see more spaces, and less and uneven gum tissue. This is where you get the quaint term for aging, 'long in the tooth.'

Matters only get worse from there. Gum disease can eventually cause the bones underneath to dissolve away. When gum disease begins to eat away at the bone, there are changes in facial appearance that cannot be fixed, even plastic surgery. In a recent study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, researchers found that bone loss in the jaw, as well as the eye sockets and cheeks, aged people in ways those cosmetic procedures that tighten and plump the skin can't fix.

So that's the effect of poor oral care on your mouth and face, in a nutshell. Now let's look a little further at the effects of poor oral health on the rest of your body.

As we saw in the last chapter, studies now reveal a direct association between periodontitis and blood vessel dysfunction, heart attack, and stroke. Over the last few years this has been studied at great length, and from various standpoints. Enough time has passed in this research to show a more long-term effect. In one study it was found that participants who reported less frequent tooth brushing had an increased risk of heart disease compared with people who brushed their teeth twice a day.

What's important to understand is that gum disease is affecting us in two ways: through the body's natural reaction to the inflammation and the invasion of harmful bacteria originating in the mouth.

Our endothelial function is the thin layers of cells that line the interior surface of our blood vessels. Periodontitis affects our endothelial function in a negative way. The bacterial infection originating in our mouths invades the tissue around the teeth, causes tissue damage and bleeding, and thus enters the bloodstream. Periodontitis also triggers a low grade inflammatory response throughout the body that has a detrimental effect on the vascular wall (refer to chapter one for more information on this process). It also releases bacteria into our systems. What's been discovered is that the plaque in our mouths is the same plaque in our arteries. So we have the inflammatory response, and the bacteria, both creating a deadly response in our bodies over time.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Refresh Lifeby Dan Sindelar Copyright © 2011 by Dr. Daniel Sindelar. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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