Posts Tagged ‘Health’

You and Your Family Are Eating a  Healthy Diet for life, right?

We all know the importance of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables for the health of our digestive and cardiac systems.  These essentials provide fiber, water, minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients that help protect our cells.  Dentists also recommend firm and crunchy foods, such as apples and vegetables, to stimulate the flow of saliva that helps to clean and protect our teeth.

The best food choices for the health of your mouth include cheeses, chicken or other animal protein, nuts, and milk. We believe these foods protect tooth enamel by providing the calcium and phosphorus to remineralize tooth enamel.  These minerals are removed  by acids, but can be restored by our diet.

But Here’s the Problem…

Your healthy food choices may be contaminated with tasteless, odorless chemicals like antibiotics, fungicides, pesticides, hormones and other agents that may be far from healthy.   These chemicals can run off the crops and enter our water supply, persisting for years.  Some of these compounds in higher concentrations have been linked to childhood diseases, reproductive disorders in men, and breast cancer in women.  How much is safe? We really don’t know for sure.  But we should be especially cautious regarding the diets of children and pregnant women.

So What Can We Do? 

For one thing, avoid the foods that usually test as the most heavily contaminated, the “Dirty Dozen”,  and choose the foods with the lowest tested residue, the “Clean Fifteen” .  (More to come in the next blog post about those!)  Organic foods are a great choice, because they are produced without the use of antibiotics, fungicides, pesticides, hormones and other chemicals, and have a much lower chemical residue.  Organic foods are available at local farmers’ markets; they are increasing found in supermarkets as well.  Ask where you shop and let them know you want a selection of organic foods.  

Try growing your own organic berries and vegetables.  In our backyard, we grew these tomatoes organically, along with organic peppers, lettuce, cucumber, and zucchini.  It takes about the same effort as a non-organic garden, the food is fresh and delectable, and you will be doing your body and our planet a huge favor.  Doesn’t that sound delicious?

We have all heard for many years that one small glass of red wine (3-4 ounces) each day may enhance your heart health, lower your cholesterol levels and may be associated with longevity.  Now we have see that red wine, as well as foods like grapes, apples and dark chocolate,  may have added benefit in keeping your mouth, teeth and gums healthy too.  Red wine appears to inhibit tooth decay and reduce the risk of gum disease by helping to counteract  the effect of Streptoccus mutans (S. mutans), a bacterial infection linked to tooth loss. 

Antioxidant chemicals called proanthocyanidins are found in red wine and other foods such as dark chocolate. These phytonutrients prevent S. mutans from sticking to saliva and teeth.  Italian researchers removed the alcohol from a high-quality Italian red wine. They added the nonalcoholic red wine to cultures of S. mutans in saliva, saliva-coated extracted teeth and saliva-coated calcium ceramic beads.  They found that the addition of the non-alcoholic wine prevented the bacteria from clinging to the saliva and to the teeth.  These investigators plan to extend their study to the effects of grape juice on S. mutans in the future.

Research from Cornell University and Université Laval in Quebec, Canada studied polyphenols, the chemicals in grape seeds and red wine that help neutralize the damaging effect of free radicals in the body.  Free radicals can damage our cells’ DNA.  Polyphenols from red wine also help control inflammation caused by gingivitis, or bacterial infections of the gums. Limiting inflammation may also protect against periodontal disease, a more serious form of gum disease that can lead to tooth decay or tooth loss, and has been linked to heart disease and stroke.

Unfortunately, the news is not as convincing when it comes to white wines.  White wines have lower concentrations of phytonutrients and polyphenols, and some researchers fear that the high acid content of white wine might help erode tooth enamel.

So smile tonight, when you have a small glass of red wine with your dinner and a half ounce of dark chocolate for dessert, knowing that your teeth and gums will be a little healthier. (don’t forget to brush and floss afterwards). Here’s a toast to staying healthy!