Nutrition and Teeth!
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
All right. This is Dr. Michelle Hucke with Jax Beaches Family Dentistry and my dear friend, Katie Giardo from Arbonne international. And we're both coming to you today during a really difficult time in our country. We've also been spending a lot of time talking about COVID and I know in my industry, all of my colleagues are struggling with it and dealing with it, and we're all managing it in our own lives in terms of changes every day that interrupt our regular life. So it's odd to be doing this webinar now. However, I think it's really important to talk about complete health. We have a dental practice that is focused on that and the reason that I had Katie join us today is that she's my partner in helping my patients get healthy. So I talk to patients a lot about their mouths and how to get their mouth healthy. And we are also really focused on taking a complete medical history, talking to people about their total body goals, and also integrating how that complete health affects the health of the mouth. And that's the topic of our talk today. So maybe why don't you say hello too, and you can talk about your passion.
Katie Giardo:
Hi everyone. So like Dr. Michelle said, my name is Katie Giardo and I am a health and wellness consultant with a company called Arbonne. And I'm just so grateful to be able to partner with a doctor like Dr. Michelle, because I really appreciate that, as such a kind of narrow focus like dental health sometimes could be just so narrow like that, but I really love that she has this complete view and she really goes above and beyond and asking more questions because it really does all matter. So I love that we get to partner together and you'll hear a little bit more for me in a second.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
So our topic today is exciting to me because I've had my own health challenges and my own health journey. And I think everybody knows or thinks they know that when you think about your mouth and you're going to talk to a dentist or listen to a dentist, talk about nutrition, they're just going to tell you once again, to not eat sugar and to not do this and to not do that. So our topic is more interesting, I think, because we're going to talk about how your mouth reflects what you eat and nutrition does impact your overall health as we've already mentioned a couple of times, but it also impacts your ability to keep your teeth. And every time I've done one of these webinars, I do really interesting research. And the research is really interesting in that regard too. One of the main reasons I've invited Katie And one of the main reasons that she's changed my life is that there are minor changes that you can make that make a big difference. I think when you talk about clean eating and you talk about making changes in your diet that are going to allow you to keep your teeth, sometimes people aren't interested in it because they think it's going to be this overwhelming thing. That they're just not going to be able to manage. Again, avoiding sugar is important when you talk about the health of your mouth, I'm not going to say it's not important because of course, it is, but it isn't just about, okay, so I am avoiding sugar, so I don't get cavities. It's actually more inspiring and important than that. And then as I just mentioned before too, really small changes can dramatically impact your health and it also can dramatically decrease the expense of dentistry. And I know, the expense of things, especially right now. The expense of things is often a big barrier for people and I do often invite people and encourage people to think of dental expenses as what am I going to spend on my teeth over my lifetime? And how can I minimize that? So those are the topics. There's a lot of them that we're going to talk about today. So when I did my research, I found this awesome article and it really talked about the top five things that are the most important for a healthier mouth. And one of them is really good, clean fluoridated water. The more water we drink versus beverages that we find in the store that have been manufactured the healthier for the mouth because any of those beverages generally are acidic and they usually have some sort of sugar in them and that's not good for your mouth.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
The other thing is calcium and protein-rich foods that help support not just your teeth, but also your gums. So that's super important. Phosphorus is important too again, because really important in terms of the components of the gums and your teeth and the other interesting thing, we all know vegetables are good, right? And so it's not just the micronutrients, like the certain vitamins that are in vegetables, but just the act of chewing them and stimulating your saliva and adding fiber to your diet, right. It's good for you just in general and nuts are a super healthy snack and they also have micronutrients in them that are important. And then there are the bad things that we eat. A sugary diet, as we talked about earlier, we know sugar is bad, this is not a new shock, a news flash for anybody. I also do not like scolding patients and I like telling them over and over again to floss and over and over again, not to eat sugar. So the interesting thing to me when I was doing the research is sugar's not good for you. We already all know that we know it's not good to drink soda and it's not good for you because it causes cavities. But part of the reason it causes cavities is because you have this colony or back host big gang of bacteria in your mouth and when you eat sugar, it changes the makeup of that bacteria. So we have good bacteria and bad bacteria. Sugar makes the bad bacteria increase in its numbers and the population in your mouth. So I think that's really interesting. And then as you have more and more bacteria and you keep feeding them with sugar, then the whole situation just gets worse and worse. So All the more reason to eat healthily.
Katie Giardo:
And if I can add something about sugar too like you said, I love it, it's not just, don't have sugar because they give you cavities, but it's really so much more than that. I mean, we're obviously in a time where we're thinking about our immune system and we're not going to go down that rabbit hole too much because we're here to talk about something else. But I heard this really interesting analogy of they compared sugar to like sandpaper to the inside of our body. It's very inflammatory. And basically, when your immune system is so preoccupied and healing the body from eating garbage, it can't be focusing on the true immune health functions like fighting off bacteria and viruses. So it is way more than just not getting a cavity, right?
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Oh, absolutely. And when you mentioned inflammation, right? Part of what we're talking about is diminishing gum disease and I know how passionate you are about diminishing the inflammatory effects of eating things that are good for you. So, if you have gum disease, which is inflammation the size of the palm of your hand and your body is fighting that and you're eating an inflammatory diet and you're faced with an additional health challenge, you just don't have any hope that your body's going to function normally and get past that. So that's a really good point. When you feed yourself with something that's creating inflammation and your gums are unhealthy, for whatever reason, it just gives your body more than it can handle. The other thing that was really interesting, and again, this was another study is that there is a link between body fat and obesity and gum disease. And there's an inverse relationship between the amount of protein and sort of a high protein diet that you intake and gum disease. So when they fed rats a low protein diet, their gums and the makeup of their gums broke down. So that was a really interesting study too. Now that's not saying, oh, we should eat a high protein diet or a low protein diet. It's just saying that clean, good protein is good for you. It's good for your body as you know but it's also good for your gums and the tissues that make up the gums, it's really important
Katie Giardo:
All the little ways that it can impact, cause I would have never thought of that specifically for gum health.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
And it's interesting too Cause I talked as because you and I share this when I'm referring someone to you, I'll often not get a lot of response from people when we're talking about something like reflux because they say, Oh well, it's okay, I'm taking the medication. So it's controlled. If I mentioned to them that it's going to erode away their teeth and destroy their teeth, they're sometimes then more interested in actually treating the reflux cause I explain to them, okay, it's great that you take this medication, it’s awesome that it's not bothering you and I can see the impact of it on your teeth. So you never know what's going to motivate people to address it.
Katie Giardo:
And you have to find something that motivates them to put in the effort to make a change, right?
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
People are actually more because you don't see the automatic ramifications on the lining of your stomach, you can't see them, the lining of your stomach. But a lot of people want to keep their teeth for a lifetime. So when you take reflux and you've kind of turn it on its head and make it important to them for their mouth health and they're often more motivated to address it, which is good. So the reason I invited Katie is that we share a lot of, I call them patients, you call them clients, but we share a lot of patients and clients in common. The main reason that I have people contact Katie is if they have an addiction to coffee or sugary beverages, those things are obviously negatively impacting your teeth. A lot of times it's a patient that has reflux like we were just saying. And then also, somebody that just is, they're here in our office cause they want to get healthy and we do a really extensive medical history cause we're a complete health practice and as part of that is a discussion about lifestyle and what challenges they're having and what their goals are. And if their goals are to get healthy, even if they're already pretty healthy, then I have them call Katie so that they can be exposed to the urban system just like I was. Yes. So if you could share a little bit more about that. Awesome. I do love that you shared, even when people are healthy, they can benefit from this. That was kind of my journey, I felt like I was already a pretty healthy eater. I wasn't having any major health issues. So I didn't really think that I needed to do a program like this, but because it's my business, I figured I needed to experience it, to be able to coach people through it. And I am so glad that I did it because I had no idea that making these little tweaks could make such a big impact in my health and how I felt, in a wide variety of ways, kind of like we're talking about not just an energy or weight loss, but in gum health and digestive health and your immune health, it really trickles down to so many different things.
Katie Giardo:
So when I found this nutrition reset program, which is what I like to call it, I was just really excited to follow a simple program because I am not someone who wants to do all this research and figure it out on my own. That's overwhelming. I'm a mom of two young boys. I don't have time to do that. So I love this simple program that we can follow. And I love that it really helps people wake up to how they're feeling and making the connection between how a particular food makes their body feel. So we've mentioned reflux a few times, right? Like we want you to know the food that is causing the reflux because instead of just taking medication, how about you just stop eating the food that's giving you that problem in the first place. So I personally do this program about two or three times a year just because I love how it makes me feel And I know it's so good for my body. So when I'm talking to people about a program like this, I oftentimes just address kind of the elephant in the room and acknowledged that I know a lot of people are really intimidated when they hear or think about doing like a cleanse or a detox or a diet even. It seems really extreme. You might be thinking, Oh, I'm going to have to starve myself, I'm going to be only drinking things for 30 days or even something crazier out there. I'm sure you've heard of some examples. And although maybe some of those extreme examples, maybe they do serve some benefit to your body, the main thing is that they are not sustainable. It is not something that you can do long-term. You can't just live off of fresh juices for the rest of your life. So it's really key that you find a program that can teach you things that can be done long term and that is actually easy enough to do long-term too. So that's a really big thing that I appreciate about this and the program that I coach people through, It is not about counting calories, It's not about assigning points to foods, It's not about starving yourself and really depriving yourself, It's really just about teaching people how to eat healthy whole foods. It's about the connection between the foods that you eat and how it makes your body feel like already mentioned. It's about reducing your body of excess toxins, which is oftentimes the root cause for a lot of health issues that we have. And it really is a lifestyle that's easy to do long-term, easy to learn, easy to sustain. And I always like to point out that in this program, there are really five key components that we're trying to teach people.
Katie Giardo:
The first is that we're teaching people how to focus on eating healthy whole foods. And again, you can probably try to do your research on your own to figure that out. You might be overwhelmed, but I love that this program has a clear set of guidelines on what truly healthy whole food eating is. The second thing is that we're teaching people to increase their nutritional intake and help their body properly absorb the healthy foods that they're eating. The third is that we're avoiding allergenic, acidic, and addictive foods. The allergenic so that you can see how your body does without it. The acidic, there are so many reasons why we need to balance our body back to a more alkaline state. And then the fourth thing is that we're balancing our blood sugar levels. And the last thing is that we're supporting our body's natural elimination organs to really get rid of toxicity. And I find that, if you think about what you're doing all day, right, you're constantly adding things into your body, from the food that you're eating, the water that you're drinking, the air that you're breathing, even the stuff you're putting on your skin because that is absorbed pretty quickly as well. And our body basically all day long is having to sort through everything. It's having to figure out what do I need to hold onto to grow and function? Like vitamins and nutrients. And then what do I get rid of that's not serving your body and that's just kind of generally classified as toxins. And what I find is that when people have too many toxins build up in their body, they start to experience some warning signs. And unfortunately, a lot of these warning signs, people just chalk it to being normal, or they have all sorts of excuses why they're feeling that way. It's just stress from the job or it's just because I'm getting older. That's a big reason why people, can use it as an excuse. So some of these warning signs, we've talked about it a few times now, but acid reflux that is a warning sign. The weakened immune system, maybe even foggy thinking or bouts of depression, skin issues, whether it's acne or wrinkles or dryness, frequent headaches, and migraines. That is a big thing Dr. Michelle, speaking of just masking it with medication and not finding the root cause. Digestive system irregularities, sugar or salt cravings, even that like a stubborn weight that we have a hard time getting rid of. And the thing is, if we don't take a second to stop and think about why do we have these warning symptoms, then they tend to build up into a much bigger and more serious diagnosis.
Katie Giardo:
So it's good to start early on to fix that and before you have a major concern. Like Dr. Michelle, it's better to fix the acid reflux early than when you're having to do some major dental work because you let it go on too long. So what do people do about this, when they feel like they are recognizing those warning signs, they want to do something different? It's simply put, reduce the toxins coming out, in and we get rid of the toxins that are already in there. And I understand when I'm talking to a busy person and I'm telling them, Oh, all you have to do is cut out sugar and dairy and gluten and caffeine, coffee. Dr. Michelle, all you have to do is remove all of that. People look at me like I'm crazy. And like I just pulled the rug out from under them.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
But that's pretty much, I've pretty much told you, you were crazy. Yes.
Katie Giardo:
I wasn't going to throw you under the bus and say specifically but it's normal, right? People, they do. They feel like I pulled the rug out from underneath them, but this program and this toolkit that you get, it really is your rug. It's what makes this whole process doable. And like I keep saying, it's just a simple program you follow. It's all about putting down the junk for just 30 days. We just focus on 30 days first, giving your body a chance to heal. It's not about never having the pizza or the cupcake ever again. It's just about pressing pause and really figuring out how it affects you. So just in wrapping up to explain kind of how the program works, we're implementing really high-quality nutritional supplements. That picture there shows some of them. And it's really important that you're getting a good quality nutritional supplement that's going to be free of toxins. That's going to be whole food-based. Ours is vegan certified, which means it's free of dairy. And it's also free of lactose, it's free of gluten and Trans fat cholesterol. There's no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners. There's no soy. And it's non-GMO. So if that little list right there doesn't impress you, then I don't know, but these are products that are really going to help to fill in the gaps of maybe the vitamins and nutrients and antioxidants that might be hard to get every day, even just from a healthy diet. These supplements also help to balance out your blood sugar levels. They help to be a healthy replacement to maybe a bad habit. Replacing those sugary drinks that you talked about, Dr. Michelle, with the healthier version. They help them flush out toxins, they help to balance out the pH levels of your skin. So they serve a very big purpose in this program. But this program, we're also focusing on whole food eating. So don't just look at that picture and think it's a whole bunch of supplements that I'm going to be surviving off of. No, you eat real food also. You get one on one coaching from someone like me to really walk you through the process. We're sharing recipes. We have a wonderful Facebook group that we add you to for great accountability. And I know that's a lot of information but that's like the quick explanation of what the program is all about and why it really aligns with Dr. Michelle believes in. And I know that's a lot of information but the goal is just to let you know that this is an option and that you can reach out to learn more If you feel like it's something that could benefit you in your health.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Yeah. I love too what you were saying about, and I don't ever think when I'm talking to people about a sugar addiction or a sugary beverage addiction, I forget that the urban reset or, any sort of healthy living, eating actually breaks that cycle which is really helpful for people that are just constantly craving it. And I know that we crave it because it's like a snowball effect again. The more you eat it, the more you crave it. I just wanted to mention my story about it. I had met Katie at a networking group that we're in and we met and we talked about the 30-day healthy living thing cause I knew it was something I wanted to expose my patients to and then she was talking to me about doing it And I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I want to be that person at lunch. I've always known that I wanted to eat, do an eat clean challenge and eat clean for a period of time. And, and part of the reason was that. I wasn't at 55 years old, I wasn't feeling as good as I knew that I should, I was starting to have chronic reflux and I was having really difficult challenges with my gums. This is actually me. This is what my teeth looked like before my eating clean challenge and then also before this awesome gum treatment regimen that we have here at the office. And then this is me after, and you can see, the change in my gum tissue and in the whiteness of my teeth. And the amazing thing about the Arbonne system in terms of your teeth being healthy, in terms of your gums being healthy is that, like you said, it's something that you can always fall back on. So I do it probably three times a year. And I don't know, when I did it the first time I think it was three years ago almost. And when I am not feeling good, I've done the Arbonne 30 day healthy living program enough where I can, I know exactly what I'm doing. It's causing me to feel the way that I am. And I just can automatically go back to eating the things and eliminating the things that I know that I should. So I really appreciate that about that.
Katie Giardo:
That's a really big thing to feel empowered, to know that although bad, I know what to do about it.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Because for a couple of years leading up to me meeting you and knowing that I wasn't thriving and feeling great the way that I should because of how healthy and active and everything that I am. All I could picture that I wanted to eat clean, but honestly didn't know for sure even what that meant. And so that's the amazing thing about Arbonne, it's all the support, the nutritional products that help you break the cycles that you are in. And then when you do it enough times, you just, go back to it, which is awesome. One of the other things that we talked about early in this webinar, which I think is really important, again is a lot of the barrier that people have, or the concerns they have about dentistry is, what can I do to make it less expensive? What can I do with prevention and with eating better so that over my lifetime, or even over the next five years, I can save money? So certainly prevention, just general traditional prevention, getting your teeth cleaned, getting them checked and doing things like the Perio Protect Trays that we have now saved a lot of money. And so when I was doing my research, what I found was this study that showed every dollar that you spend, you save eight to $50 over your lifetime. And then as we talked about earlier together, nutrition really matters too, the more healthy foods you eat, the more vegetables you eat, this reduces your expenses to over a five year period because if you're not eating enough protein, if you're eating too much sugar, if the bacteria in your mouth gets overgrown, if you have inflammation in your body, can't fight and protect your teeth, then that's going to increase the expenses. So the good news is, it really is all under your control. It really is preventable. And we work together. We work together here at Jax Beaches Family Dentistry as a team with people like Katie to help find solutions for people that are simple and easy to follow.
Katie Giardo:
Talking about preventative care. I've always heard this saying is, at some point in your life, you're going to have to pay for your life. And it's either going to be paying for your health upfront or paying for your sickness later on. And it's almost always cheaper to pay for your health upfront than the sickness later on. You think about it, Yeah. Right. You can pay, don't go visit you even a few times a year or you can never go and then you'd go once and you have this really, you have a lot of stuff you have to do to fix what you haven't been doing this whole time. So I always appreciate that. Pay for your health now instead of your sickness later.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
For sure. Yeah. So along with diminishing the expense the other thing that is really important to people, some of the main reasons, especially as people are having more and more birthdays, that they come in as they're fearing losing their teeth. So additional decay when you already have crowns or you already have had root canals, additional decay, generally the next step after that is to floss. The main way to avoid that is all the healthy eating stuff that we already talked about. The high protein diets, the things that I noticed the most are a change in saliva because of the increased number of medications. So if we can help with healthy living and decrease the number of pills that people take a day that makes a big difference. We also want to talk about snacking. The ideal diet for your teeth really is three meals a day, and one snack with water in between. So anything that's going to modify or change from that needs to be healthy whole foods snacks. So, and that's where Katie comes in and any other person on my health and wellness team that is supporting my patients. It's a really big deal for me. And if this information is interesting to you, we just wanted to make sure that you guys all out there listening or seeing this as a recording, can get a hold of us. And that is Katie's phone number, and this is our office phone number. And we're actually open, even if you're listening to this pretty quickly and it's the COVID, still in the COVID environment we're seeing, we're open four days a week. We're seeing emergency dental patients. And even if you're listening to this and you know another dentist who isn't open, we're happy to see other people's patients and then return them back to their dental home to help them. These are our email addresses, and I'm happy to answer questions at any time about, anything about your mouth if you're having reflux or you're having issues and you want to talk about it. We're also going to be offering teledentistry, which is super exciting. And I look forward to helping anybody with anything that they need.
Katie Giardo:
Awesome. Well, thank you, Dr. Michelle, for letting me add into, and I'll just kind of wrap up that, if someone is feeling like they could benefit from a nutrition reset program, whether it's specifically because of their dental health or something else going on you, can start this program whenever you want. And I know I kind of gave the quick rundown, but if it interests you at all, I do free consultations over the phone and I am still working right now. Luckily my business is very much virtual, so I can still have consultations with people. I can still coach them through. All the supplements you see ships directly to your house. So it's always worth a conversation. If someone feels like something we went over today is something they can benefit from, then just reach out to either of us, email or phone number and just choose to learn more. Once you learn more, if it's not a fit for you, no big deal, but at least you have the information.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much, Katie. And thank you to everybody listening. We appreciate you taking the time to be here today.
Katie Giardo:
Thanks for having me on.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Alright. Have a great day.
All right. This is Dr. Michelle Hucke with Jax Beaches Family Dentistry and my dear friend, Katie Giardo from Arbonne international. And we're both coming to you today during a really difficult time in our country. We've also been spending a lot of time talking about COVID and I know in my industry, all of my colleagues are struggling with it and dealing with it, and we're all managing it in our own lives in terms of changes every day that interrupt our regular life. So it's odd to be doing this webinar now. However, I think it's really important to talk about complete health. We have a dental practice that is focused on that and the reason that I had Katie join us today is that she's my partner in helping my patients get healthy. So I talk to patients a lot about their mouths and how to get their mouth healthy. And we are also really focused on taking a complete medical history, talking to people about their total body goals, and also integrating how that complete health affects the health of the mouth. And that's the topic of our talk today. So maybe why don't you say hello too, and you can talk about your passion.
Katie Giardo:
Hi everyone. So like Dr. Michelle said, my name is Katie Giardo and I am a health and wellness consultant with a company called Arbonne. And I'm just so grateful to be able to partner with a doctor like Dr. Michelle, because I really appreciate that, as such a kind of narrow focus like dental health sometimes could be just so narrow like that, but I really love that she has this complete view and she really goes above and beyond and asking more questions because it really does all matter. So I love that we get to partner together and you'll hear a little bit more for me in a second.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
So our topic today is exciting to me because I've had my own health challenges and my own health journey. And I think everybody knows or thinks they know that when you think about your mouth and you're going to talk to a dentist or listen to a dentist, talk about nutrition, they're just going to tell you once again, to not eat sugar and to not do this and to not do that. So our topic is more interesting, I think, because we're going to talk about how your mouth reflects what you eat and nutrition does impact your overall health as we've already mentioned a couple of times, but it also impacts your ability to keep your teeth. And every time I've done one of these webinars, I do really interesting research. And the research is really interesting in that regard too. One of the main reasons I've invited Katie And one of the main reasons that she's changed my life is that there are minor changes that you can make that make a big difference. I think when you talk about clean eating and you talk about making changes in your diet that are going to allow you to keep your teeth, sometimes people aren't interested in it because they think it's going to be this overwhelming thing. That they're just not going to be able to manage. Again, avoiding sugar is important when you talk about the health of your mouth, I'm not going to say it's not important because of course, it is, but it isn't just about, okay, so I am avoiding sugar, so I don't get cavities. It's actually more inspiring and important than that. And then as I just mentioned before too, really small changes can dramatically impact your health and it also can dramatically decrease the expense of dentistry. And I know, the expense of things, especially right now. The expense of things is often a big barrier for people and I do often invite people and encourage people to think of dental expenses as what am I going to spend on my teeth over my lifetime? And how can I minimize that? So those are the topics. There's a lot of them that we're going to talk about today. So when I did my research, I found this awesome article and it really talked about the top five things that are the most important for a healthier mouth. And one of them is really good, clean fluoridated water. The more water we drink versus beverages that we find in the store that have been manufactured the healthier for the mouth because any of those beverages generally are acidic and they usually have some sort of sugar in them and that's not good for your mouth.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
The other thing is calcium and protein-rich foods that help support not just your teeth, but also your gums. So that's super important. Phosphorus is important too again, because really important in terms of the components of the gums and your teeth and the other interesting thing, we all know vegetables are good, right? And so it's not just the micronutrients, like the certain vitamins that are in vegetables, but just the act of chewing them and stimulating your saliva and adding fiber to your diet, right. It's good for you just in general and nuts are a super healthy snack and they also have micronutrients in them that are important. And then there are the bad things that we eat. A sugary diet, as we talked about earlier, we know sugar is bad, this is not a new shock, a news flash for anybody. I also do not like scolding patients and I like telling them over and over again to floss and over and over again, not to eat sugar. So the interesting thing to me when I was doing the research is sugar's not good for you. We already all know that we know it's not good to drink soda and it's not good for you because it causes cavities. But part of the reason it causes cavities is because you have this colony or back host big gang of bacteria in your mouth and when you eat sugar, it changes the makeup of that bacteria. So we have good bacteria and bad bacteria. Sugar makes the bad bacteria increase in its numbers and the population in your mouth. So I think that's really interesting. And then as you have more and more bacteria and you keep feeding them with sugar, then the whole situation just gets worse and worse. So All the more reason to eat healthily.
Katie Giardo:
And if I can add something about sugar too like you said, I love it, it's not just, don't have sugar because they give you cavities, but it's really so much more than that. I mean, we're obviously in a time where we're thinking about our immune system and we're not going to go down that rabbit hole too much because we're here to talk about something else. But I heard this really interesting analogy of they compared sugar to like sandpaper to the inside of our body. It's very inflammatory. And basically, when your immune system is so preoccupied and healing the body from eating garbage, it can't be focusing on the true immune health functions like fighting off bacteria and viruses. So it is way more than just not getting a cavity, right?
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Oh, absolutely. And when you mentioned inflammation, right? Part of what we're talking about is diminishing gum disease and I know how passionate you are about diminishing the inflammatory effects of eating things that are good for you. So, if you have gum disease, which is inflammation the size of the palm of your hand and your body is fighting that and you're eating an inflammatory diet and you're faced with an additional health challenge, you just don't have any hope that your body's going to function normally and get past that. So that's a really good point. When you feed yourself with something that's creating inflammation and your gums are unhealthy, for whatever reason, it just gives your body more than it can handle. The other thing that was really interesting, and again, this was another study is that there is a link between body fat and obesity and gum disease. And there's an inverse relationship between the amount of protein and sort of a high protein diet that you intake and gum disease. So when they fed rats a low protein diet, their gums and the makeup of their gums broke down. So that was a really interesting study too. Now that's not saying, oh, we should eat a high protein diet or a low protein diet. It's just saying that clean, good protein is good for you. It's good for your body as you know but it's also good for your gums and the tissues that make up the gums, it's really important
Katie Giardo:
All the little ways that it can impact, cause I would have never thought of that specifically for gum health.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
And it's interesting too Cause I talked as because you and I share this when I'm referring someone to you, I'll often not get a lot of response from people when we're talking about something like reflux because they say, Oh well, it's okay, I'm taking the medication. So it's controlled. If I mentioned to them that it's going to erode away their teeth and destroy their teeth, they're sometimes then more interested in actually treating the reflux cause I explain to them, okay, it's great that you take this medication, it’s awesome that it's not bothering you and I can see the impact of it on your teeth. So you never know what's going to motivate people to address it.
Katie Giardo:
And you have to find something that motivates them to put in the effort to make a change, right?
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
People are actually more because you don't see the automatic ramifications on the lining of your stomach, you can't see them, the lining of your stomach. But a lot of people want to keep their teeth for a lifetime. So when you take reflux and you've kind of turn it on its head and make it important to them for their mouth health and they're often more motivated to address it, which is good. So the reason I invited Katie is that we share a lot of, I call them patients, you call them clients, but we share a lot of patients and clients in common. The main reason that I have people contact Katie is if they have an addiction to coffee or sugary beverages, those things are obviously negatively impacting your teeth. A lot of times it's a patient that has reflux like we were just saying. And then also, somebody that just is, they're here in our office cause they want to get healthy and we do a really extensive medical history cause we're a complete health practice and as part of that is a discussion about lifestyle and what challenges they're having and what their goals are. And if their goals are to get healthy, even if they're already pretty healthy, then I have them call Katie so that they can be exposed to the urban system just like I was. Yes. So if you could share a little bit more about that. Awesome. I do love that you shared, even when people are healthy, they can benefit from this. That was kind of my journey, I felt like I was already a pretty healthy eater. I wasn't having any major health issues. So I didn't really think that I needed to do a program like this, but because it's my business, I figured I needed to experience it, to be able to coach people through it. And I am so glad that I did it because I had no idea that making these little tweaks could make such a big impact in my health and how I felt, in a wide variety of ways, kind of like we're talking about not just an energy or weight loss, but in gum health and digestive health and your immune health, it really trickles down to so many different things.
Katie Giardo:
So when I found this nutrition reset program, which is what I like to call it, I was just really excited to follow a simple program because I am not someone who wants to do all this research and figure it out on my own. That's overwhelming. I'm a mom of two young boys. I don't have time to do that. So I love this simple program that we can follow. And I love that it really helps people wake up to how they're feeling and making the connection between how a particular food makes their body feel. So we've mentioned reflux a few times, right? Like we want you to know the food that is causing the reflux because instead of just taking medication, how about you just stop eating the food that's giving you that problem in the first place. So I personally do this program about two or three times a year just because I love how it makes me feel And I know it's so good for my body. So when I'm talking to people about a program like this, I oftentimes just address kind of the elephant in the room and acknowledged that I know a lot of people are really intimidated when they hear or think about doing like a cleanse or a detox or a diet even. It seems really extreme. You might be thinking, Oh, I'm going to have to starve myself, I'm going to be only drinking things for 30 days or even something crazier out there. I'm sure you've heard of some examples. And although maybe some of those extreme examples, maybe they do serve some benefit to your body, the main thing is that they are not sustainable. It is not something that you can do long-term. You can't just live off of fresh juices for the rest of your life. So it's really key that you find a program that can teach you things that can be done long term and that is actually easy enough to do long-term too. So that's a really big thing that I appreciate about this and the program that I coach people through, It is not about counting calories, It's not about assigning points to foods, It's not about starving yourself and really depriving yourself, It's really just about teaching people how to eat healthy whole foods. It's about the connection between the foods that you eat and how it makes your body feel like already mentioned. It's about reducing your body of excess toxins, which is oftentimes the root cause for a lot of health issues that we have. And it really is a lifestyle that's easy to do long-term, easy to learn, easy to sustain. And I always like to point out that in this program, there are really five key components that we're trying to teach people.
Katie Giardo:
The first is that we're teaching people how to focus on eating healthy whole foods. And again, you can probably try to do your research on your own to figure that out. You might be overwhelmed, but I love that this program has a clear set of guidelines on what truly healthy whole food eating is. The second thing is that we're teaching people to increase their nutritional intake and help their body properly absorb the healthy foods that they're eating. The third is that we're avoiding allergenic, acidic, and addictive foods. The allergenic so that you can see how your body does without it. The acidic, there are so many reasons why we need to balance our body back to a more alkaline state. And then the fourth thing is that we're balancing our blood sugar levels. And the last thing is that we're supporting our body's natural elimination organs to really get rid of toxicity. And I find that, if you think about what you're doing all day, right, you're constantly adding things into your body, from the food that you're eating, the water that you're drinking, the air that you're breathing, even the stuff you're putting on your skin because that is absorbed pretty quickly as well. And our body basically all day long is having to sort through everything. It's having to figure out what do I need to hold onto to grow and function? Like vitamins and nutrients. And then what do I get rid of that's not serving your body and that's just kind of generally classified as toxins. And what I find is that when people have too many toxins build up in their body, they start to experience some warning signs. And unfortunately, a lot of these warning signs, people just chalk it to being normal, or they have all sorts of excuses why they're feeling that way. It's just stress from the job or it's just because I'm getting older. That's a big reason why people, can use it as an excuse. So some of these warning signs, we've talked about it a few times now, but acid reflux that is a warning sign. The weakened immune system, maybe even foggy thinking or bouts of depression, skin issues, whether it's acne or wrinkles or dryness, frequent headaches, and migraines. That is a big thing Dr. Michelle, speaking of just masking it with medication and not finding the root cause. Digestive system irregularities, sugar or salt cravings, even that like a stubborn weight that we have a hard time getting rid of. And the thing is, if we don't take a second to stop and think about why do we have these warning symptoms, then they tend to build up into a much bigger and more serious diagnosis.
Katie Giardo:
So it's good to start early on to fix that and before you have a major concern. Like Dr. Michelle, it's better to fix the acid reflux early than when you're having to do some major dental work because you let it go on too long. So what do people do about this, when they feel like they are recognizing those warning signs, they want to do something different? It's simply put, reduce the toxins coming out, in and we get rid of the toxins that are already in there. And I understand when I'm talking to a busy person and I'm telling them, Oh, all you have to do is cut out sugar and dairy and gluten and caffeine, coffee. Dr. Michelle, all you have to do is remove all of that. People look at me like I'm crazy. And like I just pulled the rug out from under them.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
But that's pretty much, I've pretty much told you, you were crazy. Yes.
Katie Giardo:
I wasn't going to throw you under the bus and say specifically but it's normal, right? People, they do. They feel like I pulled the rug out from underneath them, but this program and this toolkit that you get, it really is your rug. It's what makes this whole process doable. And like I keep saying, it's just a simple program you follow. It's all about putting down the junk for just 30 days. We just focus on 30 days first, giving your body a chance to heal. It's not about never having the pizza or the cupcake ever again. It's just about pressing pause and really figuring out how it affects you. So just in wrapping up to explain kind of how the program works, we're implementing really high-quality nutritional supplements. That picture there shows some of them. And it's really important that you're getting a good quality nutritional supplement that's going to be free of toxins. That's going to be whole food-based. Ours is vegan certified, which means it's free of dairy. And it's also free of lactose, it's free of gluten and Trans fat cholesterol. There's no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners. There's no soy. And it's non-GMO. So if that little list right there doesn't impress you, then I don't know, but these are products that are really going to help to fill in the gaps of maybe the vitamins and nutrients and antioxidants that might be hard to get every day, even just from a healthy diet. These supplements also help to balance out your blood sugar levels. They help to be a healthy replacement to maybe a bad habit. Replacing those sugary drinks that you talked about, Dr. Michelle, with the healthier version. They help them flush out toxins, they help to balance out the pH levels of your skin. So they serve a very big purpose in this program. But this program, we're also focusing on whole food eating. So don't just look at that picture and think it's a whole bunch of supplements that I'm going to be surviving off of. No, you eat real food also. You get one on one coaching from someone like me to really walk you through the process. We're sharing recipes. We have a wonderful Facebook group that we add you to for great accountability. And I know that's a lot of information but that's like the quick explanation of what the program is all about and why it really aligns with Dr. Michelle believes in. And I know that's a lot of information but the goal is just to let you know that this is an option and that you can reach out to learn more If you feel like it's something that could benefit you in your health.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Yeah. I love too what you were saying about, and I don't ever think when I'm talking to people about a sugar addiction or a sugary beverage addiction, I forget that the urban reset or, any sort of healthy living, eating actually breaks that cycle which is really helpful for people that are just constantly craving it. And I know that we crave it because it's like a snowball effect again. The more you eat it, the more you crave it. I just wanted to mention my story about it. I had met Katie at a networking group that we're in and we met and we talked about the 30-day healthy living thing cause I knew it was something I wanted to expose my patients to and then she was talking to me about doing it And I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I want to be that person at lunch. I've always known that I wanted to eat, do an eat clean challenge and eat clean for a period of time. And, and part of the reason was that. I wasn't at 55 years old, I wasn't feeling as good as I knew that I should, I was starting to have chronic reflux and I was having really difficult challenges with my gums. This is actually me. This is what my teeth looked like before my eating clean challenge and then also before this awesome gum treatment regimen that we have here at the office. And then this is me after, and you can see, the change in my gum tissue and in the whiteness of my teeth. And the amazing thing about the Arbonne system in terms of your teeth being healthy, in terms of your gums being healthy is that, like you said, it's something that you can always fall back on. So I do it probably three times a year. And I don't know, when I did it the first time I think it was three years ago almost. And when I am not feeling good, I've done the Arbonne 30 day healthy living program enough where I can, I know exactly what I'm doing. It's causing me to feel the way that I am. And I just can automatically go back to eating the things and eliminating the things that I know that I should. So I really appreciate that about that.
Katie Giardo:
That's a really big thing to feel empowered, to know that although bad, I know what to do about it.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Because for a couple of years leading up to me meeting you and knowing that I wasn't thriving and feeling great the way that I should because of how healthy and active and everything that I am. All I could picture that I wanted to eat clean, but honestly didn't know for sure even what that meant. And so that's the amazing thing about Arbonne, it's all the support, the nutritional products that help you break the cycles that you are in. And then when you do it enough times, you just, go back to it, which is awesome. One of the other things that we talked about early in this webinar, which I think is really important, again is a lot of the barrier that people have, or the concerns they have about dentistry is, what can I do to make it less expensive? What can I do with prevention and with eating better so that over my lifetime, or even over the next five years, I can save money? So certainly prevention, just general traditional prevention, getting your teeth cleaned, getting them checked and doing things like the Perio Protect Trays that we have now saved a lot of money. And so when I was doing my research, what I found was this study that showed every dollar that you spend, you save eight to $50 over your lifetime. And then as we talked about earlier together, nutrition really matters too, the more healthy foods you eat, the more vegetables you eat, this reduces your expenses to over a five year period because if you're not eating enough protein, if you're eating too much sugar, if the bacteria in your mouth gets overgrown, if you have inflammation in your body, can't fight and protect your teeth, then that's going to increase the expenses. So the good news is, it really is all under your control. It really is preventable. And we work together. We work together here at Jax Beaches Family Dentistry as a team with people like Katie to help find solutions for people that are simple and easy to follow.
Katie Giardo:
Talking about preventative care. I've always heard this saying is, at some point in your life, you're going to have to pay for your life. And it's either going to be paying for your health upfront or paying for your sickness later on. And it's almost always cheaper to pay for your health upfront than the sickness later on. You think about it, Yeah. Right. You can pay, don't go visit you even a few times a year or you can never go and then you'd go once and you have this really, you have a lot of stuff you have to do to fix what you haven't been doing this whole time. So I always appreciate that. Pay for your health now instead of your sickness later.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
For sure. Yeah. So along with diminishing the expense the other thing that is really important to people, some of the main reasons, especially as people are having more and more birthdays, that they come in as they're fearing losing their teeth. So additional decay when you already have crowns or you already have had root canals, additional decay, generally the next step after that is to floss. The main way to avoid that is all the healthy eating stuff that we already talked about. The high protein diets, the things that I noticed the most are a change in saliva because of the increased number of medications. So if we can help with healthy living and decrease the number of pills that people take a day that makes a big difference. We also want to talk about snacking. The ideal diet for your teeth really is three meals a day, and one snack with water in between. So anything that's going to modify or change from that needs to be healthy whole foods snacks. So, and that's where Katie comes in and any other person on my health and wellness team that is supporting my patients. It's a really big deal for me. And if this information is interesting to you, we just wanted to make sure that you guys all out there listening or seeing this as a recording, can get a hold of us. And that is Katie's phone number, and this is our office phone number. And we're actually open, even if you're listening to this pretty quickly and it's the COVID, still in the COVID environment we're seeing, we're open four days a week. We're seeing emergency dental patients. And even if you're listening to this and you know another dentist who isn't open, we're happy to see other people's patients and then return them back to their dental home to help them. These are our email addresses, and I'm happy to answer questions at any time about, anything about your mouth if you're having reflux or you're having issues and you want to talk about it. We're also going to be offering teledentistry, which is super exciting. And I look forward to helping anybody with anything that they need.
Katie Giardo:
Awesome. Well, thank you, Dr. Michelle, for letting me add into, and I'll just kind of wrap up that, if someone is feeling like they could benefit from a nutrition reset program, whether it's specifically because of their dental health or something else going on you, can start this program whenever you want. And I know I kind of gave the quick rundown, but if it interests you at all, I do free consultations over the phone and I am still working right now. Luckily my business is very much virtual, so I can still have consultations with people. I can still coach them through. All the supplements you see ships directly to your house. So it's always worth a conversation. If someone feels like something we went over today is something they can benefit from, then just reach out to either of us, email or phone number and just choose to learn more. Once you learn more, if it's not a fit for you, no big deal, but at least you have the information.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much, Katie. And thank you to everybody listening. We appreciate you taking the time to be here today.
Katie Giardo:
Thanks for having me on.
Dr. Michelle Hucke:
Alright. Have a great day.