What is tooth remineralization How to heal your teeth naturally

I hear a lot of debate online about can you regrow teeth? Well, I'm here as a dentist to say yes. However, we're gonna change the word. We're not gonna use regrow. We're gonna talk about remineralization. So let's just define this. What is remineralization? It's the minerals in your teeth and using them to be able to prevent tooth decay, prevent dental disease, all of the above. So let's talk about how a tooth is really made. There are three main layers in the tooth. There is the enamel on the outside. That's the part you're seeing when you look at a smile. The next layer in is called dentin. And then the inside layer is where the nerves and the blood vessels live, and it's called the pulp. The enamel has a lot of minerals in it. That's what makes it strong. That's also what makes it white. The minerals that are inside that enamel, the main mineral complex, or basically group of minerals together is called hydroxyapatite. Interestingly enough, that's the same mineral group that makes up our bones as well. So the minerals that are in teeth are also in bones. So a lot of the things that I'm gonna share today are going to apply to bone strength and bone health and bone remineralization. We're just going to focus it on teeth because I'm a dentist. So that enamel layer has a lot of minerals in it. The next layer in, or the dentin, has a lot more collagen in it. And it actually has a lot of something called dentinal tubules, or little tiny tubes. I like to think of them as superhighways that go out through the whole tooth. So the enamel has a lot more minerals than the other layers of the tooth. That's gonna be important when we talk about which things can actually remineralize. There's two ways that teeth lose minerals. The first is through acid. Now, one of my favorite experiments is you can put a tooth in a cup of Coke. You can pour Coke on the terminals on your battery. What does that acid do? It actually eats away a lot of things, eats away minerals. So when you put acid on your tooth, it actually will eat away the minerals in your tooth, or a better word is dissolve. It's going to dissolve the minerals out of your tooth and pull it off of your tooth. So where does acid come from, the goats on your teeth? It can come from your diet. If you're drinking a lot of soda all day long, if you're drinking even a lot of lemon water, or energy drinks, or even crystal light, all of these things are very, very acidic. So if you're bathing your teeth in acid all day long, it is going to pull minerals or dissolve minerals from your tooth and take it out of the tooth. What happens to the tooth when that happens? Well, it actually becomes very porous. It's a crystalline structure, so it looks a little like this, but the minerals that are inside of this are pulled out and they leave a lot of holes. That's going to be a problem. We're going to get to that in a minute. That's the first way that minerals can be pulled out is through acids, acids from your food, but also acids from bacteria. So when bacteria eat sugar, they actually excrete acid. So the more sugar you eat, the more food for the bacteria, the more acid they're going to create. And that's honestly how a cavity forms. Sugar doesn't create a cavity. Sugar that's eaten by bacteria then turns into the acid, which creates the cavity. So acid from either bacteria or your diet are the first way that you can lose minerals in your teeth. The second way is lesser known, and it is if your body needs minerals for other functions. Now, what are those functions? Well, let's say you broke a bone and you need to grow that bone. Let's say you are expecting or nursing a baby and you need to grow their bones. Let's say you're a teenager, you're a 14-year-old boy, and you are growing bones. All of these things are really apparent reasons why you would need minerals elsewhere. But your brain and your heart run on minerals. And if you're not getting enough, either because you're not eating enough minerals or because your gut actually isn't absorbing minerals properly, which is the bigger problem, then your body is hungry for minerals. It's deficient. It doesn't have enough to run even your heart and your brain. And if it's deficient, it has to go searching for its own minerals because you're not providing it what it needs. So where does it find it? In the mineral banks in the body, which are your teeth and your bones. So your teeth and your bones will become more porous and less mineral-dense if your body is starving for minerals. It will pull it from them. To take care of the rest of you. And I see this all the time. So what do you do? You make sure you're eating a diet high in minerals, but you also make sure your gut is absorbing them properly. I've got a lot of information on gut health. Go check that out if you think this may be your situation. So this is how the cavity begins, is that minerals are pulled out, a hole is created, and bacteria crawl in there. Then the bacteria are harder to clean. You can't brush once it's inside of there. They eat sugar, they excrete acid, they dissolve more minerals, and the hole gets bigger and they crawl in deeper. So this is what happens. In the past, what's gone on is the idea of let's add something to make this harder so the acid can't dissolve the minerals as easy. That's what fluoride does. It makes a harder, more brittle crystal than the hydroxyapatite. So it's a little harder for it to dissolve and it does strengthen the tooth. Well, it worked kind of, but nobody ever really talked about what's causing the problem to begin with. The acid, not absorbing acid, and the idea of putting something back that never really came out is the bigger issue. So the great news is today, we can actually add minerals back to the tooth that were lost. That's what remineralization is. It's just simply putting back what was lost. If the acid pulls it out, let's put it back. So thankfully, we have hydroxyapatite products now. I have a hydroxyapatite tooth powder because I want you to be able to remineralize. I also have a mouthwash that has hydroxyapatite in it. It's the only one that I actually know of. Why? Because when you're brushing, sometimes you miss places. When you're swishing a rinse, it'll get it in nooks and crannies that you can't always get into with your toothbrush. So these are great ways to remineralize, but there's some other ways you can do it too. Work on gut health. Let's get that gut functioning properly so the minerals you're eating or taking as supplements actually get where they're supposed to go. Decrease the acid on your teeth. So if you're drinking a whole bunch of acidic beverages all day long, stop, don't do it. Swig it, get it gone, rinse with water. Find something else that you can drink that doesn't have the same acid content. You can look online at how acidic things are. Go with something that's less acidic. Take a break. Give your saliva a chance to actually get your mouth back to neutral again, to balance again before you take another sip or drink another something or eat another something that's acidic. So just think about how can you decrease the acid in your mouth. Make sure you're cleaning really well because remember the bacteria that sit on the teeth are the ones that eat the sugar and then excrete the acid. Well, if the bacteria don't sit there very long, they actually can't do much destruction. Make sure you're really, really cleaning the teeth very well. I have some products that really work well to do that. Obviously, the tooth patter is phenomenal at cleaning off bacteria as well. So these are things to do to prevent demineralization but also to remineralize. When can you do this? Remember back to when we learned about enamel and dentin. If you have a cavity already through the enamel and into that dentin layer, it's going to be more difficult to remineralize because once the bacteria are into that superhighway of tubes, they're spreading rapidly and quickly through the tooth. The problem then is less that the minerals are gone and more that the bacteria is spreading. So typically we say if a cavity is still in the enamel layer of the tooth, it can be remineralized. And I have story after story after story of patients that have had this exact experience. So they send this to me on social media all the time. They'll say, I went to my dentist last time and they told me I had three cavities that they were small enough that they wanted to keep an eye on them but then they would check them next time. They say, I went back the next time, they couldn't even find the spots that were there before. We hear this so much. It's possible. So let's say you have a cavity that's deeper into the tooth, into that dentin layer, starting to feel a little sensitive. That isn't going to be able to remineralize nearly as well as one that's still in the enamel layer. If you have a broken tooth, there's just a chunk missing. This is not going to help you regrow tooth structure. So I want to clarify this. This is not regrowing teeth. This is remineralizing teeth. Remember there's those structures, those crystalline structures, we're plugging minerals back in. We're not just growing the minerals. Unfortunately, we've not figured out a way to do that yet. We're working on it, but not yet. So we're not gonna regrow a tooth. We're gonna remineralize the enamel portion of the tooth. And we're going to prevent tooth decay by keeping it mineralized. That's even the more important piece. I'll always remember a cute girl. She was a nanny for me for a couple of years for my kids. And she said, I just have had horrible dental experiences. She was always so nervous to come, even though she knew me quite well. And she said, every time I go to the dentist, I have a cavity. And I hear this over and over with people. Every time I go to the dentist, I have a cavity. You don't have to be this person. I promise you there are ways. So I told her, these are the things we're gonna do. We're gonna put more minerals into your teeth. We're gonna decrease the acid. We're gonna teach you how to keep it off of your teeth. And you are going to actually start eating some things that will help your teeth. And I'm gonna get to that next. She's like, I just don't think it's possible. I remember the first time she came in for a hygiene visit. So she came in for an exam and a cleaning. And I told her, you don't have any cavities. She started to cry. She said, that is the first time I've heard that in my entire life. You told me it was possible. I didn't believe you. I'm so glad that you have these answers for people. This is your answer too. You can prevent tooth decay. So what can you do from a diet perspective for teeth health? This goes back to Dr. Weston Price in the 1930s. He actually studied what made stronger teeth. And what he found was fat-soluble vitamins. What are they? Vitamin A, D, E, and K. And he didn't know exactly what was happening, exactly the mechanism of what those fat-soluble vitamins were doing for the teeth. But now we do. What we know is vitamin D grabs calcium and other minerals out of your saliva and out of your body and basically takes it out of circulation. So it takes it off the market. Now it's gonna be used for something. Vitamin K2, not K1, they're different. Vitamin K2 then tells that where to put the mineral. So it actually puts it into the cell. So you could be eating a ton of mineral-dense foods, mineral-rich foods, but if you don't have those two vitamins, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2, they're gonna circulate and they're gonna end up places you don't want them, like tartar on your teeth, stones in your gallbladder and your kidney and your tonsils, hardening in your arteries. You don't want them going there. So you wanna make sure you've got enough D3 and K2 to direct the minerals to go where they should, which is into your teeth and into your bones. That's really essential. So look up which foods have these vitamins. It's a little tricky if you're vegan, honestly, because these vitamins come in fats, which are found in animal products largely. There are fats in things like seeds and nuts. They have vitamin E, which isn't as crucial for tooth health. So a lot of the foods that contain vitamin D3 and K2 are animal products. My favorite one for K2, which is honestly one of the most difficult to get is grass-fed butter. Basically, butter from grass-fed cows. It has to be grass-fed because that's where they're getting the K2. So if the cows just eat grain, you're not gonna have levels of K2 in that butter. That's one of my favorite sources. It also is in salmon and other fatty fishes like that. You're gonna find D3. So look that up. Where do I find D3 and K2? Incredibly important for tooth health. Now, what are the signs that this is actually working? How do you know it's doing its job? Well, you're gonna notice a decrease in sensitivity. You're gonna notice that your teeth actually look a little whiter because there's gonna be more minerals there. You're gonna notice that you don't get tooth decay when you go to the dentist. These are things that you can tell at home. Why would it maybe not work? Again, if there's too much tooth structure gone, if the cavity is already too deep in the tooth, or if your gut isn't getting enough minerals in and you're still stealing it from your teeth. So gut health has to go along with remineralization. Hopefully this gives you a really good idea of how this works, that it is possible, that you never have to have another cavity again, and that small cavities you can remineralize. And I'm always so excited to share this with patients. There are ways to make it so that you never have to have tooth decay ever, ever. If you want more information, we have a free remineralization guide. Check it out. This is the kind of information that I want shared. So please share this with everyone and anyone that would benefit from knowing that you can prevent tooth decay, you can heal teeth, you can remineralize them and bones, and be healthy for life with just a few little changes.