Building a Healthy Oral Microbiome (to Create Better Immunity)

How do we create a healthy oral microbiome?

For the mouth-body connection to be healthy there should be balanced, healthy flora in the oral cavity.  As we learned in last week’s blog, our oral microbiome is a major player in this mouth-body connection — it’s the beginning of the body’s entire digestive system and it affects all the major systems in our body.  One of the biggest systems impacted is your immune system. 

Fortunately, creating this balance starts with a simple daily routine and regular oral maintenance.

6 Easy Steps

1 Scrape your tongue twice a day — first thing in the morning before eating or drinking and again at the start of your evening routine.  Takes less than 30 seconds and removes bad bacteria and bio-burden from the tongue.

2 Floss and brush twice a day — make sure your floss doesn’t contain PFAS/PTFE and you use a soft bristle brush. Flossing and brushing don’t indiscriminately kill bacteria — they disrupt the growth of plaque so it doesn’t become pathogenic.

3 Skip the alcohol-based mouth rinses and 4 Try Oil Pulling instead. Oil pulling nourishes your gums and helps pull out toxins. The idea that we must disinfect or sanitize the mouth to kill bacteria is a misconception. It completely disrupts the delicate balance and actually does more harm than good.

5 Breathe through your nose rather than your mouth.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, mouth breathing causes dry mouth and leads to a myriad of disorders including dental issues like cavities and gingivitis, and bad breath (halitosis)¹.  Secondly, breathing through your nose produces nitric oxide which has been shown to deliver powerful immune stimulation².

6 Maintain regular dental cleanings.  Beyond personal daily maintenance of teeth, including a healthy diet and plenty of water, it’s important to schedule regular dental cleanings. This will help to prevent plaque buildup over time by cleaning hard-to-reach places, such as below the gum-line.