How Do We Get Cavities?

How Do We Get Cavities? Cavities are holes in the enamel of the teeth says this expert dentist in Lake Jackson. The term “dental caries” refers to cavities in the mouth. A hole in the enamel allows bacteria to get into the tooth pulp and eventually kill it.

That’s pretty straightforward, but the key question is what causes cavities? This is where the problem lies.

In modern dentistry, it is widely accepted that bacteria on the teeth are the primary cause of cavities. There is no conclusive proof of this theory since it was adopted by vote decades ago.

However, other theories with strong evidence have been disregarded, including the idea that tooth decay is primarily caused by poor diet, not acid or bacteria.

During his travels around the globe, Dr. Weston Price studied cultures that had either low or high rates of dental caries and developed his nutrition theory. In his research, he focused mainly on primitive people who were not afforded convenience foods as these people were thought to have the healthiest teeth and their health was the best. After closely observing their diet and dental hygiene, he discovered something remarkable:

There were almost no cavities in people who ate a traditional diet consisting of whole foods and fat-soluble vitamins and minerals. The good news is that people eating this type of diet had healthy, strong teeth regardless of their dental hygiene!

Despite good dental hygiene, cultures exposed to modern convenience foods such as jams, jellies, pastries, white bread, and sugary fruits had far worse teeth.

He tested the nutritional content of foods and conducted studies to prove that poor nutrition caused cavities. A group of children was studied by Dr. Price who subsisted mostly on a diet of highly sweetened coffee and white bread. They also ate doughnuts fried in vegetable oil and pancakes made of white flour and eaten with syrup. The decayed teeth of these children were evidence that they were lacking fat-soluble vitamins and minerals necessary for strong teeth!

The purpose of Dr. Price’s program was to nourish the children’s bodies in order to aid in remineralizing their teeth, healing cavities, and preventing future cavities. His hypothesis would be based on this evidence. A nutrient-rich diet was fed to these malnourished children six days a week for five months for the purpose of the study.

An excerpt from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, an important book that changed the way we think about health.

Dr. Price details the cavity-reversing menu in a Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets: In this one meal, these children were provided with these foods.

We began the meal with about four ounces of tomato juice or orange juice and a teaspoonful of an especially high-vitamin butter mix made up of equal parts of natural cod liver oil and high-vitamin butter.

A bowl of rich meat and vegetable stew was served next to them, largely made from bone marrow and fine cuts of tender meat. Therefore, the bone marrow meat soup was made by grilling the meat separately and then chopping it finely before adding it. There were always plenty of very yellow carrots and finely chopped vegetables in that dish. They also had freshly ground whole wheat rolls with high-vitamin butter, along with cooked fruit with very little sweetness.

In a motor-driven coffee mill, fresh wheat was ground every day for the rolls. Two glasses of fresh whole milk were also given to each child. By substituting for meat stew, fish chowder, or animal organs, the menu varied from day to day. Caries in children’s teeth halted – x-rays showed teeth strengthening and healing!

As a result of this study and others, Dr. Price maintained that proper nutrition can not only prevent but reverse tooth decay.

The bottom line is:

Cavities aren’t healed by plugging them. Teeth are healed by nourishing foods. Placing fillings in the teeth prevents the proper flow of nutrients. In the end, a filling kills the tooth even though it prevents decay and removes decay. In the case of old fillings that need to be replaced, you can see the evidence of that effect at the dentist.

It is therefore not uncommon to perform root canals on filled teeth! Fillings can be useful in severe decay situations, but they are only short-term fixes for deeper problems. To clarify, I am not implying that good nutrition will grow new tooth material to fill in caries-caused holes. The tooth is just like your bones, once it is lost, it is gone forever.

You will, however, get stronger teeth when you consume enough fat-soluble nutrients, preventing bacteria and infection from entering the pulp inside the cavities. In essence, your teeth will be sealed naturally, and they will be strong enough to resist caries in the future.