What Really Causes Tooth Decay? The Sensible Approach

Sugar and fruit acids do not injure the enamel of normal teeth. Sugar can hurt the teeth only by entering the stomach and blood and perverting metabolism. Free sugar (commercial sugar) possesses a strong affinity for calcium. When eaten in considerable quantities it leaches the tissues, including the teeth, of their calcium.

Tooth decay is attributed to the action of bacteria and their acids upon the teeth. There is a deeper cause for tooth decay than the germs that get onto the surfaces of our teeth. Bacteria, even if they enter into the production of dental decay, play a very subordinate part and, in conditions which seem to be most favorable to their activity and growth, they are powerless to produce dental decay so long as the resistance of the body is normal.

The ocean of dental decay is so large and its causes such that it can never be

coped with by cleaning and filling the teeth. No amount of scrubbing and polishing can preserve them if nutrition is inadequate. NUTRITION, a faulty diet and nutritional derangements after birth easily results in faulty tooth structure, both in the temporary and permanent teeth.

The prenatal months and the preschool years are, indeed, as they have been aptly termed, the golden age for the prevention of tooth decay. If no thought is ever given to the requirements of children's teeth until after they erupt, the chances are that, on our modern diet, the child's teeth will be defective and short lived.

Each tooth is a highly specialized piece, of bone, a part of the bony system of the body, and receives its nourishment from the blood, just as do the other bones of the body. The teeth are subject to the same laws and nutritional requirements as the rest of man's bones and are affected for good or ill by whatever affects the nutrition of the body as a whole.

The teeth are leached of their salts from the inside until there is only a shell left. The decay begins on the inside. The teeth may be practically destroyed from within. Cavities form inside, then the enamel breaks through. Scrubbing the surface of the teeth cannot build sound teeth. The healthy human mouth is self-cleansing and bacteria cannot thrive therein.

Decay of teeth is a result of a disturbance of calcium metabolism, from whatever cause. It may be and often is due to a faulty diet; and may be and often is due to many other factors and influences that pervert metabolism.

Hyper-acidity of the stomach is a frequent cause of crumbling of the teeth.

The best diet that can be fed will fail to nourish the body if it is not digested. It follows, logically, that whatever deranges digestion and perverts metabolism may be responsible for tooth decay.

Artificial infant feeding tends to produce decay of the teeth. The vital necessity of nursing your child is thus made manifest. But, it is also necessary that you feed yourself properly.

Any factor, physical, nutritional, emotional, etc., that perverts or impairs nutrition will cause the teeth to decay. Poor health, impaired nutrition, perverted metabolism, however produced, affect all the structures and functions of the body in varying degrees and any effort to preserve or restore integrity that ignores the cause of general impairment must fail.

Health is the basis of sound teeth. There can be no completely sound teeth in

diseased bodies. No decay of the teeth can occur in a perfectly healthy body that is maintained in this condition by first class habits. Anything that is essential to good health is essential to good teeth. As the teeth are integral parts of the body their health depends upon the general integrity.

Natural Health practitioners and others have long held that teeth will heal. Until recently dentists have denied this. There is no longer room to doubt this. The teeth are bones. Bones do heal and regenerate under favorable conditions. Even the enamel of the teeth, it seems, is able to repair itself.

Repair of the teeth depends, not alone upon a diet of fruits and vegetables, but

upon a general improvement in health. Every factor that improves nutrition;

sunshine, exercise, rest, etc., will aid in repair.

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