2 - Improper Nutrition Is the Cause of Gum Disease

M any surveys on ancient skulls show that “primitive” humans were, with only a few exceptions, largely free of tooth decay and gum disease. 1 This is because traditional societies have benefited from an accumulation of wisdom over countless generations of how to live and reproduce with robust health. 2 If they did not know how to produce healthy bodies and healthy teeth and gums for generation after generation, then their society or population group would not have survived.

Weston A. Price, DDS, the first research director of the National Dental Association (now known as the American Dental Association, or ADA), suspected from observing the declining dental and overall health of his patients in Cleveland, Ohio, that something was fundamentally wrong with the way we live in modern society. Something was causing increased incidence of tooth decay and gum disease and causing a decline in general health among all ages of patients. Dr. Price’s research was spurred by the loss of his only son, Donald, to the complications of an infected root canal that he had placed himself. 3

In order to gain insights and satisfy his wish to learn more, he decided to travel around the world in the 1930s to study primitive cultures enjoying optimal physical and mental health. During his travels he not only found populations displaying healthy teeth and gums, but he was also able to observe the sharp decline in health experienced by previously healthy native peoples once they came into contact with what Dr. Price referred to as the “displacing foods of modern commerce.” That term refers to industrially produced food products rather than real food. Through his words and photographs Dr. Price’s landmark book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, proves that our modern food and lifestyle changes are the primary cause of physical degeneration, with one result being gum disease.

The Healthy People of the Loetschental, Switzerland

In 1931 and 1932, Dr. Price traveled to the remote Loetschental in the Swiss Alps. The people of the valley lived in harmony with nature, which resulted in a seemingly peaceful existence. Dr. Price wrote of the superior character and health of these people and the sublime lands of the isolated valleys in the remote Swiss Alps:

They have neither physician nor dentist because they have so little need for them; they have neither policeman nor jail, because they have no need for them. 4

This harmony was also evident in the production of food:

While the cows spend the warm summer on the verdant knolls and wooded slopes near the glaciers and fields of perpetual snow, they have a period of high and rich productivity of milk… This cheese contains the natural butter fat and minerals of the splendid milk and is a virtual storehouse of life for the coming winter.5 (Emphasis added.)

Reverend John Siegen, pastor of the only church in the valley at the time Price visited, told him about the divine characteristics of butter and cheese made from the milk of the grazing cows:

He told me that they recognize the presence of Divinity in the life-giving qualities of the butter made in June when cows have arrived for pasturage near the glaciers. He gathers the people together to thank the kind Father for evidence of his Being in the life-giving qualities of butter and cheese when the cows eat the grass near the snow line... The natives of the valley are able to recognize the superior quality of their June butter, and, without knowing exactly why, pay it due homage . 6 (Emphasis added.)

It was neither good genes nor luck that kept these isolated Swiss in superb health, but rather, it was how they lived and honored their food. Dr. Price continues:

One immediately wonders if there is not something in the life-giving vitamins and minerals of the food that builds not only great physical structures within which their souls reside, but builds minds and hearts capable of a higher type of manhood in which the material values of life are made secondary to individual character. 9

These healthy people are role models for us for living in health and relative peace. It is this way of being that has become lost in the modern world of convenience and fast “food.” It is a result of our fall from grace. By sensing and revering the holy nature of food, ancient cultures enjoyed vibrant health. In exchange for their reverence of the life-giving vital force, especially of that in the summer milk and the cheese and butter made from it, the isolated Swiss received health, vigor, vitality, and peace.

Nutrition of the People in the Loetschental

The native Alpine Swiss diet consisted primarily of soured rye bread and summer cheese—the latter consumed in a portion about as large as the slice of bread but not as thick, which was eaten with fresh milk of goats or cows. Meat was eaten once a week and smaller portions of butter, vegetables, and barley were consumed regularly. Soup from animal bones was consumed regularly.

Diet of Healthy Indigenous People in the Swiss Alps 10

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

800 Rye Bread Low 0.07 0.46
400 Milk High 0.68 0.53
400 Cheese Very High 0.84 0.62
100 Butter Very High 0.00 0.00
100 Barley Low 0.00 0.03
100 Vegetables Low 0.06 0.08
100 Meat Medium 0.00 0.12
2000   Very High 1.76 1.84

Immunity to Tooth Decay

The root of poor nutrition affects different people differently; some will develop gum disease, others will suffer tooth decay, and a few unlucky ones will endure both. Because of the similar cause (lack of nutrients), the immunity to tooth decay is still important to look at because it demonstrates how healthy these people were. In a study of 4,280 teeth of the children in these high valleys, only 3.4 percent were found to have been attacked by tooth decay. In Loetschental, 0.3 percent of all teeth were affected with tooth decay. 11

Isolated Swiss Alps Children Were Remarkably Healthy

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Normal design of face and dental arches when adequate nutrition is provided for both the parents and the children. Note the well-developed nostrils. 7 (Original caption.)

Modern Swiss Children Have Lost Their Dental Health

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In the modernized districts of Switzerland tooth decay is rampant. The girl, upper left, is sixteen and the one to the right is younger. They use white bread and sweets liberally. The two children below have very badly formed dental arches with crowding of the teeth. This deformity is not due to heredity. 8 (Original caption.)

Nutrient-Displacing, Poor Health Causing Diet of Modern Swiss 12

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

1000 White Bread Low 0.11 0.35
400 Jam, Honey, Sugar, Syrup Low 0.05 0.08
100 Chocolate and Coffee Low 0.02 0.07
100 Milk High 0.17 0.13
100 Canned Vegetables Low 0.08 0.08
100 Meat Medium 0.01 0.11
100 Vegetable Fat Low 0.00 0.00
100 Butter (dairy) High 0.00 0.00
2000   Low 0.44 0.82

Modern Swiss Were Losing Their Health and Teeth

In the 1930s, tooth decay was a major problem for school children in the modern parts of Switzerland. Depending on the location, between 85-100 percent of the population was affected. The local health director advised sun tanning for the children as it was believed that the vitamins produced from the sunlight would prevent tooth decay. However, this strategy did not work. The modern-living Swiss no longer ate their native diets of soured rye bread, summer cheese, summer butter, and fresh goat or cow milk, and as a result, their health suffered.

The Nutrition of the Modern Swiss

Foods that the modern-living Swiss ate that resulted in poor dental health included white-flour products, marmalades, jams, canned vegetables, confections, and fruits. All of these devitalized foods were transported to the area. Only limited supplies of vegetables were grown locally.

While there are several differences between the modern industrial diet and isolated native diets, there are two points of significant interest. When you compare these two tables, the key nutrient differences between the diets are not related to rye bread versus white bread. Rather, five hundred calories of the modern diet comes from sweets and chocolate which are high in sugar and low in fat-soluble vitamins and minerals. These products replaced cheese and milk which were dense sources of minerals and fat-soluble vitamins.

Here is an interesting observation from Dr. Price of some of the modern Swiss:

We studied some children here whose parents retained their primitive methods of food selection, and without exception those who were immune to dental caries were eating a distinctly different food from those with high susceptibility to dental caries. 13

Immunity to Tooth Decay

Of 2,065 teeth that Dr. Price analyzed in one study of modern Swiss, 25.5 percent had been attacked by tooth decay and many teeth had become infected. 14


Real Milk Has Been Wrongly Vilified

Unfortunately in today’s world, the once profoundly honored cow’s milk— unpasteurized and grass-fed—which has brought health to people across the globe for thousands of years, is being attacked by our own state and federal governments. This whole, vital food has become an enemy of the state. When you and your friends and family reconnect with real food, you reconnect with the goodness of life. In this state, boundaries dissolve, and enemies become friends.


The Healthy Eskimos

In 1933 Dr. Price visited the Eskimos in the far reaches of Alaska to document how dietary changes were affecting their health.Dr. Price wrote that indigenous Eskimos were free of both gum disease and tooth decay:

Many primitive peoples not only retain all of their teeth, many of them to an old age, but also have a healthy flesh supporting these teeth. This has occurred in spite of the fact that the [natives] have not had dentists to remove the deposits and no means for doing so for themselves. Note particularly the teeth of the Eskimos. The teeth are often worn nearly to the gum line and yet the gum tissue has not receded. Many of these primitive groups were practically free from the affection which we have included in the general term of pyorrhea or gingivitis.

Pyorrhea is a now outdated term for gum disease. Pyo means pus in Greek, and rrhea means flow or discharge. Pyorrhea refers to the discharge of pus around the gums.

Healthy Eskimos on Their Native Die t

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Typical native Alaskan Eskimos. Note the broad faces and broad arches and no dental caries (tooth decay). Upper left, woman has a broken lower tooth. She has had twenty-six children with no tooth decay. 15 (Original Caption)

When Eskimos Changed Their Diet They Suffered from Tooth Decay and Gum Disease

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When the primitive Alaskan Eskimos obtain the white man’s foods, dental caries become active. Pyorrhea also often becomes severe. In many districts dental service cannot be obtained and suffering is acute and prolonged. 21 (Original caption.) When these adult Eskimos exchange their foods for our modern foods, they often have very extensive tooth decay and suffer severely. 22

Traditional Diet of Healthy Indigenous Eskimos 16

Calories Food Fat-Soluble Vitamins Calcium Phosphorus Iron

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

Iron

1700 Salmon High 1.24 2.68 0.05
200 Seal Oil Very High 0.00 0.00 0.00
100 Plants, Roots Low 0.49 1.40 0.04
500 Sea Animals Medium 0.36 1.02 0.01
500 Caribou Medium 0.05 0.60 0.00
3000 High 2.14 5.70 0.10
The bulk of their diet, however, was fish and large animal life of the sea from which they selected certain organs and tissues with great care and wisdom. These included the inner layer of skin of one of the whale species, which has recently been shown to be very rich in vitamin C. 17
Like the Indians of the interior who live on the animal life of the land the Eskimos eat not only the muscle part of fish and other forms of aquatic life but the livers and hearts and in many cases the edible parts of the head; also the milt and roe when these are present as is the case when the fish are running toward their spawning grounds which is the time the principal harvesting is done. 18 (Emphasis added.)
[Eskimos] also use at certain times of the year stems or roots of certain plants, particularly the growing parts. 19
The severity of their weather requires that they provide their bodies with large quantities of fuel for production of heat . . . This would be provided largely by the stored smoked dried red salmon. This salmon is dipped in seal oil as it is eaten . . . Small quantities of parts of several plants are used when available . . . The flesh of walrus, seal, caribou, moose, sea cow, and occasionally whale should be a regular part of the menu according to season. 20

Dr. Price found that, time and time again, when “blighted by the touch of modern civilization” 23 with our foods of commerce, the once robust native person “withers and dies.” 24

In each example of native peoples from around the globe that Dr. Price visited, manufactured foods of industry caused the loss of pristine health when they replaced and displaced the traditional foods of the area. These modern foods included large amounts of white flour and sweeteners such as sugar, jams, and syrups, as well as sweetened goods and confections, canned fruits, canned vegetables, polished rice, tea, salt, chocolate, and vegetable fats with a relatively smaller amount of milk, eggs, or meat.

The Modern Diet of Eskimos That Causes Tooth Decay and Gum Disease 25

Calories

Food

Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Calcium

Phosphorus

1200 Bannock Bread (white flour) Low 0.13 0.42
1200 Jam, Sugar, Syrup Low 0.05 0.08
100 Chocolate and Coffee Low 0.02 0.07
300 Meat Medium 0.03 0.33
100 Vegetables Low 0.06 0.08
100 Vegetable Fats Low 0.00 0.00
3000 Low 0.39 1.14

Dr. Price explained that the modern diet is deficient in minerals compared to the traditional Eskimo diet (see traditional diet above):

Since their muscle meat, glands and other organs of animals of the land for the Indians and of the sea for the Eskimos, would be reduced approximately to one-tenth, this would decrease the total fat-soluble activators per day to a quantity below the minimum bodily requirements of even an adult. This will make it impossible for them to utilize properly even the small amount of minerals that are present in the foods ingested besides being insufficient to maintain the functioning of various organs and tissues of the body. It is at this point that their greatest injury occurs. Even if they could utilize all the minerals that are available the intake for those on modern foods is reduced to less than one fifth of that in the original diets for several of the minerals. 26 (Emphasis added.)

Southern Pacific Islanders Experience Marked Gum Tissue Destruction

During the summer of 1934, Dr. Price visited the Southern Pacific Islands, including the Marquesas Islands, Society Island, Cook Island, Tongan Island, New Caledonia, Fiji Island, Samoan Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands.

South Sea Islanders living on their primitive native foods had healthy teeth, with only 0.34 percent of teeth attacked by tooth decay. In contrast, those eating the foods of modern civilization had cavities in 30.8 percent of their teeth. 27

South Pacific Islanders ate liberal amounts of sea foods including organs and eggs from sea animals, plus a wide variety of plant roots and fruits, both raw and cooked. The primary food eaten for carbohydrates was taro root; yams, sweet potatoes, and bread fruit were also eaten. Fruits such as bananas and papayas were consumed along with coconut. Sea life of every sort was consumed including crayfish, octopus, lobsters, oysters, clams, many types of large and small fish, as well as turtles. Fish head soup provided an abundance of minerals, and seaweed provided iodine. Even the eyes of the fish were eaten and valued for their nutrient content. 28

The Beautiful Polynesians on Their Native Diet s

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Polynesians are a beautiful race and physically sturdy. They have straight hair and their color is often that of a sun tanned European. They have perfect dental arches. (Original caption.)

When Polynesians Eat Modern Foods, Their Dental Health Deteriorates

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Wherever the native foods have been displaced by the imported foods, dental caries become rampant. These are typical modernized Tahitians. (Original caption.)

Today South Pacific Islanders suffer from high rates of diabetes and obesity. Their diets are heavy in white flour, white sugar, canned meat and fish, margarine, mayonnaise, sodas, candies, cookies, and breakfast cereals. 29 Eight out of the ten most obese countries in the world are located in the South Pacific. 30

Diet Type Calcium Phosphorus Fat-Soluble Vitamins
Traditional Diet 1.9g 3.10g High
Processed Diet 0.97g 1.36g Low
Difference 53% 56% 67%

Dr. Price noted how gum disease occurred when indigenous people who lived near the trading ports replaced their seafood with modern convenience foods primarily white sugar and white flour.

In all of the groups living on native foods with a liberal intake of animal life of the sea, the health of the gums was generally excellent. When, however, the sea foods were quite limited in the dietary , heavy deposits formed and often were associated with a marked destruction of the supporting tissues with gingival infection . This condition was particularly prevalent among all groups near the ports, when the groups were displacing part of their native foods with imported foods.(Emphasis added.)

The Message of the Aborigines of Australia

Dr. Price visited Australia in 1936. He discovered that the average rate of tooth decay among Australia's native Aborigines was zero percent, which means that they had total immunity to tooth decay. In contrast, he found that the average decay rate of all teeth of modern Aborigines living on reservations and eating modern foods was 71 percent of all teeth.

Dr. Price observed that the Australian Aborigines, who for thousands of years maintained near-perfect physical forms, have lost their ideal beauty and health with the foods that our modern society so regularly consumes.

Traditional Diet of Native Aborigines

The Aboriginal diet was a hunter-gatherer diet.

For plant foods they used roots, stems, leaves, berries and seeds of grasses and a native pea eaten with tissues of large and small animals. The large animals available are the kangaroo and wallaby. Among the small animals they have a variety of rodents, insects, beetles and grubs, and wherever available various forms of animal life from the rivers and oceans. Birds and birds' eggs are used where available.

Aborigines of Australia

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Wherever the primitive Aborigines have been placed in reservations and fed on the white man’s foods of commerce dental caries has become rampant. This destroys their beauty, prevents mastication, and provides infection for seriously injuring their bodies. Note the contrast between the primitive woman in the upper right and the three modernized women. 34 (Original caption.)

Modern Industrial Aboriginal Diet That Created Poor Oral Health

The modern industrial diet of the Australian Aborigines was very similar to the other modernized diets listed in this book. Imported foods included sugar, flour, packaged milk, tea leaves, and meat in tins. 36

[Referring to Aboriginal picture on the previous page:] Note the contrast with the upper right. It is quite impossible to imagine the suffering that these people were compelled to endure due to abscessing teeth resulting from rampant tooth decay. As we had found in some of the modernized islands of the Pacific, we discovered that here, too, discouragement and a longing for death had taken the place of a joy in living in many . Few souls in the world have experienced this discouragement and this longing to a greater degree. 37 (Emphasis added.)

His poetic words paint an important picture:

It is doubtful if many places in the world can demonstrate so great a contrast in physical development and perfection of body as that which exists between the primitive Aborigines of Australia who have been the sole arbiters of their fate , and those Aborigines who have been under the influence of the white man. The white man has deprived them of their original habitats and is now feeding them in reservations while using them as laborers in modern industrial pursuits.
I have seldom, if ever, found whites suffering so tragically from evidence of physical degeneration, as expressed in tooth decay and change in facial form, as are the whites of eastern Australia. This has occurred on the very best of the land that these [aboriginals] formerly occupied and becomes at once a monument to the wisdom of the primitive Aborigines and a signboard of warning to the modern civilization that has supplanted them . 38 (Emphasis added.)

A dire warning from Dr. Price:

It should be a matter not only of concern but deep alarm that human beings can degenerate physically so rapidly by the use of a certain type of nutrition, particularly the dietary products used so generally by modern civilization. 39 (Emphasis added.)

Nutritive Values of Diets Compared

Weston Price performed nutrient analyses of the foods eaten by many of the isolated and modernized groups he studied. He consistently found dramatic differences when he compared the nutritional content of the native diets to their modern replacements. On average, the ancestral diet had two to four times more copper, magnesium, iron, calcium, phosphorous, iodine, and other minerals; and at least ten times the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. 40 This data is visualized in the following chart:

The Dramatic Difference in Dietary Nutrients Discovered by Dr. Price.

Dr. Price had little doubt that the nutrient-poor industrial diet caused gum disease in modern civilization. He attributed loss of bone, including loss of the periodontium, to the body’s need to steal needed minerals for use in other bodily tissues and organs.

We have many other expressions of this borrowing process. Much of what we have thought of as so-called pyorrhea in which the bone is progressively lost from around the teeth thus allowing them to loosen, constitutes one of the most common phases of the borrowing process. This tissue with its lowered defense rapidly becomes infected and we think of the process largely in terms of that infection. A part of the local process includes the deposit of so-called calculus and tartar about the teeth. These contain toxic substances which greatly irritate the flesh starting an inflammatory reaction. Pyorrhea in the light of our newer knowledge is largely a nutritional problem. 41 (Emphasis added.)

Fat-soluble Vitamins and Activators: A Secret to Gum Disease Reversal

Dr. Price wrote that gum disease (pyorrhea) is a problem of a lack of nutrients in our diet.

Nutrition plus the frequent removal of deposits, plus suitable medication will check and prevent pyorrhea but not correct the damage that has already been done. The elements that are chiefly needed in our nutrition are those that I have outlined as being particularly abundant in the menus as used by several of the primitive races. (Emphasis added.)

His advice to us is to use good nutrition and manual cleaning of calculus to prevent gum disease and to keep the disease in check. And as a reminder, “good nutrition” means a diet that contains ten times more of the fat-soluble vitamins than we have in our modern diet, and two to four times more minerals than in our normal diet.

To get those fat-soluble vitamins , think animal fats . Without the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, we cannot properly absorb and use the minerals present in our diets.

The indigenous groups that had the highest immunity to tooth decay and gum disease ate daily from at least two of these three fat-soluble vitamin sources:

In a forgotten 1936 article from the Journal of the American Dental Association , Dr. Price revealed a little known secret for 100 percent immunity from tooth decay and gum disease:

On the basis of the fat-soluble activators or vitamin content of the foods used, I found that those groups using at least two of the three principal vitamin sources had the highest immunity to dental caries. Those using the lowest amount of fat-soluble activators had the greatest amount of dental caries. On this basis, namely, the fat-soluble activator content of the diet, those groups using the fat-soluble activators in liberal quantity had not more than 0.5 per cent of the teeth attacked by dental caries; while those using fat-soluble activators less liberally had up to 12 per cent of the teeth attacked by dental caries. All groups having a liberal supply of minerals particularly phosphorus, and a liberal supply of fat-soluble activators , had 100 per cent immunity to dental caries. 42 (Emphasis added.)

The remedy for gum disease, since the condition is opposite in some ways to tooth decay, is slightly different—it’s plenty of minerals including calcium with fat-soluble vitamins from the organs of land and/or sea animals, along with excellent grass-fed dairy products that will produce immunity and remission of gum disease.

Vegans do not any eat animal products and vegetarians often do not consume plenty of dairy products. This means many of them suffer from deficiencies of calcium, phosphorus, and fat-soluble vitamins. For example, it’s unfortunately a myth that most people can convert beta carotene into fat-soluble vitamin A. Rates of conversion vary from modest to not at all, and even when conversion is possible, many more units of beta carotene are necessary to produce only small units of true vitamin A. Children do not make the conversion at all.

Yes, it is possible to produce vitamin D in our skin from exposure to the sun. But it hard but it is hard to produce optimal amounts when living far from the equator even while being naked out in the sun most of the day, and even if being naked in the sun sounds like fun to you!

Vitamin K1 from plant foods is not going to give the same result in preventing gum disease as vitamin K2 from animal foods. The lack of true fat-soluble vitamins and calcium in the vegan diet makes it difficult for vegans over time to remain immune to tooth decay or gum disease, which are effects of physical degeneration. Vegetarians who are committed to finding top-quality foods can do okay, but have a much harder time because of the limited food selection and lack of food sources for the B vitamins and vitamin D.

What Other Foods Might Help?

Eggs can be an excellent source of fat-soluble vitamins, but only if sourced from pastured hens that primarily eat insects, and not too many grains. Store-bought eggs from chickens fed on corn and soy, even if organic and non-GMO, lack the high level of vitamins and other nutrients we need to prevent and reverse gum disease.

Insects

Those of us who can get past the “yuck” factor will find insects to be an excellent source of minerals, protein, and they have a nice crunch too! My children actually love eating grasshoppers. Fatty insects will likely be rich in fat-soluble vitamins that are missing in our modern industrial diet.

To summarize, our modern diet rarely includes the traditional foods that isolated indigenous people ate, which made them immune to both tooth decay and gum disease. Do you eat fish with the heads? How about liver, bone marrow, heart, or blood curd? While Americans do favor dairy products, most are of inferior quality and commercial dairy products can make people sick due to confinement animal feeding operations producing inferior milk, not to mention the fact that most milk sold in America is pasteurized, or even ultra pasteurized and homogenized, which diminishes the nutrient content and renders the milk toxic.

Why Do We Have Gum Disease in Modern Civilization?

The short answer is we do not eat the same food that our ancestors ate and we fail to get enough of the vitamins and minerals that our body needs. The result for far too many people today is bone loss in the jaw (gum disease).

A typical adult needs to eat approximately the following nutrients, daily, to be healthy:

Nutritional Guidelines Based on Weston Price’s Research

Nutritional Guidelines Based on Weston Price’s Research

Calcium Phosphorus Vitamin A Vitamin D Percent of Calories from Fat
1.5 grams 2 grams 4,000 - 20,000 IU 1,000 - 4,000 IU 25-65+%

What about Synthetic Vitamins ?
Synthetic vitamins can help sometimes, but they are not usually effective in the long run and they usually have unintended side effects because their actions in the body are so specific.


The figures for calcium and phosphorus come from Dr. Price himself. The figures for the vitamins A and D and the calories from fat are based on my analysis of several different interpretations of healthy diets as well as recommendations from the Weston A. Price Foundation, www.westonaprice.org. These figures are general guidelines and may not be suited for all readers. You will need to modify these guidelines depending on your level of health, your weight, and your dietary needs.

The U.S. Government also has dietary standards, called the DRI, Dietary Reference Intake, formerly called the RDA, Recommended Dietary Allowances. These standards are far lower than the vitamin and nutritional standards of healthy indigenous groups around the globe. Even with these much lower standards, many people today do not meet the requirements. For example, on average 65 percent of the population is deficient in calcium, 54 percent deficient in vitamin B6, 56 percent of the population is deficient in vitamin A, and 73 percent of the population deficient in zinc. 43

It isn’t a mystery why nearly half of the adult population has some gum recession, and 38.5 percent has moderate or severe periodontal disease? Clearly, even by the U.S. Government data the average person does not get enough vitamins and minerals to be healthy. This is because consuming our modern refined diet makes it very difficult for us to meet our bodies’ minimum standard requirements for nutrient intakes.

To connect our discussion back to the first chapter of this book, I gave you evidence of how the dental profession has focused on bacteria and ignored the idea of host response. Now we can see in this chapter that the modern food we eat affects whether we get tooth decay or gum disease. In general tooth decay and gum disease are the most visible signs of nutrient depletion. By ignoring how nutrition affects our bodies and by blaming bacteria for dental health problems, the field of dentistry does us a great disservice by diverting us from the truth of how a poor diet causes gum disease and tooth decay.

The Forgotten Spirit of Service

In the spirit of ancestral wisdom that we as a culture do not revere, I’d like to cite Dr. Price’s comments about the original people of Australia. He wrote:

The boys and girls are taught the names of the great characters that make up the different constellations. These were individuals who had conquered all of the temptations of life and had lived so completely in the interest of others that they had fulfilled the great motivating principle of their religion, which is that life consists in serving others as one would wish to be served . (Emphasis added.)

The concept of living in service to others is not unique to the Aboriginal people; it is found in many great religions and cultures.

In general our modern society is not built upon the spirit of service, but upon the spirit of material gain, and upon exploiting nature. If we are to measure the results of our civilization by its actions, such as the ability to treat chronic disease like gum disease, we can see that it is failing. We have a dental industry in which many, although not all, dentists have lost their way. There is a focus on making the most profit rather than on providing selfless service to patients who are suffering. While our society continues to crumble around us as it must, I invite you to remember the spirit of the great religions of the world: do good to others, and likewise, do good for yourself.

* * *