Did you know this? Or did your dentist ever tell you this?

By Pankajbala R Patel

HOW often have you thought that it is laziness which is at the root of many of the degenerative diseases we suffer from, including the dementia group of diseases of which the most notorious and feared is – Alzheimer’s? Yes, laziness of lifestyles. When we take to consuming all industrial foods of the marketplace and practically keep swallowing food with little chewing to work the salivary glands or the gums, we are setting the stage for trouble as the years catch up with us!
Bad oral health begins with bad nutrition. One researcher called Carl Henderson, couldn’t watch his wife struggling with failing memory (she actually left her grandson in the car on a blazing hot Texas day and forgot about it)….he decided to get to the bottom of the beginning of Alzheimer and discovered that it actually begins in the mouth where a pathogen or bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis takes over the gums.
The manifestation of this bacterial takeover is in the oral disease of the mouth called chronic periodontitis. If you suffer from it do something about it today for these bacteria living in gum pockets of the lazy mouth are like “ticking bombs” — eventually spread along the neurological pathways creating plaque formation, and final result – a slow deterioration of memory. It is also called Alzheimer’s disease.
By now dozens of studies indicate this including a University of Michigan study which revealed that 20 billion bacterium in the mouth may reproduce every five hours and in the absence of any oral hygiene the population may double by 100 billion! A Dr Jack Lane too has done studies on this phenomena and linked it with the dementia diseases on the rise in the modern world. With its civilization of easy come, easy go attitudes.
This is to say so many of us today worry about our seniors in the family losing their memory and it is eventually diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease and drugs are prescribed. But the drugs help very little if at all and the condition of Alzheimer may progressively make a senior utterly helpless and even self-destructive if someone is not constantly keeping an eye on them to protect them.
We see it in our senior parents and relatives and watch helplessly as they struggle in the mind to be all there but…this or that is forgotten. All too often we say, Oh, the mind is slipping! And it only old age catching up with you, don’t worry! It is absurd how we accept all this and make excuses and try to make life comfortable for those who little by little in their 60s or 70s start losing their memory, forget names, how to do the most basic of things.
We weep for our parents as we remember them in their younger years and try to cajole them out of their sinking desire to live and as they get annoyed with medicines and refuse to get out of bed or get annoyed easily if they don’t recognize a husband or a son or a daughter, grandchildren. There are more than 10 million cases of dementia per year in India.
The narrative is it is a progressive condition which can be treated but cannot be cured and one may have to live with it till doomsday. Medical diagnosis for Alzheimer’s sees patients doing lab tests, imaging tests and host of other useless tests time and time again as new drugs are prescribed.
What is difference between dementia and Alzheimer? It is said about five to eight percent of all people over the age of 65 have some form of dementia and this number doubles every five years above that age. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. There is also something called vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and dementia due to Parkinson’s disease and others.
The truth is we may think so but these conditions of dementia are not a normal part of aging! So what to do? Dr Jack Lane says the intake of Huperzine has shown very good results. In fact, “Huperzine increased dopamine level by 129%.” Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which leads to opening up of the blood vessels of the brains (and possible leads to some kind of detoxification of plaque build-up and revival of suffocated nerves).
In 2014 Chinese study has praised the herb ginkgo bilopa and then there are also such things as “Phosphatidyslserine, St John’s Wort, Bacopa monnieri, A-Acetyl-L-Carnitine”…and many more plant herbs which disinfect the mouth and eradicate the causative bacteria. Gingko biloba is said to have worked in one week to improve brain health!
There are many studies today which indicate that there are things we can do to reclaim our brains and make them sharper than ever before. This researcher Carl Henderson is promoting a product in the nutraceutical market called “ProMind Complex” (look it up, likely to be a costly affair but it promises you a razor sharp mind).
Personally, I think both our preventive and curative healthcare system must focus on oral health from childhood. It is not a bad idea at all to go back to Mahatma Gandhi’s humble neem twig to work out the mouth and teeth from childhood onwards as long as one can! No more buying of toothbrushes or toothbrushes in their plastic avatar to contribute to our garguantan plastic rubbish.