What if you didn’t brush your teeth for a year? - Justin Merritt — Transcript

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1. 0:0610 out of 10 dentists agree that you should brush twice
2. 0:10and floss once every day.
3. 0:13But what if you just... didn’t?
4. 0:15What would happen if you stopped doing any oral hygiene?
5. 0:18And how long would it take for your mouth to get messy?
6. 0:22Let’s start with the last day you do brush and floss.
7. 0:25This routine doesn't actually clean your mouth completely.
8. 0:29Rather, you’re maintaining a delicate balance
9. 0:31between hundreds of microbial species.
10. 0:34At any given time, most of these microorganisms fit into one of two groups:
11. 0:39commensals and pathobionts.
12. 0:42High quantities of commensals are good for oral health.
13. 0:46They minimize inflammation, protect our mouths from harmful foreign microbes,
14. 0:51and produce ammonia, which neutralizes tooth-decaying acids.
15. 0:55Meanwhile, an abundance of pathobionts is bad for oral health.
16. 1:00Sugar-eating varieties produce acid that damages the mouths’ tissues,
17. 1:05and meat-eating varieties thrive on the debris inflammation creates.
18. 1:11Thorough brushing and flossing remove members of both groups,
19. 1:15but commensals can proliferate faster, so they tend to bounce back quicker.
20. 1:20This means daily oral hygiene keeps your commensal population higher
21. 1:25than your pathobiont population.
22. 1:27Most oral disease is the result of this balance being disrupted,
23. 1:31and that happens pretty quickly once you stop brushing and flossing.
24. 1:36For the first 72 hours,
25. 1:38the most notable side effect is supremely bad breath.
26. 1:41But by day four, hordes of pathobionts have coated most of your teeth
27. 1:46in a sticky film called dental plaque.
28. 1:49Over the following days, the plaque triggers an immune response
29. 1:53that causes your gums to bleed and inflame—
30. 1:56an uncomfortable condition known as gingivitis.
31. 2:00After a month, your booming pathobiont population
32. 2:04may be releasing enough acid byproducts
33. 2:07to break down enamel and begin causing cavities.
34. 2:11But the bigger problem is that your pathobionts far outnumber your commensals.
35. 2:16Since both microbe communities grow at an exponential rate,
36. 2:20even if you started brushing again,
37. 2:22pathobionts would always have a numerical advantage.
38. 2:26Researchers are investigating ways to add commensals back into the microbiome,
39. 2:31but currently there’s no way to remodel a mouth
40. 2:35that’s been overcome by pathobionts.
41. 2:38In this new world order, pathobionts divide and conquer.
42. 2:42Some pump out acids that dissolve the minerals in your teeth
43. 2:46and drive dental decay,
44. 2:48making them sensitive to pressure and temperature.
45. 2:51Others lead the gums to swell and recede,
46. 2:54creating gaps that get colonized by yet more plaque.
47. 2:58Over the following months, this cycle breaks down the gum’s soft tissues,
48. 3:03advancing your gingivitis into first stage periodontitis—
49. 3:08a painful infection of the gums.
50. 3:11This loose gum tissue feeds the meat-eating pathobionts,
51. 3:15perpetuating their cycle of destruction.
52. 3:17But the food you add to this environment also has a huge impact.
53. 3:22The more sugar a diet contains,
54. 3:24the more acid-producing pathobionts it supports—
55. 3:28all of which release destructive waste
56. 3:30that further inhibits the growth of commensals.
57. 3:34After roughly a year without brushing,
58. 3:36your gums have been inflamed so long
59. 3:38that the body’s immune response starts impacting the underlying bone.
60. 3:43This process, called alveolar bone resorption,
61. 3:47makes the jawbone recede and weakens the scaffolding holding your teeth,
62. 3:52leaving them to wobble and fall out.
63. 3:54This kind of tooth and bone damage is permanent,
64. 3:57but tooth loss isn't the end of this unhygienic journey.
65. 4:01In this advanced stage of periodontitis,
66. 4:04areas of injured tissue have formed below the gum line
67. 4:08that give pathobionts access to your bloodstream.
68. 4:12From here, these bacteria can worsen health conditions throughout the body,
69. 4:16including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
70. 4:22In some cases, they can even exacerbate neurodegenerative diseases
71. 4:27like Alzheimer’s and accelerate the growth of malignant tumors.
72. 4:32Thankfully, there’s a simple way to avoid this grim outcome.
73. 4:36If you picked up these tools 2 or 3 weeks into our unhygienic experiment,
74. 4:41you could have fully reversed the early stages of gingivitis and tooth decay
75. 4:46and avoided all the permanent damage that followed.
76. 4:49Better yet, brushing with even coverage for two minutes at a time
77. 4:53will help your teeth make the most of your toothpaste’s fluoride,
78. 4:57which replaces some of your exposed enamel with acid-resistant fluorine atoms.
79. 5:03So remember, brushing for two minutes twice a day
80. 5:06will keep the pathobionts at bay.