April 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Sugar is the socially acceptable poison we willingly consume without fully understanding its devastating impact on our bodies. From those innocent childhood candy store visits to late-night sugar binges as adults, we've developed complex relationships with this substance that may be silently destroying our health.
In this eye-opening discussion, Dr. Alex Semidey and Jeremy Wolf explore the alarming connections between sugar consumption and chronic inflammation throughout the body. They reveal how those mysterious morning aches, persistent brain fog, and unexplained skin rashes might actually trace back to the sugary treats consumed the night before. The conversation delves into the science of metabolic syndrome and how repeated blood sugar spikes lead to insulin resistance, causing cellular breakdown that affects everything from wound healing to cognitive function.
Perhaps most striking is the examination of Alzheimer's disease as "Type 3 diabetes" – a powerful reminder that what we eat today shapes our brain health tomorrow. For parents, the discussion offers crucial insights into how sugar affects children's behavior, energy levels, and conditions like ADHD, while exposing the deceptive marketing that disguises sugar-laden products as "healthy" options.
Beyond well-known dental concerns, Dr. Semidey explains how sugar transforms your oral microbiome, creating a cascade of inflammation that extends far beyond cavities. "Your fork matters as much as your toothbrush," he emphasizes, highlighting the interconnection between dietary choices and overall health.
Ready to break free from sugar's grip? Discover practical strategies for reducing sugar intake without sacrificing joy, from smart grocery shopping techniques to effective food swaps that satisfy cravings without the harmful effects. The goal isn't perfection but progress – small changes now that yield significant health benefits for years to come. Listen now and take the first step toward reclaiming your health from sugar's sweet deception.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Semide Dental Podcast.
We're here to provide youexpert insights on how dentistry
can improve your quality oflife and extend your health span
.
I'm Alex Semide and I'm apracticing dentist, and I'll be
your host, along with JeremyWolf.
Enjoy the show, welcome.
Welcome, tooth Tribe, to thenewest episode of the Semide
(00:23):
Dental Podcast.
Tooth Tribe to the newestepisode of the Seminary Dental
Podcast.
Hello, mr Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Oh, fantastic, as per the usual arrangement, yourself
, I'm doing amazing, amazing,ready to talk about a topic
that's very near and dear to myheart.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Skittles.
I'm talking about Skittlestoday, skittles and sugar today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know it's funny For me.
Obviously, sugar plays a hugerole in your childhood, but it's
become somewhat of a love-haterelationship as I've gotten
older.
What does sugar mean to you,alex?
(01:01):
Sugar mean to you, alex.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I mean, what does sugar mean to a lot of us, right
, like I don't know.
For me, growing up, sugar wasalmost like an expression of
love, like most of my positiveexperiences as a kid involved
you know sugar like birthdayparties or any sort of
celebration Everything's likesugar laden.
I write this anecdote in theblog that one of my like the
(01:31):
deepest childhood memories iswalking it like my mom giving me
the equivalent of like fivebucks and just setting me loose
in a candy store and justwalking out with like a huge bag
of pure sugar, right Like readyto mainline, like a pound worth
of candy.
And I feel like that's therelationship that a lot of us
(01:52):
have with sugar, right, and it'sdefinitely an area of medicine
and research that's reallygrowing fast and just how much
of an impact on our overallhealth, our diet, and sugar
specifically, has.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So for me, like I've known for a while now that sugar
has negative repercussions,however, it's one of those
things that you don'tnecessarily notice.
It happens gradually, like, forinstance, I had myself a little
case of the munchies last nightand I consumed quite a bit of
sugar.
And I woke up this morning andI was walking the dogs and I was
(02:33):
just.
I was not feeling well, I hadbrain fog and I was feeling kind
of funky and I asked myself Iwas like, why am I feeling like
this right now?
And then I was reading the blogthat you wrote on this and it
kind of set in.
It was like wait a minute,there's this huge link between
what I'm putting in my body,especially late at night, and
how I feel in the morning.
For you, was there a pointthroughout your career uh,
(02:54):
either in training or inpractice where this really
really clicked for you?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You know, I think one of the one of the the biggest
travesties in how we educatedoctors is how little emphasis
we put on nutrition in general.
My wife is a is a physician andlike her, nutrition training
and all of med school was likehalf a semester, right Like you
(03:21):
get a couple of classes.
It's crazy it really is it isabsolutely insane and for us
it's the same thing and it'salmost even like more limited.
All right, sugar, sugar bad,give cavities right, like that's
basically the extent of thetraining that we get.
So for me, the sugar thingbecause you always kind of know,
(03:43):
okay, like you don't want tooverdo it with sugar and it's
not good for you and you can getdiabetes right, but like that
all seems so far off andhonestly it's been as I've
gotten older, right, and I hadthose terrible sugar habits all
my life, sugar habits all mylife.
(04:08):
And now I mean not to sayanything, right, but how many of
us remember drinking too much,right, as like in our early 20s,
and kind of bouncing right backthe next day and being okay,
right, maybe you go get the goodold Gatorade and you're good to
go and now you drink a littletoo much and you pay the price
for like three days afterwards,right?
Well, I was having the same sortof experience with sugar.
(04:28):
Right, I would.
I was a late night sugar binger, as many of us are, because it
magically just tastes betterafter 11 o'clock and I was
waking up feeling stiff and achyand just off Like I felt bad
and I was like okay, well,what's?
(04:50):
going on.
What can I change?
Like maybe not gorging in sugarright before bed could be a
good idea and, holy smokes,start cutting down on it and
start feeling better.
So that, as as crazy as itsounds to like, say it out loud,
like that's actually what madeit click for me that this is
(05:11):
very real and has a very realimplication with what's going on
in our bodies.
Right, and we're not, we're notimmune to it and we're not like
invincible right towards sugar.
Like we all know, tobacco isbad.
Too much alcohol is bad.
Sugar's right there it is apoison.
(05:32):
It is a poison 100%, 100% andit's everywhere and it's like a
celebrated poison.
We have a reason to cheer.
Let's poison ourselves.
That's really when it started.
Clicking for me is like makingthose lifestyle changes for
myself becoming a parent, beingmore concerned about what we are
(05:52):
feeding our kids than what weare feeding ourselves.
Right, because that'softentimes the gateway for our
own personal lifestyle changesis realizing what we're doing to
our kids lifestyle changes isrealizing what we're doing to
our kids 100% man.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And it can be challenging in this day and age
to really source the food thatyou're getting.
I know, when I go to Publix,maybe I shouldn't go to Publix,
maybe I should be at Whole Foods, but when I go, if I start
looking at the boxes and tryingto assess what the ingredients
are, well, I'll be there forlike five hours and it's just
overwhelming.
And then you read the list ofingredients.
You don't know I'm gettingthere and like putting
(06:31):
ingredients on chat GPT to tryto figure out what it is Like.
Like what are some of thethings?
Some obvious things, right,that that where sugar is hiding
in plain sight, where youwouldn't think there was sugar
in there, but it turns out thatit's loaded with sugar and it's
terrible for you.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh man, that is a really, really long list.
It's like everything.
Yeah, it's seriously ineverything.
My first piece of advice tomyself, my mantra if I go to
Publix, is don't go into themiddle lanes.
Anything that comes in a bag,bottle or box avoid, because
most likely it's going to haveadded sugar in it.
(07:09):
And they're sneaky too right,all these marketing companies.
They will rename sugarsomething else and you're like,
oh, that sounds okay.
And lo and behold, you'reconsuming a ton of sugar.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not just the name either.
The packaging right, it's ascience.
They make it just scream at youlike it's healthy, and then you
actually look at what's in it.
You're like what the hell isthis?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, absolutely Absolutely, and you think you're
doing all right.
Right, but you might as well beeating.
You know, a crunch bar.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, they should have.
They have rainbows andbutterflies on the packaging and
sunlight and forests and trees.
What they should have is askull and crossbones.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, exactly that's.
Yeah, we should, we should, weshould propose that.
Let's see how far it goes.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So one of the things that was interesting to me was
how there's this link betweensugar and inflammation.
So we've all heard aboutinflammation, but when I think
about it, if you were to ask me,jeremy, what is inflammation,
I'd be hard pressed to reallyexplain what that is.
Can you just talk a little bitabout, like, what inflammation
is and then how sugar fuelsinflammation?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
so sugar is serves as like a trigger for the for the
immune system, right, it's.
It's like the immune system isin charge of fighting off
offenders in the body.
Okay, and sub inflammation is agood thing.
Like acute inflammation is agood thing.
It is your body's naturalprocess of healing.
So, for instance, you cutyourself right and it gets a
little red and a little puffyfor a few days and then it heals
(08:59):
and it goes away.
Right, the process ofinflammation is your body
rushing blood flow to an area tobring in nutrients, remove
debris and help the area heal.
Right, that's acuteinflammation.
That's a good thing.
What sugar in our diets do and alot of our lifestyle things do
is they trigger chronicinflammation.
(09:21):
So your body constantly feelslike it's under assault from
something and just kicking likeit's it's immune system into
gear, right, and this affects it, can have effects everywhere in
our body.
Like we see things likeautoimmune diseases that are
skyrocketing right as our dietshave evolved and become more,
(09:43):
more, more refined, moreprocessed, with more sugars in
it and all sorts of differentlike systemic diseases that we
see.
That, when you like,superimpose the the line graphs
of how our diets have evolvedand how these metabolic and
autoimmune diseases havedeveloped and and grown.
They just like, mirror eachother perfectly.
(10:05):
So it is tricking our body intothinking that it is under
assault and it's just launchingthis all out response.
And for some people it canaffect their skin more, things
like eczema and rashes.
My wife says I'm rashy right, Iget.
I break out in rashes if Ioverdo it with sugar.
(10:28):
And for some people it's skin,for some people it's their gut
health, for some people it'scognitive decline, like it can
affect all the different systemsin our body.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And it can be very subtle, whereas you don't know
how bad it is until it getsreally bad.
And that could be verydifficult to unwind, especially
if you've gotten to a pointwhere I know my wife was was
eating a lot of sugar as of lateand she did a huge detox and
she went through it for for aperiod of time, but she feels so
(11:03):
much better right now, likeinfinitely better.
Yeah.
What about metabolic health?
What's the link between sugarand metabolic health?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, so that kind of goes hand in hand with what we
were just discussing here thatsugar creates this systemic
explosion of your immune system.
Now we hear a lot aboutmetabolic syndrome, right, and
it's tied in with diabetes.
(11:37):
Everyone knows, right, too muchsugar, you get diabetes.
But really, what is that?
What's?
What's going on?
Um, so what we know is thatwhen we repeatedly spike blood
sugar levels, right, we createwhat's called a resistance to
insulin.
Insulin is this hormone that isintended in our body to regulate
the blood sugar and keep thingsworking well.
(12:00):
If we overdo it with thosespikes and with the sugar in our
blood, we develop almost likean immunity to our insulin, and
when that happens, we startseeing things like cell
breakdown, like, literally,cells in our body start
malfunctioning, right, becausethey don't have this hormone
(12:22):
that's helping them control whatthey need to do.
And this happens.
I mean, we know about diabeticswith, like, poor wound healing,
right, like if you're adiabetic and you cut yourself,
like your body just doesn't workwell enough to heal something
that it should normally healwell, right, like if a diabetic
cuts themselves, that cut isgoing to take much, much longer
(12:44):
to heal than someone who isn't adiabetic and that cut is going
to take much, much longer toheal than someone who isn't a
diabetic, and that's anindication of how well the the
normal functions of the body areworking we were running several
months ago and we had aconversation about this and
alzheimer's came up and you andyou mentioned alz Alzheimer's as
(13:05):
being referred to as type threediabetes.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, so this is one of the things that personally
interests me the most when itcomes to the metabolic syndrome
debate.
If there's one thing that I'mterrified of is is cognitive
decline.
You know, alzheimer's, dementia, um, and we're learning a lot
(13:33):
about how these repeated spikesin blood sugar and insulin
resistance leads to cell damagein the brain too.
Right, like, the brain is apart of the body and this cell
damage seems to be part of whatleads to the tangles and the
proteins the tau proteins andtangles that lead to the neurons
(13:57):
in the brain not communicatingeffectively.
Right, and that breakdown incommunication of the nerves is
what leads to the dementia.
Right Is, what is the dementia?
It's what prevents our brainsfrom working well.
The same way, your skin won'theal when you're a diabetic.
It won't heal well.
Your brain starts to notfunction well.
And let me make this caveat,because it's not, as you know,
(14:21):
causational that you eat sugar.
You're going to get dementia.
Right, like that's.
That's not realistic.
There are several other factors.
There are geneticpredispositions to Alzheimer's
and dementia, a host of otherthings, right, trauma, many
other factors.
But that sugar and metabolicsyndrome is directly linked with
cognitive decline today isirrefutable.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yes, you mentioned inflammation triggering the
immune system.
Can sugar play a role inautoimmunity?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
body into thinking that it's under constant assault
.
So your immune system is likeyour body's army right, and your
body can either keep the armyyou know in place, right, like
stay in your base, right or itcan deploy the army into action
right, and go, go, go fight.
We're under assault, like let's, let's fight back.
That's what sugar ends up doing, right?
It trips your body intothinking it's under assault, it
(15:31):
launches that immune responseand it's basically just
attacking itself.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
So it's safe to say that if you have I'm just
thinking of a friend of mine whohad some significant autoimmune
disorders and had all theseissues I'd imagine that the diet
is a huge driving factor behinda lot of these conditions, is
it not?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean you see all sorts of like
from a personal standpoint.
Right, I eliminated sugar frommy diet for several months and
it's I'll be the first to admitit's crept back a little bit,
not nearly to the extent whereit was.
And after this podcast I'llprobably, you know, admit it's
crept back a little bit, notnearly to the extent where it
was.
And after this podcast I'llprobably, you know, eat some of
that.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, what's that you get into some of those skittles
that you pulled?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
out?
Yeah, exactly, but I've seen itmyself.
Right, cut down on the amountof sugar.
Direct correlation feel better,less joint pain, less aches in
the morning, less fatigue, lessrashes, right, like, all of
these things are just completelylike, gone, and there is tons
(16:41):
of anecdotal evidence everywhere.
The people that have sufferedfrom chronic autoimmune diseases
, the people that have sufferedfrom chronic autoimmune diseases
Crohn's eczemas, asthmas thatchange their diet completely
Specifically, a lot of peoplethat do the carnivore diet,
(17:09):
where they completely eliminateany sort of processed sugars,
carbohydrates, refined carbs,and they have not an improvement
but a complete reversal.
Right, like, it is totally gone.
They feel they get their livesback by changing their diet.
Like.
I cannot overstate howimportant it is to really take
into account what it is thatwe're eating and what we're
(17:31):
putting in our bodies.
Right, because our diets, thediets that we have available to
us today, are, you know, 50years old and we're dealing with
hardware that is a lot olderthan that, right?
So our bodies just aren't builtfor the kinds of diets that
modern society has put at ourdisposal.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Let's talk about our future, our children and how
sugar is affecting our kids.
So what do parents need to know?
Right, speak to parents outthere, because I myself, like
everybody else that has kids,you know, 10 and 13 years old I
fall something like sugary sweetsnack there and then a bag of
(18:18):
grapes.
We all know what the rightchoice is Take the grapes, but
something inside is like, well,I don't want that right now.
I want to get that, but I justcontinue to do it.
(18:43):
I'm at Publix.
I see the buy one, get one free.
I'm like, oh, the kids willenjoy.
What do I need to do to coursecorrect here and make sure that
my kids are growing up healthy?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, it goes back to that that establishing those
connections, right Like I wastalking about earlier, with my
mom handing me the five bucks togo into the candy store, like
that was an expression of love.
Right, and sugar becomes thislet's do something fun, let's do
something good, let's have somepoison together.
Right, it's sanctioned poisonand it's unfortunate, right, and
(19:16):
I'm not above it.
Right, and I'm not saying thatwe need to absolutely remove
sugar 100% from our diets, thatit is the most evil thing in the
world If we overdo it.
Yes, it leads to serious, rightLike, overall health risks.
Is there a place to have somesugar with your kids?
Sure, right, like, have a sliceof cake during their birthday.
(19:40):
Right, like, have a cookieevery once in a while, like,
that's okay, in moderation, it'snot going to do a ton of harm.
But the problem is that it'ssuper addictive.
It's really hard to have justone or to moderate yourself into
how much sugar you're consuming.
(20:01):
Step number one if you want tocut down on sugars when you go
to Publix, don't buy it.
Right Like, see the BOGO, passthe BOGO, right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just keep walking right.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
If it's not there, it's not going to tempt you
right, and the grapes are goingto look a lot better at that
point.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And they're so good, though when you actually eat the
grapes, you're going to say tomyself all the time.
If the fruit is really good, Imean, there's sugar in there,
right, let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
But it's it's natural , right, as long as you don't
eat too much of that as well andit's a totally different and
let me make this, this caveathere, just to press pause real
quick.
It's a totally different, uh,metabolically and biologically
very, very different for thebody, right?
Because you're not only gettingthe natural sugar from the
grape, you're getting all thefiber that that grape comes with
(20:49):
.
That helps your body processthat sugar and do a lot less
harm.
All right, so it is a totallydifferent thing.
If you eat five grams worth ofgrape sugar versus five grams
worth of Skittles sugar, like toyour body.
The grape sugar that bringsnutrients, that brings certain
chemicals and things that aregood for the body.
(21:15):
The Skittle is just pure poison.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Hold on.
You just gave me an idea for ahack here.
Shoot, eat your Skittles withsome Metamucil I will have to
conduct a randomized controlstudy to see how that, how that
plays out.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Oh boy, but going back to that, going back to the
kids, real quick, um, like I'vesaid before, my wife is a is a
pediatrician.
She sees a lot of obviously her, her population is a
pediatrician.
She sees a lot of obviously her, her population, her patient
population are children, and oneof the things that we see is,
like this, skyrocketing in ADHDdiagnoses, right, her first stop
(22:01):
when they are consideringputting that label on a child is
what's the diet like and howwell are they sleeping?
Right, because those twofactors play intimately into how
this kid's behaving.
Right, like, what is their mood?
Like what is their energyspikes and crashes.
Like, what behavioral issues arethey manifesting?
(22:24):
Right, and so much of it comesfrom the diet.
And the insidious part is thatyou'll ask the parent what's
their diet like?
Oh, it's healthy, right,because they're buying bags and
boxes that look healthy on theoutside, right, and it says low
fat or you know, no added sugars, right, but they're sort of
(22:48):
rebranding that sugar intosomething else and it's still
this, you know, bad chemicalthat's in the food that we're
giving our kids.
So we need to be really, reallyaware of that.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I want to pull this back to the teeth, to dentistry.
We all know that sugar causescavities.
It's almost cliche at thispoint, right, but there's a
deeper connection here.
I know we've talked a lot aboutthe mouth being the gateway to
everything else and there'sconnection with oral
(23:20):
inflammation.
Talk a little bit about whatsugar does to the teeth and the
mouth beyond just cavities.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, for sure.
So everyone knows thatconnection right.
More sugar equals more to theteeth and the mouth, beyond just
cavities.
Yeah for sure.
So everyone knows thatconnection right.
More sugar equals more cavitiesAt least hopefully everyone
knows that connection.
But more sugar, like you said,has ramifications way beyond the
cavities, right, the cavitiesis actually the easy part to
manage and deal with.
The sugar actually changes andaffects the it's called the
(23:50):
microbiome or the type ofbacteria that you have in your
mouth.
It drives things like not onlythe decay but gum disease, right
, and it puts you on this cycleof inflammation in the mouth
right, like we've talked aboutwith overall body inflammation.
Well, the same process happensin the mouth.
The sugar is directly in themouth, right, and it's fueling
(24:15):
all of this bacterial activitythat leads to the decay and the
gum disease.
Now let's go down the gumdisease route so that bacteria
starts building up, startsleading to inflammation.
Your gums get a little puffy,you start developing pockets.
Now the type of bacteria thatyou have in your mouth start to
evolve and become more virulent,more dangerous right To your
(24:43):
oral health.
It leads to periodontal disease.
Now you have an outrightinfection of the gums right, and
now that infection increasesyour risk for heart disease,
things like stroke and heartattacks, things like dementia,
right?
So now you have a double whammyfrom the sugar and the bacteria
in the mouth that can lead tocognitive decline, right?
(25:04):
So, like we tell patients inthe practice all the time, your
fork matters as much as yourtoothbrush.
Ok, what we are putting in ourbodies, what we are eating,
matters just as much as how wellwe're controlling the bacteria
in the mouth.
So being very, very mindful ofthose things, getting a checkup
(25:25):
as regularly to spot signs ofinflammation as early as
possible in the mouth, really,really goes a long way to
catching these things early.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
So I got a question for you.
I'm curious when I eat sugar,often I get this feeling
specifically in the back of mymouth, the teeth in the back
portion of my mouth, where italmost feels like the sugar is
rotting away the tooth.
I feel it on the nerve almost.
It's like this weird feeling,almost like when you eat like
(25:58):
Pop Rocks, the candy and it, itsizzles and it feels like
something's going on back there.
What am I feeling there?
Like what's actually going onwhen I have that feeling?
Is that a feeling of the toothbeing rotted away?
Is it a feeling of the nervebeing stimulated by the sugar?
Like what's actually going onthere?
And this happens to you everytime you eat sugar going on
(26:22):
there and this happens to youevery time you eat sugar.
I mean, it feels like it getscaked.
I tend to chew it in the backof my mouth and it tends to get
caked on that and I wonder ifthat's a function of the fact
that I have a lot of dental workback there and I have these
crowns and it's just sensitiveto it, but it literally I get
this feeling in my head like itfeels like it's eating it away.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
It's very strange that's not normal not for
everyone, you know that could besomething as simple as the fact
that it's you do have like thesaid dental work and the sugar,
right?
So let's think about the thingsthat that are sugar laden,
right?
Candies, sweets, things thattend to be very sticky and mushy
(26:58):
and find their way into likenooks and crannies, right?
So it's possible that you'rejust physically like mashing a
lot of this food product inthere and it's giving you that
sensation.
Sugar.
When we do have cavities thatare brewing, sugar can be one of
the things that triggers somesensitivity, just like drinking
(27:19):
cold water can sometimes let youknow, oh, there's something
going on back there.
Sugar can be one of the thingsthat triggers some sensitivity.
Uh, just like drinking coldwater can sometimes let you know
there's, there's somethinggoing on back there.
Sugar can be one of thosetriggers as well.
So it's, it's possible thatmaybe there's something like
that going on, but most likely,you know it's it's hard to feel
the sugar kind of doing itsthing and causing the breakdown.
But you, mr wolf, just might beso in tune with your bodily
(27:41):
process.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I'm so hyper aware yeah, so hyper aware that you
feel it happening.
What is an awareness?
I can feel the sugar rottingaway in my teeth.
It's a good deterrent, though,because I feel it Like that's
gross.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I want to cut that out.
That's when I grab a bag ofgrapes and I go off.
Another thing I read in theblog which I found interesting
was you were talking about TMJ,which, if I'm not mistaken, it's
lockjaw right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So lockjaw is one of the things that falls under TMJ
right.
Tmj is kind of a catch-all termand TMJ stands for
temporomandibular joint right.
It's the fancy name for yourjaw joint.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Is that like clicking when you're clicking, so
clicking is.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Tmj is what we kind of call.
Everything it's a catch allterm, right.
The proper term is TMJdysfunction, and then that's the
umbrella term for anything thatis not quite right with the jaw
right and that manifestsdifferent for different people.
It can be clicking or poppingof the jaw, it can be jaw pain,
right.
It can be as extreme asheadaches and migraines or
(28:46):
things like broken, cracked,worn teeth right.
So the jaw joint is a verysophisticated joint in the body.
It has a lot of differentmovements and a lot of things
that, can you know,unfortunately go wrong with it
and we all kind of differentmovements and a lot of things
that can you know, unfortunatelygo wrong with it and we all
kind of have our own point offailure, so to speak.
Right.
For some people it's the jawjoint itself and they will
(29:08):
develop things like arthritisand joint breakdown.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
All right, so let's talk solutions here.
If I read you correctly, you'renot saying no sugar, just
smarter sugar, right?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, Smarter sugar, less sugar, right, Less Skittles
, Less Skittles, more grapes.
So you know practical tacticaltips, right?
Like I said earlier, when yougo shopping, when you go grocery
shopping, shop the perimeterright, Like I said earlier, when
you go shopping, when you gogrocery shopping, shop the
(29:43):
perimeter right, Stay away fromthose middle aisles where the
bags, the boxes, the bottles are.
One of my biggest hacks isavoiding sugary drinks, right?
Like, if you really want tomainline sugar juices, sodas,
things like that.
Gatorade right Like, drinkGatorade if you're actually
(30:03):
running, you know a 10K and youneed that sugar and you need
those electrolytes, Otherwiseit's just poison water right,
Think of it that way You'll cutdown on how much you want to
drink it.
Energy drinks right, Lots ofsugar in those.
So cutting down on those thingsis generally a great idea.
Some practical, like food swapsright Like.
(30:26):
I'm a big fan of flavoredsparkling waters.
Publix actually has an amazingorange one highly recommend.
My kids love it.
Like.
They don't take that over aCoke any day, Right, and it's
zero sugar, it's.
There's no additives, no sodium, so it is.
It is a really good replacementfor when you would have a Coke.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Um no, I was going to say.
The thing is, when we just Ijust made that switch recently I
started drinking um less andless soda and I bought some
sparkling water, perrier typestuff, and over time you get
used to it to the point wherewhen you go back and you
actually have a Coke, it's likeoverwhelmingly sweet and like
(31:10):
just off-putting.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
At that point, so, yeah, it's almost like the
person who quits smoking andthen is around smokers and can't
stand the smoke.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That should tell you how powerful and toxic sugar can
be, because we think we talkabout addiction and it doesn't
seem like you wouldn't equatethat necessarily to sugar.
Sugar is addictive, I meanwhatever, just sugar.
You reserve addiction tocigarettes and things like that.
Yeah, but it really is a sneaky, sneaky killer.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
And you know, like baselinethings, like you know, stay
hydrated, right, like eatbalanced meals so that you don't
get those intense cravings.
And, speaking from personalexperience, when you cut down on
the sugar, it's going to betough for the first two, three
(32:04):
days.
And then days four, five andsix for me were almost harder
than days one, two and three,because day one, two and three
you've got that gusto and thatimpetus to really going to make
this lifestyle change.
And then day four, five and sixyou're like but damn, do I
really want to make thislifestyle change?
And then you day four, five andsix you're like but damn, do I
really?
want to make this lifestylechange.
I can sure use a cookie rightabout now.
And then you kind of breakthrough that, that point, and
(32:28):
you start forgetting about sugar, right.
Like you start losing thosecravings and it takes a week or
two to like like bleed out ofyour system, but once it does,
man, like I'll tell you, like itdoesn't even.
It's not even a point ofcontention.
Like you want to go have asnack Cashews became my
replacement for Skittles, solate at night if I'm up watching
(32:49):
a game or something and I wanta snack, cashews, right, and you
make.
You make substitutions forthings that are a lot better for
you for things that are a lotbetter for you.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, good choices, my friend, good choices.
So how do you integrate theseconversations without sounding
cliche, right, when you have apatient like, don't take, you
know, watch your sugar intakebecause you're going to get a
lot of cavities, how do youintegrate that into your
practice and really havemeaningful conversations with
patients that you see relativelyinfrequently?
Right, you're going to come inevery six months for a checkup,
a cleaning.
How do you really have theseconversations in a way that
(33:26):
resonates?
And I like what you said aboutyour fork matters as much as
your toothbrush, so that's acool way to put it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, and little things like that, right, that
just kind of put things inperspective for folks.
You know, we at the practice wereally focus on on education on
all fronts, not just dental butoverall health.
So just having theconversations with people, right
, like the more we hear thesethings from different sources,
(33:53):
like the more, the more weightwe put on it, the more research
we start doing ourselves.
Right, and I'm not, I'm notanticipating or planning or even
hoping to have anyone make ahundred 80 degree drastic
lifestyle change by having afive minute conversation with me
(34:13):
about their diet, but I just Ihope to open their eyes a little
bit more.
Right, and the next time maybewe have another conversation, or
they have a conversation with abuddy of theirs who had a
conversation with one of theirdoctors or heard something on
the Internet.
Right, and the awareness juststarts evolving and growing.
Right, it is.
It's not, it's not flipping aswitch.
(34:33):
Right, it's a gradualimprovement in our lifestyle.
We're really not looking forperfection, we're just we're
aiming for progress.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
And people don't want to be told not to do a thing
right.
There's a big differencebetween coming and saying like
you need to not have any moresugar because blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, as opposed to justhaving conversations around
these types of subjects andraising awareness so that people
can come to the conclusion intheir own mind that they need to
stop doing it, and not be told.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah.
And I think it's reallyimportant for us, as providers
in general, to not come atthings from a holier than thou
point of view.
Right, because we all have ourhangups.
Right, we all have our vices.
For some of us it's it's sugar,for others it's smoking, like
(35:22):
we all know it's perfect, right?
So no one's preaching from anivory tower.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Speak for yourself, brother.
I'm a fine specimen, my doctorthe other day.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
My vast imperfections .
So I I think it's reallyimportant that we had just just
honest, human conversations withpeople.
It's like, hey, this is bad forus, right, and these are the
different ways that it's bad forus.
And making little subtlechanges can sometimes have a
really big impact on not onlyyour your current health, but
your health span right.
(35:54):
Like this these are decisionsthat we want to make now, that
sort of affect us right now butreally affect us 20 years from
now.
So little course correctionsfrequently get us to a much more
desirable destination.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So I will.
I will leave you at this.
I went in for a physical theother day and my doctor did tell
me and these, these were herwords.
She said what have you beendoing?
You're perfect, mic drop.
I walked out, I'm good to go.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
There you go.
You are perfect, Mr Wolf.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Perfect specimen.
All right, thank you everybodyfor tuning in.
This was really, really fun.
If you're out there listening,if you enjoyed this content,
please don't forget to likesubscribe all that fun stuff.
You know the drill we alwayslike to hear your feedback.
If you've had any personalexperiences with these topics,
let us know about it in thecomments.
We love to get outsideperspectives and if we missed
(36:52):
anything, let us know and wewill dig into it on future
episodes.
Everyone, take care, have awonderful day and stay healthy.
We only got this one life tolive.
Let's live it to the fullest.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Seminary
Dental Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
Don't forget to subscribe,leave a review and follow us on
social media for the latestepisodes.
You can find us at SemideDental.
If you have any questions, feelfree to reach out.
We're always happy to help.
Until then, keep smiling andstay curious.
Welcome to the Semide Dental Podcast.
We're here to provide youexpert insights on how dentistry
can improve your quality oflife and extend your health span
.
I'm Alex Semide and I'm apracticing dentist, and I'll be
your host, along with JeremyWolf.
Enjoy the show, welcome.
Welcome, tooth Tribe, to thenewest episode of the Semide
(00:23):
Dental Podcast.
Tooth Tribe to the newestepisode of the Seminary Dental
Podcast.
Hello, mr Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Oh, fantastic, as per the usual arrangement, yourself
, I'm doing amazing, amazing,ready to talk about a topic
that's very near and dear to myheart.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Skittles.
I'm talking about Skittlestoday, skittles and sugar today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you know it's funny For me.
Obviously, sugar plays a hugerole in your childhood, but it's
become somewhat of a love-haterelationship as I've gotten
older.
What does sugar mean to you,alex?
(01:01):
Sugar mean to you, alex.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I mean, what does sugar mean to a lot of us, right
, like I don't know.
For me, growing up, sugar wasalmost like an expression of
love, like most of my positiveexperiences as a kid involved
you know sugar like birthdayparties or any sort of
celebration Everything's likesugar laden.
I write this anecdote in theblog that one of my like the
(01:31):
deepest childhood memories iswalking it like my mom giving me
the equivalent of like fivebucks and just setting me loose
in a candy store and justwalking out with like a huge bag
of pure sugar, right Like readyto mainline, like a pound worth
of candy.
And I feel like that's therelationship that a lot of us
(01:52):
have with sugar, right, and it'sdefinitely an area of medicine
and research that's reallygrowing fast and just how much
of an impact on our overallhealth, our diet, and sugar
specifically, has.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So for me, like I've known for a while now that sugar
has negative repercussions,however, it's one of those
things that you don'tnecessarily notice.
It happens gradually, like, forinstance, I had myself a little
case of the munchies last nightand I consumed quite a bit of
sugar.
And I woke up this morning andI was walking the dogs and I was
(02:33):
just.
I was not feeling well, I hadbrain fog and I was feeling kind
of funky and I asked myself Iwas like, why am I feeling like
this right now?
And then I was reading the blogthat you wrote on this and it
kind of set in.
It was like wait a minute,there's this huge link between
what I'm putting in my body,especially late at night, and
how I feel in the morning.
For you, was there a pointthroughout your career uh,
(02:54):
either in training or inpractice where this really
really clicked for you?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You know, I think one of the one of the the biggest
travesties in how we educatedoctors is how little emphasis
we put on nutrition in general.
My wife is a is a physician andlike her, nutrition training
and all of med school was likehalf a semester, right Like you
(03:21):
get a couple of classes.
It's crazy it really is it isabsolutely insane and for us
it's the same thing and it'salmost even like more limited.
All right, sugar, sugar bad,give cavities right, like that's
basically the extent of thetraining that we get.
So for me, the sugar thingbecause you always kind of know,
(03:43):
okay, like you don't want tooverdo it with sugar and it's
not good for you and you can getdiabetes right, but like that
all seems so far off andhonestly it's been as I've
gotten older, right, and I hadthose terrible sugar habits all
my life, sugar habits all mylife.
(04:08):
And now I mean not to sayanything, right, but how many of
us remember drinking too much,right, as like in our early 20s,
and kind of bouncing right backthe next day and being okay,
right, maybe you go get the goodold Gatorade and you're good to
go and now you drink a littletoo much and you pay the price
for like three days afterwards,right?
Well, I was having the same sortof experience with sugar.
(04:28):
Right, I would.
I was a late night sugar binger, as many of us are, because it
magically just tastes betterafter 11 o'clock and I was
waking up feeling stiff and achyand just off Like I felt bad
and I was like okay, well,what's?
(04:50):
going on.
What can I change?
Like maybe not gorging in sugarright before bed could be a
good idea and, holy smokes,start cutting down on it and
start feeling better.
So that, as as crazy as itsounds to like, say it out loud,
like that's actually what madeit click for me that this is
(05:11):
very real and has a very realimplication with what's going on
in our bodies.
Right, and we're not, we're notimmune to it and we're not like
invincible right towards sugar.
Like we all know, tobacco isbad.
Too much alcohol is bad.
Sugar's right there it is apoison.
(05:32):
It is a poison 100%, 100% andit's everywhere and it's like a
celebrated poison.
We have a reason to cheer.
Let's poison ourselves.
That's really when it started.
Clicking for me is like makingthose lifestyle changes for
myself becoming a parent, beingmore concerned about what we are
(05:52):
feeding our kids than what weare feeding ourselves.
Right, because that'softentimes the gateway for our
own personal lifestyle changesis realizing what we're doing to
our kids lifestyle changes isrealizing what we're doing to
our kids 100% man.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And it can be challenging in this day and age
to really source the food thatyou're getting.
I know, when I go to Publix,maybe I shouldn't go to Publix,
maybe I should be at Whole Foods, but when I go, if I start
looking at the boxes and tryingto assess what the ingredients
are, well, I'll be there forlike five hours and it's just
overwhelming.
And then you read the list ofingredients.
You don't know I'm gettingthere and like putting
(06:31):
ingredients on chat GPT to tryto figure out what it is Like.
Like what are some of thethings?
Some obvious things, right,that that where sugar is hiding
in plain sight, where youwouldn't think there was sugar
in there, but it turns out thatit's loaded with sugar and it's
terrible for you.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh man, that is a really, really long list.
It's like everything.
Yeah, it's seriously ineverything.
My first piece of advice tomyself, my mantra if I go to
Publix, is don't go into themiddle lanes.
Anything that comes in a bag,bottle or box avoid, because
most likely it's going to haveadded sugar in it.
(07:09):
And they're sneaky too right,all these marketing companies.
They will rename sugarsomething else and you're like,
oh, that sounds okay.
And lo and behold, you'reconsuming a ton of sugar.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Not just the name either.
The packaging right, it's ascience.
They make it just scream at youlike it's healthy, and then you
actually look at what's in it.
You're like what the hell isthis?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, absolutely Absolutely, and you think you're
doing all right.
Right, but you might as well beeating.
You know, a crunch bar.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, they should have.
They have rainbows andbutterflies on the packaging and
sunlight and forests and trees.
What they should have is askull and crossbones.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, exactly that's.
Yeah, we should, we should, weshould propose that.
Let's see how far it goes.
Yeah, Right.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So one of the things that was interesting to me was
how there's this link betweensugar and inflammation.
So we've all heard aboutinflammation, but when I think
about it, if you were to ask me,jeremy, what is inflammation,
I'd be hard pressed to reallyexplain what that is.
Can you just talk a little bitabout, like, what inflammation
is and then how sugar fuelsinflammation?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
so sugar is serves as like a trigger for the for the
immune system, right, it's.
It's like the immune system isin charge of fighting off
offenders in the body.
Okay, and sub inflammation is agood thing.
Like acute inflammation is agood thing.
It is your body's naturalprocess of healing.
So, for instance, you cutyourself right and it gets a
little red and a little puffyfor a few days and then it heals
(08:59):
and it goes away.
Right, the process ofinflammation is your body
rushing blood flow to an area tobring in nutrients, remove
debris and help the area heal.
Right, that's acuteinflammation.
That's a good thing.
What sugar in our diets do and alot of our lifestyle things do
is they trigger chronicinflammation.
(09:21):
So your body constantly feelslike it's under assault from
something and just kicking likeit's it's immune system into
gear, right, and this affects it, can have effects everywhere in
our body.
Like we see things likeautoimmune diseases that are
skyrocketing right as our dietshave evolved and become more,
(09:43):
more, more refined, moreprocessed, with more sugars in
it and all sorts of differentlike systemic diseases that we
see.
That, when you like,superimpose the the line graphs
of how our diets have evolvedand how these metabolic and
autoimmune diseases havedeveloped and and grown.
They just like, mirror eachother perfectly.
(10:05):
So it is tricking our body intothinking that it is under
assault and it's just launchingthis all out response.
And for some people it canaffect their skin more, things
like eczema and rashes.
My wife says I'm rashy right, Iget.
I break out in rashes if Ioverdo it with sugar.
(10:28):
And for some people it's skin,for some people it's their gut
health, for some people it'scognitive decline, like it can
affect all the different systemsin our body.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And it can be very subtle, whereas you don't know
how bad it is until it getsreally bad.
And that could be verydifficult to unwind, especially
if you've gotten to a pointwhere I know my wife was was
eating a lot of sugar as of lateand she did a huge detox and
she went through it for for aperiod of time, but she feels so
(11:03):
much better right now, likeinfinitely better.
Yeah.
What about metabolic health?
What's the link between sugarand metabolic health?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, so that kind of goes hand in hand with what we
were just discussing here thatsugar creates this systemic
explosion of your immune system.
Now we hear a lot aboutmetabolic syndrome, right, and
it's tied in with diabetes.
(11:37):
Everyone knows, right, too muchsugar, you get diabetes.
But really, what is that?
What's?
What's going on?
Um, so what we know is thatwhen we repeatedly spike blood
sugar levels, right, we createwhat's called a resistance to
insulin.
Insulin is this hormone that isintended in our body to regulate
the blood sugar and keep thingsworking well.
(12:00):
If we overdo it with thosespikes and with the sugar in our
blood, we develop almost likean immunity to our insulin, and
when that happens, we startseeing things like cell
breakdown, like, literally,cells in our body start
malfunctioning, right, becausethey don't have this hormone
(12:22):
that's helping them control whatthey need to do.
And this happens.
I mean, we know about diabeticswith, like, poor wound healing,
right, like if you're adiabetic and you cut yourself,
like your body just doesn't workwell enough to heal something
that it should normally healwell, right, like if a diabetic
cuts themselves, that cut isgoing to take much, much longer
(12:44):
to heal than someone who isn't adiabetic and that cut is going
to take much, much longer toheal than someone who isn't a
diabetic, and that's anindication of how well the the
normal functions of the body areworking we were running several
months ago and we had aconversation about this and
alzheimer's came up and you andyou mentioned alz Alzheimer's as
(13:05):
being referred to as type threediabetes.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, so this is one of the things that personally
interests me the most when itcomes to the metabolic syndrome
debate.
If there's one thing that I'mterrified of is is cognitive
decline.
You know, alzheimer's, dementia, um, and we're learning a lot
(13:33):
about how these repeated spikesin blood sugar and insulin
resistance leads to cell damagein the brain too.
Right, like, the brain is apart of the body and this cell
damage seems to be part of whatleads to the tangles and the
proteins the tau proteins andtangles that lead to the neurons
(13:57):
in the brain not communicatingeffectively.
Right, and that breakdown incommunication of the nerves is
what leads to the dementia.
Right Is, what is the dementia?
It's what prevents our brainsfrom working well.
The same way, your skin won'theal when you're a diabetic.
It won't heal well.
Your brain starts to notfunction well.
And let me make this caveat,because it's not, as you know,
(14:21):
causational that you eat sugar.
You're going to get dementia.
Right, like that's.
That's not realistic.
There are several other factors.
There are geneticpredispositions to Alzheimer's
and dementia, a host of otherthings, right, trauma, many
other factors.
But that sugar and metabolicsyndrome is directly linked with
cognitive decline today isirrefutable.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yes, you mentioned inflammation triggering the
immune system.
Can sugar play a role inautoimmunity?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
body into thinking that it's under constant assault
.
So your immune system is likeyour body's army right, and your
body can either keep the armyyou know in place, right, like
stay in your base, right or itcan deploy the army into action
right, and go, go, go fight.
We're under assault, like let's, let's fight back.
That's what sugar ends up doing, right?
It trips your body intothinking it's under assault, it
(15:31):
launches that immune responseand it's basically just
attacking itself.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
So it's safe to say that if you have I'm just
thinking of a friend of mine whohad some significant autoimmune
disorders and had all theseissues I'd imagine that the diet
is a huge driving factor behinda lot of these conditions, is
it not?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean you see all sorts of like
from a personal standpoint.
Right, I eliminated sugar frommy diet for several months and
it's I'll be the first to admitit's crept back a little bit,
not nearly to the extent whereit was.
And after this podcast I'llprobably, you know, admit it's
crept back a little bit, notnearly to the extent where it
was.
And after this podcast I'llprobably, you know, eat some of
that.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, what's that you get into some of those skittles
that you pulled?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
out?
Yeah, exactly, but I've seen itmyself.
Right, cut down on the amountof sugar.
Direct correlation feel better,less joint pain, less aches in
the morning, less fatigue, lessrashes, right, like, all of
these things are just completelylike, gone, and there is tons
(16:41):
of anecdotal evidence everywhere.
The people that have sufferedfrom chronic autoimmune diseases
, the people that have sufferedfrom chronic autoimmune diseases
Crohn's eczemas, asthmas thatchange their diet completely
Specifically, a lot of peoplethat do the carnivore diet,
(17:09):
where they completely eliminateany sort of processed sugars,
carbohydrates, refined carbs,and they have not an improvement
but a complete reversal.
Right, like, it is totally gone.
They feel they get their livesback by changing their diet.
Like.
I cannot overstate howimportant it is to really take
into account what it is thatwe're eating and what we're
(17:31):
putting in our bodies.
Right, because our diets, thediets that we have available to
us today, are, you know, 50years old and we're dealing with
hardware that is a lot olderthan that, right?
So our bodies just aren't builtfor the kinds of diets that
modern society has put at ourdisposal.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Let's talk about our future, our children and how
sugar is affecting our kids.
So what do parents need to know?
Right, speak to parents outthere, because I myself, like
everybody else that has kids,you know, 10 and 13 years old I
fall something like sugary sweetsnack there and then a bag of
(18:18):
grapes.
We all know what the rightchoice is Take the grapes, but
something inside is like, well,I don't want that right now.
I want to get that, but I justcontinue to do it.
(18:43):
I'm at Publix.
I see the buy one, get one free.
I'm like, oh, the kids willenjoy.
What do I need to do to coursecorrect here and make sure that
my kids are growing up healthy?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, it goes back to that that establishing those
connections, right Like I wastalking about earlier, with my
mom handing me the five bucks togo into the candy store, like
that was an expression of love.
Right, and sugar becomes thislet's do something fun, let's do
something good, let's have somepoison together.
Right, it's sanctioned poisonand it's unfortunate, right, and
(19:16):
I'm not above it.
Right, and I'm not saying thatwe need to absolutely remove
sugar 100% from our diets, thatit is the most evil thing in the
world If we overdo it.
Yes, it leads to serious, rightLike, overall health risks.
Is there a place to have somesugar with your kids?
Sure, right, like, have a sliceof cake during their birthday.
(19:40):
Right, like, have a cookieevery once in a while, like,
that's okay, in moderation, it'snot going to do a ton of harm.
But the problem is that it'ssuper addictive.
It's really hard to have justone or to moderate yourself into
how much sugar you're consuming.
(20:01):
Step number one if you want tocut down on sugars when you go
to Publix, don't buy it.
Right Like, see the BOGO, passthe BOGO, right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Just keep walking right.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
If it's not there, it's not going to tempt you
right, and the grapes are goingto look a lot better at that
point.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And they're so good, though when you actually eat the
grapes, you're going to say tomyself all the time.
If the fruit is really good, Imean, there's sugar in there,
right, let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
But it's it's natural , right, as long as you don't
eat too much of that as well andit's a totally different and
let me make this, this caveathere, just to press pause real
quick.
It's a totally different, uh,metabolically and biologically
very, very different for thebody, right?
Because you're not only gettingthe natural sugar from the
grape, you're getting all thefiber that that grape comes with
(20:49):
.
That helps your body processthat sugar and do a lot less
harm.
All right, so it is a totallydifferent thing.
If you eat five grams worth ofgrape sugar versus five grams
worth of Skittles sugar, like toyour body.
The grape sugar that bringsnutrients, that brings certain
chemicals and things that aregood for the body.
(21:15):
The Skittle is just pure poison.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Hold on.
You just gave me an idea for ahack here.
Shoot, eat your Skittles withsome Metamucil I will have to
conduct a randomized controlstudy to see how that, how that
plays out.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Oh boy, but going back to that, going back to the
kids, real quick, um, like I'vesaid before, my wife is a is a
pediatrician.
She sees a lot of obviously her, her population is a
pediatrician.
She sees a lot of obviously her, her population, her patient
population are children, and oneof the things that we see is,
like this, skyrocketing in ADHDdiagnoses, right, her first stop
(22:01):
when they are consideringputting that label on a child is
what's the diet like and howwell are they sleeping?
Right, because those twofactors play intimately into how
this kid's behaving.
Right, like, what is their mood?
Like what is their energyspikes and crashes.
Like, what behavioral issues arethey manifesting?
(22:24):
Right, and so much of it comesfrom the diet.
And the insidious part is thatyou'll ask the parent what's
their diet like?
Oh, it's healthy, right,because they're buying bags and
boxes that look healthy on theoutside, right, and it says low
fat or you know, no added sugars, right, but they're sort of
(22:48):
rebranding that sugar intosomething else and it's still
this, you know, bad chemicalthat's in the food that we're
giving our kids.
So we need to be really, reallyaware of that.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I want to pull this back to the teeth, to dentistry.
We all know that sugar causescavities.
It's almost cliche at thispoint, right, but there's a
deeper connection here.
I know we've talked a lot aboutthe mouth being the gateway to
everything else and there'sconnection with oral
(23:20):
inflammation.
Talk a little bit about whatsugar does to the teeth and the
mouth beyond just cavities.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, for sure.
So everyone knows thatconnection right.
More sugar equals more to theteeth and the mouth, beyond just
cavities.
Yeah for sure.
So everyone knows thatconnection right.
More sugar equals more cavitiesAt least hopefully everyone
knows that connection.
But more sugar, like you said,has ramifications way beyond the
cavities, right, the cavitiesis actually the easy part to
manage and deal with.
The sugar actually changes andaffects the it's called the
(23:50):
microbiome or the type ofbacteria that you have in your
mouth.
It drives things like not onlythe decay but gum disease, right
, and it puts you on this cycleof inflammation in the mouth
right, like we've talked aboutwith overall body inflammation.
Well, the same process happensin the mouth.
The sugar is directly in themouth, right, and it's fueling
(24:15):
all of this bacterial activitythat leads to the decay and the
gum disease.
Now let's go down the gumdisease route so that bacteria
starts building up, startsleading to inflammation.
Your gums get a little puffy,you start developing pockets.
Now the type of bacteria thatyou have in your mouth start to
evolve and become more virulent,more dangerous right To your
(24:43):
oral health.
It leads to periodontal disease.
Now you have an outrightinfection of the gums right, and
now that infection increasesyour risk for heart disease,
things like stroke and heartattacks, things like dementia,
right?
So now you have a double whammyfrom the sugar and the bacteria
in the mouth that can lead tocognitive decline, right?
(25:04):
So, like we tell patients inthe practice all the time, your
fork matters as much as yourtoothbrush.
Ok, what we are putting in ourbodies, what we are eating,
matters just as much as how wellwe're controlling the bacteria
in the mouth.
So being very, very mindful ofthose things, getting a checkup
(25:25):
as regularly to spot signs ofinflammation as early as
possible in the mouth, really,really goes a long way to
catching these things early.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
So I got a question for you.
I'm curious when I eat sugar,often I get this feeling
specifically in the back of mymouth, the teeth in the back
portion of my mouth, where italmost feels like the sugar is
rotting away the tooth.
I feel it on the nerve almost.
It's like this weird feeling,almost like when you eat like
(25:58):
Pop Rocks, the candy and it, itsizzles and it feels like
something's going on back there.
What am I feeling there?
Like what's actually going onwhen I have that feeling?
Is that a feeling of the toothbeing rotted away?
Is it a feeling of the nervebeing stimulated by the sugar?
Like what's actually going onthere?
And this happens to you everytime you eat sugar going on
(26:22):
there and this happens to youevery time you eat sugar.
I mean, it feels like it getscaked.
I tend to chew it in the backof my mouth and it tends to get
caked on that and I wonder ifthat's a function of the fact
that I have a lot of dental workback there and I have these
crowns and it's just sensitiveto it, but it literally I get
this feeling in my head like itfeels like it's eating it away.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
It's very strange that's not normal not for
everyone, you know that could besomething as simple as the fact
that it's you do have like thesaid dental work and the sugar,
right?
So let's think about the thingsthat that are sugar laden,
right?
Candies, sweets, things thattend to be very sticky and mushy
(26:58):
and find their way into likenooks and crannies, right?
So it's possible that you'rejust physically like mashing a
lot of this food product inthere and it's giving you that
sensation.
Sugar.
When we do have cavities thatare brewing, sugar can be one of
the things that triggers somesensitivity, just like drinking
(27:19):
cold water can sometimes let youknow, oh, there's something
going on back there.
Sugar can be one of the thingsthat triggers some sensitivity.
Uh, just like drinking coldwater can sometimes let you know
there's, there's somethinggoing on back there.
Sugar can be one of thosetriggers as well.
So it's, it's possible thatmaybe there's something like
that going on, but most likely,you know it's it's hard to feel
the sugar kind of doing itsthing and causing the breakdown.
But you, mr wolf, just might beso in tune with your bodily
(27:41):
process.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I'm so hyper aware yeah, so hyper aware that you
feel it happening.
What is an awareness?
I can feel the sugar rottingaway in my teeth.
It's a good deterrent, though,because I feel it Like that's
gross.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I want to cut that out.
That's when I grab a bag ofgrapes and I go off.
Another thing I read in theblog which I found interesting
was you were talking about TMJ,which, if I'm not mistaken, it's
lockjaw right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So lockjaw is one of the things that falls under TMJ
right.
Tmj is kind of a catch-all termand TMJ stands for
temporomandibular joint right.
It's the fancy name for yourjaw joint.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Is that like clicking when you're clicking, so
clicking is.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Tmj is what we kind of call.
Everything it's a catch allterm, right.
The proper term is TMJdysfunction, and then that's the
umbrella term for anything thatis not quite right with the jaw
right and that manifestsdifferent for different people.
It can be clicking or poppingof the jaw, it can be jaw pain,
right.
It can be as extreme asheadaches and migraines or
(28:46):
things like broken, cracked,worn teeth right.
So the jaw joint is a verysophisticated joint in the body.
It has a lot of differentmovements and a lot of things
that, can you know,unfortunately go wrong with it
and we all kind of differentmovements and a lot of things
that can you know, unfortunatelygo wrong with it and we all
kind of have our own point offailure, so to speak.
Right.
For some people it's the jawjoint itself and they will
(29:08):
develop things like arthritisand joint breakdown.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
All right, so let's talk solutions here.
If I read you correctly, you'renot saying no sugar, just
smarter sugar, right?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, Smarter sugar, less sugar, right, Less Skittles
, Less Skittles, more grapes.
So you know practical tacticaltips, right?
Like I said earlier, when yougo shopping, when you go grocery
shopping, shop the perimeterright, Like I said earlier, when
you go shopping, when you gogrocery shopping, shop the
(29:43):
perimeter right, Stay away fromthose middle aisles where the
bags, the boxes, the bottles are.
One of my biggest hacks isavoiding sugary drinks, right?
Like, if you really want tomainline sugar juices, sodas,
things like that.
Gatorade right Like, drinkGatorade if you're actually
(30:03):
running, you know a 10K and youneed that sugar and you need
those electrolytes, Otherwiseit's just poison water right,
Think of it that way You'll cutdown on how much you want to
drink it.
Energy drinks right, Lots ofsugar in those.
So cutting down on those thingsis generally a great idea.
Some practical, like food swapsright Like.
(30:26):
I'm a big fan of flavoredsparkling waters.
Publix actually has an amazingorange one highly recommend.
My kids love it.
Like.
They don't take that over aCoke any day, Right, and it's
zero sugar, it's.
There's no additives, no sodium, so it is.
It is a really good replacementfor when you would have a Coke.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Um no, I was going to say.
The thing is, when we just Ijust made that switch recently I
started drinking um less andless soda and I bought some
sparkling water, perrier typestuff, and over time you get
used to it to the point wherewhen you go back and you
actually have a Coke, it's likeoverwhelmingly sweet and like
(31:10):
just off-putting.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
At that point, so, yeah, it's almost like the
person who quits smoking andthen is around smokers and can't
stand the smoke.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That should tell you how powerful and toxic sugar can
be, because we think we talkabout addiction and it doesn't
seem like you wouldn't equatethat necessarily to sugar.
Sugar is addictive, I meanwhatever, just sugar.
You reserve addiction tocigarettes and things like that.
Yeah, but it really is a sneaky, sneaky killer.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, yeah, it really is.
And you know, like baselinethings, like you know, stay
hydrated, right, like eatbalanced meals so that you don't
get those intense cravings.
And, speaking from personalexperience, when you cut down on
the sugar, it's going to betough for the first two, three
(32:04):
days.
And then days four, five andsix for me were almost harder
than days one, two and three,because day one, two and three
you've got that gusto and thatimpetus to really going to make
this lifestyle change.
And then day four, five and sixyou're like but damn, do I
really want to make thislifestyle change?
And then you day four, five andsix you're like but damn, do I
really?
want to make this lifestylechange.
I can sure use a cookie rightabout now.
And then you kind of breakthrough that, that point, and
(32:28):
you start forgetting about sugar, right.
Like you start losing thosecravings and it takes a week or
two to like like bleed out ofyour system, but once it does,
man, like I'll tell you, like itdoesn't even.
It's not even a point ofcontention.
Like you want to go have asnack Cashews became my
replacement for Skittles, solate at night if I'm up watching
(32:49):
a game or something and I wanta snack, cashews, right, and you
make.
You make substitutions forthings that are a lot better for
you for things that are a lotbetter for you.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, good choices, my friend, good choices.
So how do you integrate theseconversations without sounding
cliche, right, when you have apatient like, don't take, you
know, watch your sugar intakebecause you're going to get a
lot of cavities, how do youintegrate that into your
practice and really havemeaningful conversations with
patients that you see relativelyinfrequently?
Right, you're going to come inevery six months for a checkup,
a cleaning.
How do you really have theseconversations in a way that
(33:26):
resonates?
And I like what you said aboutyour fork matters as much as
your toothbrush, so that's acool way to put it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, and little things like that, right, that
just kind of put things inperspective for folks.
You know, we at the practice wereally focus on on education on
all fronts, not just dental butoverall health.
So just having theconversations with people, right
, like the more we hear thesethings from different sources,
(33:53):
like the more, the more weightwe put on it, the more research
we start doing ourselves.
Right, and I'm not, I'm notanticipating or planning or even
hoping to have anyone make ahundred 80 degree drastic
lifestyle change by having afive minute conversation with me
(34:13):
about their diet, but I just Ihope to open their eyes a little
bit more.
Right, and the next time maybewe have another conversation, or
they have a conversation with abuddy of theirs who had a
conversation with one of theirdoctors or heard something on
the Internet.
Right, and the awareness juststarts evolving and growing.
Right, it is.
It's not, it's not flipping aswitch.
(34:33):
Right, it's a gradualimprovement in our lifestyle.
We're really not looking forperfection, we're just we're
aiming for progress.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
And people don't want to be told not to do a thing
right.
There's a big differencebetween coming and saying like
you need to not have any moresugar because blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, as opposed to justhaving conversations around
these types of subjects andraising awareness so that people
can come to the conclusion intheir own mind that they need to
stop doing it, and not be told.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah.
And I think it's reallyimportant for us, as providers
in general, to not come atthings from a holier than thou
point of view.
Right, because we all have ourhangups.
Right, we all have our vices.
For some of us it's it's sugar,for others it's smoking, like
(35:22):
we all know it's perfect, right?
So no one's preaching from anivory tower.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Speak for yourself, brother.
I'm a fine specimen, my doctorthe other day.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
My vast imperfections .
So I I think it's reallyimportant that we had just just
honest, human conversations withpeople.
It's like, hey, this is bad forus, right, and these are the
different ways that it's bad forus.
And making little subtlechanges can sometimes have a
really big impact on not onlyyour your current health, but
your health span right.
(35:54):
Like this these are decisionsthat we want to make now, that
sort of affect us right now butreally affect us 20 years from
now.
So little course correctionsfrequently get us to a much more
desirable destination.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So I will.
I will leave you at this.
I went in for a physical theother day and my doctor did tell
me and these, these were herwords.
She said what have you beendoing?
You're perfect, mic drop.
I walked out, I'm good to go.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
There you go.
You are perfect, Mr Wolf.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Perfect specimen.
All right, thank you everybodyfor tuning in.
This was really, really fun.
If you're out there listening,if you enjoyed this content,
please don't forget to likesubscribe all that fun stuff.
You know the drill we alwayslike to hear your feedback.
If you've had any personalexperiences with these topics,
let us know about it in thecomments.
We love to get outsideperspectives and if we missed
(36:52):
anything, let us know and wewill dig into it on future
episodes.
Everyone, take care, have awonderful day and stay healthy.
We only got this one life tolive.
Let's live it to the fullest.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Seminary
Dental Podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
Don't forget to subscribe,leave a review and follow us on
social media for the latestepisodes.
You can find us at SemideDental.
If you have any questions, feelfree to reach out.
We're always happy to help.
Until then, keep smiling andstay curious.
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