I’ve been fascinated by oral health and it’s connection to whole-body health for a long time. I’ve looked for answers to questions like “Can teeth heal” and “What really causes tooth decay” and this podcast episode addresses those same questions.
What Really Causes Tooth Decay?
Will Revak of OraWellness.com and I talk about the relationship between food and overall health and the health of the mouth. With statistics like “98% of adults in the US have some form of oral health problem,” it is time to start looking more deeply into the relationship of diet and lifestyle to oral health.
The cultural understanding is that sugar sitting on the teeth causes tooth decay and that brushing, flossing and maintaining good oral hygiene is the key to good oral health. Turns out that the data doesn’t really support these ideas though. Consider this:

Women are more likely to suffer from oral health problems when pregnant and a pregnant women with oral health problems is more likely to struggle with pregnancy complications
Times during our lives where our oral health is affected can affect the body in other ways. For example, teething babies often exhibit symptoms like fever, rashes, diarrhea,  earaches and trouble sleeping. This indicates that what happens in the mouth can affect other parts of the body
Patients with certain cardiac patients have to be extremely careful getting dental work done and are often counseled to take antibiotics even for routine cleanings to prevent a life-threatening heart infection.

All of these facts points to the idea that there is a deeper cause to tooth decay and oral health problems than just what happens to the external side of the teeth. On the flip side, these points also indicate that problems in the mouth can affect the body in deeper ways.
The Research
Will points out that if we step back from our cultural assumptions about tooth decay and really evaluate the data, a much different conclusion emerges. Looking at research like:

The book Cure Tooth Decay
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by dentist Dr. Weston A. Price
The work of Melvin Page
The studies of Drs. Mellanby
Dr. Steinman’s studies on blood phosphoris and dentinal fluid
The connection between diet and oral health

The Root Cause

The research reveals teeth are not solid as we assume. They are made up of time tubes called tubules and each front tooth alone has up to 3 miles of complex tubules running through it.
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