Our teeth are designed to heal. Eroded, decalcified dentin renews itself when the right nutrients are plentiful. Tooth decay itself stimulates the production of new dentin, as does the mechanical stimulation of chewing. That's how people in some traditional cultures were able to eat foods that, over a lifetime, wore their teeth down to the gum line without causing any tooth decay.
Similarly, some tribal groups filed their teeth to dramatic points for esthetic reasons without suffering any ill effects. Our modern diets don't contain any food abrasive enough to wear down teeth, but when decalcification from decay exposes the inner pulp of a 21st-century tooth, it invariably becomes infected by bacteria. Modern teeth lack the vitamin that generated a protective shield in people eating traditional, nutrient-dense diets: vitamin K2.
In many ways, the loss of K2 has impacted women more than men. In particular, women get more cavities than men.48 It wasn't always this way.
Females experienced a more rapid decline in dental health than did their male counterparts as humans made the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural lifestyles. Is that because we're not brushing and flossing as well?
No, if anything women are more conscientious than men when it comes to oral hygiene and dental care.49 Women get more cavities for the same reason that we fall behind in the cancer and diabetes benefits of vitamin K2: we are
more susceptible to vitamin K2 deficiency. The demands of reproduction and the nature of female sex hormones all chip away at our K2 status—until we recognize the warning signs for what they are and take action.
This “new” understanding of tooth decay as nutritional deficiency frees women and men to take effective action in preventing and treating cavities, with far-reaching implications. Weston Price was primarily interested in activator X because of its powerful ability to control dental cavities. He also recognized that the significance of oral health extends far beyond the mouth.
When bacteria from the mouth make their way through the dentin tubules to reach the tooth's pulp, they gain access to the bloodstream. This infection starts the degeneration of organs and tissues in other parts of the body, like the heart.
One principle of traditional Chinese medicine is, “The heart opens onto the mouth.” According to this ancient wisdom, heart health is reflected in the health of the mouth. The Chinese were on to something. Modern evidence shows that people with gum disease are twice as likely to suffer from coronary artery disease.50 Gum (periodontal) disease is characterized by an accumulation of soft plaque, which calcifies to tartar, around the teeth. This mirrors the buildup of arterial plaque of heart disease. Of course when calcium deposits on our teeth we just get it scraped off, but it is a forerunner of many other vitamin K2 deficient conditions.
For example, periodontal disease is an early complication of diabetes. The connection between these two concerns is so tight scientists recently declared that dentists can effectively identify people with undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes just with routine dental exams.51 Medical and public health experts emphasize the importance of early detection of diabetes, since this can limit the development of severe complications and about one quarter of people with diabetes don't know they have it. Doctors would do their patients a favor by recommending vitamin K2 to benefit both conditions, instead of just treating each concern separately.
Additional studies point to a relationship between gum disease and stroke.
Stroke is a manifestation of cardiovascular disease, one that affects the brain.
Stroke is sometimes called a “brain attack,” a name that conveys its similarity to heart attack. Even with conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease taken into account, dental infections are associated with both stroke and heart attack.52 The most surprising finding is that gum disease is a stronger indicator of total mortality risk (death from any cause) than coronary artery
disease.53 Other research shows a strong association between bone loss from gum disease and fatal coronary heart disease and stroke.54 Does this pattern sound familiar?
A major shortcoming of most of the science on the periodontal disease–
cardiovascular disease link is that it focuses on a single risk factor for gum disease, oral hygiene. This suggests that the only way to beat gum disease is by brushing and flossing. We're back to the chemicoparasitic model here. Of course, oral hygiene is important, but, as with cavity prevention, it does not address underlying susceptibility. Correcting fat-soluble-vitamin deficiencies does. New evidence shows vitamin D deficiency causes periodontal disease.55 Although we have few clues about the mechanism, and likely there is more than one, Price's experiments with K2 and dental bacteria propose yet another realm in which fat-soluble vitamins unite for our benefit.
The amazing interplay between vitamins K2, A and D flushes out the story of how menaquinone optimizes our well-being. That account is coming soon, but not before we look at how to discern if you need to improve your K2 status. I probably don't have to talk you into eating more cheese. However, since we've established that you can be silently deficient in K2, how can you tell if you should be adding this nutrient to your pile of supplements, in addition to eating more K2-rich food? Chapter 6 explains the ins and outs of K2 testing.