EVERY generation defines its lifestyle and goals… and charts its course. And that’s why parents and children hardly understand each other. One generation got tired of nomadic life, hunting for food, settled down and began farming. So, the Agrarian Age was born. The Industrial Age in which machines took over human labour overcame the Agrarian Age, putting farmers in the background, only to find itself displaced by the Information Age…the world of computers and information systems. That’s why some of us old parents don’t understand why our children will starve to own “big” cell phones, simply because many of us do nothing with phones except to make and to receive calls! The expensive “big” phones have capacity for many applications which “old people know little or nothing about, have no need for, and which are daily giving way to newer and none sophisticated applications, a reason why phone makers keep making “bigger” and more complex cell phones.”
THE DAWN of yet a NEW AGE has broken in the prime of the Information Age. It is the AGE OF PERSONAL CARE, a major player in the economy of many countries. Everyone wishes to look not just good, but his or her best, and to tell other people so, not in spoken but body language. So, we all wish to make a hyperbolic positive statement about Self through body shape, carriage and adornment. Thus, almost every woman you meet on the street today is a physical hit. You learn to know how empty many are only when you start a conversation and they cannot follow the tracks. In many cases, also, mouth odour makes nonsense of the body “power” they laboriously try every day to build and maintain. In the DOCTOR’S BOOK OF HOME REMEDIES, I found the following interesting preamble to a discussion of mouth odour problems:
“It’s just after lunch and you are in the middle of an important job interview. You’re sailing along, doing everything right. Answers to the interviewer’s questions trip lightly from your tongue. You laugh together. You smile at each other. Your body language says you are at ease, self-assured. You have got the job, you think. “So, you stand up, shake hands, and say, “I’v enjoyed talking to you and I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
“Uh-oh “Your interviewer grimaces just a little. His upper lip wrinkles. He smiles. You can see something just went wrong. He’s been bush whacked by you.
“Not exactly the lasting impression you wanted to leave. Was it your hunch? Couldn’t be. But it could also be the lunch you ate yesterday.”
To be honest, almost all of us take our mouth for
granted until we run into one problem or the
other with it. We don’t always take signs of bleeding gums seriously, especially when we toothbrush. And that most probably is because we do not wish to spend money on the mouth. Yet, as the above quoted preamble to an article suggests, the mouth, fresh or odorous, is the “wedding gown” or “front office” of that hyper personality we laboriously arm the body to give us. I was down emotionally for some days last week after receiving the news of the passage of the carpenter who has helped me with woodwork matters around the house for about 10 years. Like all masons, he hardly ate good food. His favourites were bread and fries. His breadth was so bad that, every time he had to speak with me, I held my breadth and, to answer him, moved away one or two metres, pretending to do something, and then release my breathing. Not many people will tell you your mouth smells. But I told him, and related the condition of his mouth to his terribly arthritic knees which made his walk swagger. It took him about one minute to walk five metres. He was knocked down by a motor cyclist about two weeks ago, and did not have the energy for recovery from the trauma. I receive enquiries regularly from people whose cases may not be as bad as my carpenter’s. But, in each enquiry, I see despair and loss of self-esteem. One man told me he was fed up with foul smell from the mouth and anus. One preacher said he produced abnormal high quantum of saliva which “sprays” while he preached and it unnerved him as it did the congregation. One may, indeed, lose one’s balance psychologically for a short while, if not for long, if, as one speaks, one’s listeners have to duck or mop saliva from their faces or even lips. The enquirer who got me to think of this column said her halitosis, the medical name for bad breadth, rocked her marriage for more than 20 years before finally breaking it.
Bacteria at work
The beginning of the mouth odour is often the thin film of food left over on the gums and teeth after a meal. Bacteria feed on this film to degrade it, forming a plague which may damage the gums, cause bleeding, and pave the way for infections in the mouth. Dr. Eric Shapira, D.D.S., and one-time Assistant Clinical Professor and lecturer at the University of Pacific School of Dentistry, is reported by the Doctor’s Book of Home Remedies as saying that there are about “fifty trillion” bacteria “loitering in our mouth”. That’s a whopping population considering that there are just about 100 trillion cells in the adult’s human body. Says the book:
“They sit in every dark corner, eating every morsel of food that passed through your lips, collecting little smell and producing little odour of their own. As you exhale, the bacteria exhale. So, brush away the plague after each meal and get rid of the breadth problem.”
But that is just about where the problem grows bigger. For how many people have the time to brush after a luncheon or after snacking on, say, meat pie or a bottle of Coke?
So, as these bacteria wear out the gums, pockets form between gums and teeth in which food particles lodge. I, too, used to use toothpicks to pick out the debris. Some tooth picks are so crude that they puncture holes on the gums. And if your healing process is too slow or outright inadequate, tooth picking may create more living apartments in the mouth for bacteria than is desirable. The consequences are many odour-forming mouth diseases. Bacteria from the mouth may infect the throat, causing diseases such as tonsillitis, for example, or hit at the sinuses as the Sinusitis. Similarly, throat and sinus ailments may expand their territories to the mouth, all things being equal. These germs may make the root canals of the teeth their houses. From here, their poison, end products of their own living processes, migrate to other parts of the body, especially the joints in some kinds of arthritis, to cause havocs which some doctors may not relate to the teeth and, so, mistreat.
In many cases, digestive troubles in the stomach and intestines are the causes of bad breath. Constipation (fewer than two or three bowel movements a day where three “square meals” are eaten) causes food and fecal decay, mucus build-up, proliferation of bacteria, blood poisoning and enormous gas output. The gas escapes analy through fartiny, or the mouth through belching, or the skin via body odour or the lungs as bad breath.
Treatment
Death begins slowly but surely in the intestines,
this column once said, quoting the British Royal
Society of Surgeons which linked many deaths to all kinds of intestinal diseases. So, I’d advise that the intestines be cleaned up by aiding the various digestive organs with nutritional supplements heedful for their functions. For the STOMACH, Apple Cider Vinegar, Silica Complex, and Betaine hydrochloride, among many others, may be considered. The LIVER does well on Milk thistle, Carqueja, Dandelion, Licorice DGL, Gentian, Maria Treben’s Bitters etc. As for the PANCREAS, Pancreatic Enzymes (All- enzyme, for example), Papaya Enzymes et.c. are good. A supplement which supports insulin utilisation and effectiveness is good as well. And there is quite a large army of them which includes Chromium piclinate, fenugreek, Bitter melon, Moringa Oloifera; et.c. Moving the intestines requires Calcium and Magnesium for contraction and relaxation of soft muscles of the intestines, respectively. The B-Vitamins are also needed for stress reduction and digestion. Chlorophyll, especially from Chlorella, Spirulina or Alfalfa, helps to deodorise and supply some magnesium. The diet of many people is fibre deficient. Yet fibre is required to stimulate the flagellation motion of hair-like structures in the lumen known as cilia which knock against one another upon one being sensitised by fibre, to create peristaltic motion, that snake motion- like wave which moves food along. The colon, where large deposits of unevaluated stool may form, causing a breeding ground for germs, or infect the prostate gland if it leaks does well on fibre as well as friendly bacteria (PROBIOTIC). Probiotic prevents overgrowth of the unfriendly bacteria, especially candida, staphylococcus aureus, E. coli etc. For fibre, vegetables are a king. Fibre supplements may include Flax Seed hull (Fortflax is a proprietary blend), and Psyllam husk.
The Mouth
Mother Nature blesses the mouth with natural immune protection through some immunoglobins in the saliva. And that is probably why, through folk medicine, we were taught as children to bathe any skin break, cut or stings or bites with saliva. The trouble is that some people do not produce enough saliva to maintain the right balance of these immune factors with wholesome diet. These immune factors help to kill bacteria in food and in the mouth, which may explain why some people keep all their teeth in good condition till ripe old age – the 90s and some others do not.
Dr. Shapira suggests that, if you cannot take your
toothbrush and toothpaste along with you
wherever you go, you can at least sip some wine or water at the table, excuse yourself to a private corner and swish the wine or water around your gum and teeth with your tongue, to clean out waste food and prevent that dangerous film from forming. I learned other tricks after I learned my lessons from a bad toothache in the dead of the night. Very often during the day, when I am alone, I run my tongue over my gums and teeth as if toothbrushing. Besides, I carry in my bag a decanted bottle of any antibiotic herbal medicine of my choice and lick it as a sweet. My choices are (1) Kyolic Garlic which is said to be 50 times more powerful than natural garlic and is odourless (2) Grape Seed Extract (3) Pycmogenol (4) Parashied, a proprietary blend of six major antibiotic herbs from DaVinci’s Laboratories and (5) Probiotic. I lick any of them and let saliva mix well with it. Then, for about five or 10 minutes, I swirl the saliva around in the mouth. Using any of these herbs this way offers the user double-shield protection. The gums and teeth are protected, as are the intestines when the saliva is swallowed. At home after breakfast or dinner, and sometimes in the office, I use Sage oil or Lemongrass oil or Baking soda solution as mouth wash. And when it suits me, I never forget to take the biochemic cell dalts of Calcium phosphate and Calcium fluoride for the protection of gums and teeth. My first experience with baking soda was with a product named ECODENT, a mint and baking soda product, which is said to harden teeth without fluoride. The mouth is naturally alkaline because of the saliva bathing it. Food leftovers and bacteria acidify it. ECODENT is said to neutralise these acids without the abrasiveness of some chemical-laden toothpastes and yet leaves a fresher breath. The beauty of it all is that baking soda can be taken internally to kill germs. In fact, I’ve heard of a doctor who injects baking soda solution directly into cancer cells to kill them after first injecting them with glucose. Because cancer cells contain candida, aureus, other yeast, viruses and bacteria, all of which thrive on glucose, they open their receptors to glutinously consume the injected glucose. Immediately they absorb it, and before the receptors close, he injects them with baking soda. It is the extra oxygen atom in baking soda which actually burns them to death in the baking soda alkaline environment. Cancer loves acidic and oxygen-deficient environment. Thus, baking soda, oxygen loaded like 35 percent Home Grade Hydrogen Peroxide (not the hydrogen peroxide sold as mouth wash in pharmacies), is their enemy. I suggest anyone who has just pulled a tooth or just been through scaling and polishing to decant some baking soda powder in a small bottle of water for mouth rinses as many times as possible a day. Getting back home close to midnight, I hardly have the time to start brushing off all the bacteria. I either rinse with baking soda powder solution or I open one or two capsules of Kyolic Garlic or Grape Seed Extract or friendly bacteria (Probiotic) in my mouth and tongue-swirl them on the gum or teeth. For this purpose, I sometimes prefer the Kyolic Garlic designed for Candida and digestion.
In the book NATURAL HEALTH SECRETS FROM AROUND THE WORLD, more recipes are provided. The GREEKS chew or suck on ANISE seeds to freshen up. The PORTUGUESE chew BASIL to end a spicy meal. In India, Guatemala and the Orient, CARDAMON is it. INDIANS freshen up with FENNEL, the Greeks go for FENUGREEK which is good anti-diabetes high. The Greeks love, also, the GRAPEFRUIT which, from today’s knowledge of Grape Seed Extract as an antioxidant, antibiotic, and antiviral, gives it the mouth freshener potential. The Chinese are the PARSELY people. Parsley chewed after the consumption of raw garlic immediately takes the offensive odour out. And SAGE? Arabs and Indians rub their teeth with Sage leaves. Traditionally, Sage tea is taken in the Western world for cough and bronchial troubles.
With all these done in mouth odour situations, the toothbrush should be changed from hard to soft as hard brush damages the gums. But, many brushes sold as soft brushes are hard. Happily, some health food companies in Nigeria have now begun to sell real soft brushes. They also sell natural antibiotic toothpastes. But they cost much more than the chemical brands.
Anyone who hasn’t taken some of these steps hasn’t packaged the mouth for good breath which, in my view, should go before all else in the BODY CARE AGE. Who wishes to employ a manager whose bad breath would make the customers flee? Or who wants to kiss a damn pretty, well packaged woman with a tongue filled with several layers of thrush carpet, or whose breath, like my carpenter’s, makes the suitor or “toaster” hold his breath?
