Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: [fast5] Teeth

West Price, a dentist, did a famous study of traditional people and their diets and their overall health, but particularly their teeth. His book is "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects"
Classic.

His argument in a nutshell: eat traditional, whole foods and avoid refined modern foods.

--- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@...> wrote:
>
> It's possible, but reading the historical accounts, people in the past were
> amazingly cavalier about mercury. They burned high-mercury coal. They
> burned mercury ore to "cleanse" the air. People played with liquid
> mercury (I read some old books about recommended experiments
> for children involving, say, a pound of mercury). They used it in tinctures
> too. And hat-making.
>
> In Asia, esp. Japan, they tend to eat some of the fish that are higher
> in mercury (like tuna, dolphin, and whale). The Chinese are burning
> high-mercury coal at an unfortunately high rate.
>
> So they probably got way more of it than we get from whatever amount
> leaks out of fillings. There is a similar issue with fluoride: it is found
> in fairly high levels in some well water, to the point it stains the teeth.
> Some people no doubt got health effects from all that mercury and
> fluoride. But not the huge health effects we are seeing now. In Japan,
> Africa, most of Asia etc. people generally had wide faces and healthy
> teeth. The bone problems are mostly found in Britain and some other
> parts of Europe, and it seems to me (based on cursory views of
> populations, but someone should study it!) that the peoples with
> bone problems are mostly the ones eating a beef/mutton/wheat/barley based
> diet,
> while the healthier peoples are eating fish/poultry/rice based diet.
>
> That makes sense to me, because bone health (and tooth health) is
> associated with Vit D. You get some Vit D from fish, even if you live
> in Norway or Japan or Alaska. But wheat tends to rob the body of Vit D for
> at
> least some percentage of the population.
>
> Also, thyroid problems are often associated with lack of iodine, which
> simply can't happen on an seafood-based diet. And, people who
> react to wheat gluten often produce anti-thyroid antibodies, which, as
> their name suggests, attack the thyroid gland. These antibodies go
> away when the person stops eating wheat.
>
> I *know* that I personally am celiac, and that it's genetic. I strongly
> suspect my Dad was too, as he had most of the symptoms. So his
> mother and/or father had the genes also ... but they did not eat wheat.
> My grandpa would say "Wheat is for rich people. Poor people eat oats".
> It is amazing, but he didn't actually get to eat much wheat at all until
> he was in his late 20's, at which point it would likely affect him less.
>
> As a side note, I stopped feeding my kids wheat when they were
> quite young. They stopped having tooth problems at that point ... my
> daughter, who was having a cavity filled every time she went to the dentist,
> stopped getting cavities. Her teeth straightened out too, and she is
> the only person in our extended family to NOT need braces. My son never
> has had a cavity at all. They both eat sugar. Also neither has a weight
> problem,
> or a thyroid problem. They do get mercury, in the form of seafood! And
> fluoride from tea.
>
> So that's my long explanation ... I don't really like the idea of amalgam
> fillings, partially because they are *ugly*. But I don't think fillings of
> any
> kind should be necessary, in a healthy body. Teeth in most places in
> the world are amazingly strong and robust, even where people eat a lot
> of starch and sweet stuff.
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:21 AM, RickS <rstewart@...> wrote:
>
> > Heather, I was reading on a naturopathic dental website yesterday about how
> > mercury from amalgam fillings has many adverse effects on the body but
> > notably it can cause the thyroid to malfunction. I have also read that
> > fluoride in the water is a REAL danger to not only our bones but to our
> > thyroid.
> >
> > I wonder if other countries in Asia and for instance in your case, the
> > Germans of old, had no amalgam fillings, fluoride, or yearly radiation from
> > dental visits? It seems to me that modern medicine (dentists for instance)
> > don't treat the body holistically and put thinks in us that really have no
> > business being there.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > -Rick
> >
> >
> > --- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@> wrote:
> > >
> >
> > > It's really interesting seeing what happens to the Asians on an American
> > > diet. You can see the older generation ... usually not speaking much
> > > English, and shorter, but very active and alert and healthy. And the
> > > generation brought up in America ... usually much taller, but also less
> > > healthy (acne, overweight, crooked teeth). It's a question I'm really
> > > interested in finding the answer to. My own grandmother came from the
> > "old
> > > country" (in this case, Germany), was very short, active, and lived to be
> > 96
> > > ... she never did have any kind of high blood pressure, heart disease, or
> > > blood sugar problems. Her son, my Dad, was raised here and had myriad
> > health
> > > problems. And his kids (me and my sibs) have even more health problems.
> > So
> > > what, exactly, changed?
> > >
> > > For that matter, what, exactly, is it that makes McDonald's food bad? I
> > > mean, we have this intuitive sense that it is bad for us, and I can say
> > that
> > > experientially, it doesn't work for me either. But why? It's not the
> > carbs
> > > ... white rice does fine in the Asian diet. It's not the tiny bit of meat
> > > ... people talk about McDonald's like there is a ton of beef in it, but
> > > there is in fact very little actual meat. It does have too many of the
> > wrong
> > > kinds of fats (the kind that go rancid), and the food goes through some
> > odd
> > > processes that might increase things like acrylamides. But in Thailand,
> > they
> > > have "fast food" down to an art and that doesn't seem to be impacting the
> > > health of the population at all ... they do deep-fried shrimp and
> > tarantulas
> > > or whatever.
> > >
> > > I think if we could answer that one question it would go a long way to
> > > solving this mystery!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Heather Twist
> http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/
>