Reddit mentions of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

I've been to one of these free dental pop-up clinics. It was a pretty terrible experience. Many of the people I was sitting around didn't even look that poor. Some of the people who came in had completely black teeth and were getting them pulled and X-rayed. Some patients I saw in the same chair for hours getting their free work done.

I think I waited around 8 hours to finally get my teeth cleaned. It was the first time I got my teeth professionally cleaned in 11 years. Despite an 11 year gap between professional teeth cleanings. The dentist said that my teeth were in great condition aside from some crowding due to lack of braces, and some calculus deposits. I didn't have any cavities. I do brush twice a day and floss once a day.

I do recommend this book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price. It explains how important diet is for teeth quality and health. It explains why people eating primitive diets always have near-perfect teeth, while people eating modern "white" diets (white flour, white sugar, white rice, and foods brought by the white man) have bad teeth and physical effects. Its why in documentaries about native tribes in Africa, they always have perfect white teeth despite not having toothbrushes or dentists.

https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522226965&sr=8-1&keywords=nutrition+and+physical+degeneration

OP's article reminds me of this episode of "Extreme Cheapskates" where a couple is doing DIY dentistry. I admire the ingenuity of the vacuum hose. There really are millions of poor Americans with no access to healthcare who are relying on folk medicine, DIY medicine, and illegal drugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3m-58CCVAM

America has to make up its mind. Do we want a free market healthcare system? Or a socialist single payer system? Choose ONE plan and stick with it. No good can come out of this bizarre twisted mish mash of public and private. The politicians can't make up their mind, and the people are suffering because of it.

I don't expect you guys to be taught this, but a lot of chronic diseases can be healed with good nutrition, and when I say good nutrition, I mean, think, what did people eat back when chronic diseases were not commonplace? (Cows ate grass, not candy. Chickens ate bugs. Produce back then was organic.) Suggested reading-shorter: http://blog.elliebellyupdates.com/p/her-story.html Suggested reading-book length: https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

Please read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

Ex-vegan here. Went through a pregnancy and the first year of my son's life vegan. Not recommended. Tons of health issues, and we wern't junk food vegans either.

For insight on diet vs dental health, read Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. The book is the result of observations made worldwide by Price in the years preceding WWII.

On youtube, Cultivate Health and Beauty. It's targeted towards women and their channel is not about being anti-vegan, but they are pretty anti-vegan. Also Primal Edge Health. I watch Sv3ridge for the exvegan videos and the Epitomy of Malnourishment videos but be careful in venturing to anything outside of that. For podcasts, listen to Bulletproof Radio, Fitness Confidential, The Paleo Solution, Primal Blueprint Podcast. For books, The Vegetarian Myth and the works of Weston A. Price. Look for people with an internet presence who are paleo. Most a very educated about veganism. Nina Teicholz work is worth mentioning too. She did a great breakdown of all the problems with that piece of propaganda "documentary" What the Health.

It's basically a combo of what Weston Price recommends in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Ellie Phillips in Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye. Price found out how to prevent and regenerate cavities through nutrition. Ellie Phillips found out (or at least put together with ton of scientific articles) how to prevent and regenerate cavities with modern dental products. I figured that for maximum effect, you need both.

On the nutrition side

• Cod Liver Oil - Take some every day. This will up your levels of Vitamin A and D.
  
  
• Natto/Grass-fed Butter - Weston Price recommended grass-fed butter in his book because it had Activator X (an unknown nutrient at the time discovered later to be Vitamin K2) in it, which activated Vitamins A and D. But Natto, a food from Japan that is essentially fermented soybeans has so much Vitamin K2 in it as well as other awesome things like Nattokinase that you should eat it instead. It's far cheaper, and is the single greatest food source of Vitamin K2. You can find it in Asian food markets in the freezer section. Look for a 3 or 4 pack of little square Styrofoam containers. You might as well get some grass-fed butter too, because it's damn good.
  
  
• Milk - Because you need calcium and phosphorus. If you don't have it, it won't bind to your teeth. Vitamins A and D allow this to happen after K2 activates them.
  
  
• Eat nutritionally dense foods - Grass-fed beef (especially liver), pasture-raised chicken/pork, organ meats, fish, vegetables, nuts, fruits, etc. Basically, stuff that is good for you.
  
  On the Dental Care side
  
  
• Xylitol - S. Mutans can't metabolize it, kicking its ass by forcing it to eject it from itself so it can pick up real sugars. In doing so, it wastes energy. Get 7-10 mg of Xylitol per day. More than 10mg per day doesn't do anything more.
  
  
• Listerine - Kills off S.Mutans to an extent. Use 1-2x a day. Realkalize your mouth immediately after use.
  
  
• Alcohol free ACT fluoride rinse - Follow up on the Listerine immediately with this to get fluoride on your teeth. It's a dilute fluoride solution, which is supposedly the best kind. You might be thinking, "but I just used the toothpaste!" This will get whatever spots you missed. Will also realkalize your mouth.
  
  
• Mouth Alkalinity - After eating or drinking anything acidic (or hell, after using Listerine--yes, it makes your mouth acidic), you must make your mouth alkaline again to prevent decay simply from your mouth being acidic, from giving favorable conditions to S. Mutans, and to keep your mouth in the remineralization state. The best ways to do this are to use Closys (apparently. I haven't tried it myself), ACT fluoride rinse, finishing your meal with milk, or Xylitol. Xylitol/milk tends to be the way to go though; you can eat what you like and then keep the acid at bay by using either of them immediately after. If using Xylitol, either eat a spoonful or pop 2-3 Xylitol mints/gum. Apples apparently have the same effect too, but Apple Juice has an acidity of 2.2 pH, so I don't trust them.
  
  
• Toothpaste that uses Sodium Fluoride and no abrasives or whitening - Because apparently Sodium Fluoride is the best kind. Whitening naturally will occur as the layers of enamel return to your teeth; whiteners tend to damage the teeth. Actual whitening comes from having so much enamel, light cannot completely pass through your teeth.
  
  
• Checking your water's pH - Some tap water is acidic by default. You should be aware as to whether or not drinking it will make your mouth non-alkaline.

good post, you've got some good tips in there.

on the nutricion i would add, don't forget about the fats. through paleo your main energyresource will still be sugar. and i believe that fat is the best fuel for humans. mostly animal (who have had their natural diet)

Weston A Price discovered this through observation en studying primitive people and their diets. He was also a dentist and intreged with primitive, way better teeth than modern man.

http://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

It’s ridiculous.

The best part is that every 30 years or so we go “oh shit, forgot the folate” but then we are all super confident that THIS TIME we have all the things you need shoved into the frankenfood.

For a lesson on what happens when you actually eat properly, read this book. Think no tooth decay, no cavities, no orthodontia, less infection, fewer cognitive problems...

Why was Dr Weston Price able to visit numerous unwesternised cultures around the world in the 1930s and find zero, or extremely minor incidences of tooth decay in those people who maintained their traditonal diets?

These people drank no fluoridated water. They did not have any access to fluoridated toothpaste. Nor minted dental floss. They did not see a dentist for a regular check-up, plaque removal, clean & polish. They had no modern dental conveniences whatsoever. Some had teeth which Dr Price described as having "typical deposits of unscrubbed mouths". Yet decay was negligible. Why?

Rather than argue about the effects of fluoride, wouldn't it be interesting to investigate how avoiding cavities was actually possible without consuming fluoride at all?

I've read various "tales" of hunter gatherer using astral projection to watch over their bodies as they sleep, so that they don't get eaten.

Can you prove it? No. Does it make sense that people who lived in constant communion with the earth, whose intuitive abilities were often far beyond our own, who perceived no separation between the worlds of spirit and matter, between self and other might have no need of a formal type of meditation or "union".

Most hunter gatherers societies had loads of free time, smoked hallucinogens or ate mushrooms, had highly cultivated sense of intuition, and talked directly to their various gods in and out of altered states, knew dreams as part of a single continuity and not some "brain fart" or something to be ignored as many of us do in modern civilized society.

There were also highly barbaric groups that did horrible horrible things to each other, some of them while high on mushrooms, as sacrifices to their gods.

It is fair to say that formal meditation comes with the farmer/settler lifestyle.

In my biased view, the consciousness of hunter gatherers ( and I may be way off on this) but the pre-industrial tribal cultures before they encountered agriculture, technology and what have you, lived somewhat closer to how animals live (and this is NOT meant as an insult) in that they would more directly perceive their environment, and be able to pick up on many things that we would rely on technology for, or intellect and reasoning to "work out". Where as tribal cultures often were able to see stars much further away than we can, they had better eyesight, often could find water and food sources by first seeing in their dreams or out of body states, and then travelling there (a far more efficient method that guessing) as well as being able to directly feel various electro-magnetic currents that run from the earth and into our bodies through our feet, such as modern water diviners are able to sense.

I don't idolize hunter/gatherer society, there are many aspects to it that I find horrific and repellent, cannabalism being one of them. However, in all physical respects, primitive tribes are our physical superiors in nearly every way, for anyone who reads "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price with its numerous records of pre-industrial h/g societies and photographs of skulls and skeletons which show better bone formation, wider jaws, lack of tooth decay and vastly stronger bones from diets higher in bio-available calcium (not synthetic) this is self-evident

http://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

Please don't accept anything I have to say, but look into it for yourself.

I don't really want to get into a reddit discussion today but I would argue that happiness, peace, and justice are almost entirely cultural achievements (animals don't choose to be happy or sad, it's a reflection of their environment/situation), and technology has the power to affect those three principles in a very profound way. Our culture also largely dictates our direction and use of technology. So I do agree that "being just" and "being technologically advanced" are divorced, but they still can affect one another greatly, which is why I think that pre-civilized cultures can be "truly progressed" without advanced technology. What I mean is that technology can be a real boon and a great weapon against our progress towards betterment. I mean just one immediate example would be that we may destroy ourselves in a matter of decades if we keep up global warming -- that's a direct result of our advanced culture and could literally destroy us. Is that advanced, true progresson?

A definition of culture:

> "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

covers a great deal of peace and justice because we literally cannot exist without a culture because we cannot divorce ourselves from our neighbors in a meaningful way.

You mentioned peaceful and advanced... again, you haven't described what "advanced" means. Do you just mean technologically advanced when you say that?

I'd also recommend checking out some books and documentaries on (isolated) indigenous people if only because it often describes just how incredibly healthy and happy they frequently are. Not all of them, of course, but there are many good examples. Plus it's just interesting to see totally different cultures from our own. One I've read recently that had a very strong impact on my worldview was Nutrition and Physical Degeneration -- I've never had any interest in dental health but still found the book just amazing (my mom is a nutritionist and had it laying around).

I'd doubt the total veracity of this video, but it was also incredibly interesting. Plus boobs.

And some favorite movies/documentaries that illustrate my point: Koyaanisqatsi (which is part 1 of a trilogy), Baraka, and Samsara.

There's lots of proof.

Also a great book.

But if you really want to learn about food, you have to go to the source in my opinion.

My sister has cytochrome P450 deficiency and my dad has diverticulitis. It's no wonder i also have nutritional issues.

Our modern food supply is compromised in a variety of ways and that does not help people like us. Irradiation, pasteurization, and antibiotics in foods disturb or just destroy natural bacteria, enzymes, and other things that help us digest food.

Your best bet is to follow the paleo line of thinking and eat whole, unprocessed foods as much as you can. I myself spent many years unlearning the junk food mentality and it was hard, but very much worth it.

The paleo people and the naturopath people have some good advice. They can be hit or miss, but there are a few of them who respect actual science. Here are a few people to look into:

Dr. Rhonda Patrick ( my favorite, and she is a real aspie science geek )
Robb Wolf ( one of the most science minded paleo guys out there )
Eric Berg ( very hit/miss, and gives out faulty advice regularly but has some good leads for starting your own research)

And if you want some information on what vitamins deficiencies can cause, check this stuff out. It will blow your mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvQ5F6GCfgI
https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206/ref=sr_1_1/145-3313227-7006032?ie=UTF8&qid=1494665888&sr=8-1&keywords=weston+price

The one person not mentioned here is Doctor Weston Price, who found the National Dentist Association, going around the world studying how native diets maintained good dental health vs. first-generation city-folk of those same natives whose oral health went to total shit (see: https://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206).

Another good book introducing the good Doctor is Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel (https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Tooth-Decay-Cavities-Nutrition/dp/1434810607/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495742737&sr=1-1&keywords=cure+tooth+decay)

First, let me say, I cannot really provide a solution for you, but I can share what has worked for me. I have not been as overweight as you but I have at times in my life been significantly overweight (not in mass but in % body fat) and as I am becoming older, I had found it increasingly difficult to control. My point is, you need to try things to see what works for you. Keep a daily journal of how you feel (energy, attention, brain function, etc) so you can do some experiments on yourself.

What has worked for me is adopting (what appears to be the latest fad) the paleo/evolutionary fitness model for diet and exercise. I eat little or no processed foods (e.g. read Pollan, and other rules of thumb...if it doesn't spoil, don't eat it, never shop in the inside area of the supermarket, if it comes out of a box, don't eat it, etc.). I don't drink soda, juice, or anything with sugars (just unsweetened coffee or tea, water). I eat a lot of meat, eggs, fish (no worries on fat content...my favorite lunch is a sandwich from the local deli called the Three Little Pigs, without the bread, it is smoked ham, pork bbq, and bacon). I eat some dairy, primarily full fat and fermented, like Fage Total plain yogurt (with a little fresh fruit and shredded raw coconut). I eat all my favorite vegetables slathered in full fat butter (from the farm if I can get it). This may sound like a low-carb, Atkins type diet, but it isn't. That isn't to say going low carb won't help you lose fat quickly. Nevertheless, it isn't the main point. The main point is to eat as our ancestors did some 10,000 or more years ago, as evolution has not caught up with our recent use of grains in our diet and certainly not processed foods. Another thing I do is intermittently fast. At first somewhat forced, but now just because I am not hungry. I can typically eat dinner (say around 5pm) and not eat again until around lunch the next day.

As far as exercise, I avoid long aerobic activities unless in pursuit of yard work, handling the kids, or sport (like tennis). No treadmills, distance running, or biking. I do walk or ride a bike for transportation, but I am not getting winded. I do lift weights, usually once a week, using only large muscle groups and free weights, and very intensely. It takes about 20 minutes, but given its intensity it is brutal...but over quickly. I introduce a bit of randomness into the exercise frequency and variety of exercises (e.g. maybe twice in one week, maybe I will do a bunch of pull-ups one night or push ups). Sprints are intermingled with this, sometimes just as part of playing with the dog. Again, the point is to expose the body to stresses in an irregular but intense pattern, as perhaps were encountered by our ancestors.

The result is that I am probably a month away (after approximately 9 months total) from having washboard abs, I have great energy levels, stamina and focus. I no longer wake up with aching joints. I don't get low energy levels after eating (unless I really stuff myself). Keep in mind, I am in my 40s. I was 210 and very soft and pear shaped when I started, now I am 185 and back to a youthful V shape.
The only negatives I can speak to is a diminished ability to find quick and convenient food sources and missing bread, pasta and a pizza once and a while. I really don't miss sweets, but I don't think I was that hooked on them in the first place.

Finally, let me give the sources that drove me in this direction. Take a look and see if you are interested in trying it. As I said, I can't say that it will work for you, but it has worked for me.

Websites:

Art Devany http://www.arthurdevany.com/ Evolutionary Fitness

Keith Norris http://theorytopractice.wordpress.com/

Mark Sisson http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Richard Nikoley http://freetheanimal.com/

Seth Roberts http://blog.sethroberts.net/ (more about self-experimentation and the value of fermented foods)

Weston A. Price Foundation http://www.westonaprice.org/

Books:

Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories

Little, McGuff Body by Science

Weston A. Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Mark Sisson The Primal Blueprint

> It's pretty certain that modern diets result in more malocclusion than ancient diets did

Bingo. Weston price has a great book that'll open your eyes.

https://www.amazon.ca/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

I remember in this book there are pictures of people's teeth before and after refined carb foods. (hint: their teeth went to shit)

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Dr. Weston Price.

This below would be directly from Price. He might be a better source than the followers/admirers of him.

"An epic study demonstrating the importance of whole food nutrition, and the degeneration and destruction that comes from a diet of processed foods."

http://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

From his wiki:
Some of the cultures studied include the inhabitants of the Lötschental in Switzerland, the inhabitants of the Isles of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, the Eskimos of Alaska and Canada, the Native Americans, among the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Nukuʻalofa, Hawaii, the Masai, Kikuyu, Wakamba and Jalou tribes of Kenya, the Muhima of Uganda, the Baitu and Watusi of Rwanda, the Pygmies, and Wanande in the Congo, the Terrakeka, Dinka and Neurs of Sudan, the Aborigines of Australia, the inhabitants of the Torres Strait, the Māori of New Zealand, the Tauhuanocans, Quechua, "Andes Indians", "Sierra Indians" and "Jungle Indians" of Peru.

In his studies he found that plagues of modern civilization (headaches, general muscle fatigue, dental caries or cavities, impacted molars, tooth crowding, allergies, heart disease, asthma, and degenerative diseases such as tuberculosis and cancer) were not present in those cultures sustained by indigenous diets. However, within a single generation these same cultures experienced all the above listed ailments with the inclusion of Western foods in their diet: refined sugars, refined flours, canned goods, etc.