I just got back from the dentist. I've had a long history of tough news from the dentist. But this time he was pretty surprised - no decay, not even much tartar even though I've been 18 months from the last cleaning. I haven't had that sort of result in the past thirty years.

So he asked me what was up. To tell the truth, it's not like I am taking care of my teeth at a whole new level - pretty much same as before. I told him the biggest change over the past two years was the high amount of exercise I was getting. He said that depleting glycogen is actually helpful for the teeth because it means that you've sort of grabbed all the available sugar away from decay causing bacteria, and as you replenish glycogen, you continue to starve the little bastards. As your muscle mass increases, your tooth surface area stays pretty much the same, and so the little bastards are in a losing tug of war with your muscles for the sugar.

As someone who has been through a good deal of dental work, this is one of the most satisfying reasons I can think of for lifting seriously.

I just got back from the dentist. I've had a long history of tough news from the dentist. But this time he was pretty surprised - no decay, not even much tartar even though I've been 18 months from the last cleaning. I haven't had that sort of result in the past thirty years.

So he asked me what was up. To tell the truth, it's not like I am taking care of my teeth at a whole new level - pretty much same as before. I told him the biggest change over the past two years was the high amount of exercise I was getting. He said that depleting glycogen is actually helpful for the teeth because it means that you've sort of grabbed all the available sugar away from decay causing bacteria, and as you replenish glycogen, you continue to starve the little bastards. As your muscle mass increases, your tooth surface area stays pretty much the same, and so the little bastards are in a losing tug of war with your muscles for the sugar.

As someone who has been through a good deal of dental work, this is one of the most satisfying reasons I can think of for lifting seriously.

Not saying the dentist is wrong (I am certainly no expert!)

But, it makes more sense to me that eating HEALTHIER foods (less Big Macs and Snickers bars and SODA; more veggies and lean proteins) would mean less "sugar gunk" on your teeth in the first place for the bacteria to eat.

I wouldn't think "mouth bacteria" pull sugar from the bodies internal blood supply.

But, that's just me.

Either way, congrats! Extensive dental work sucks!

-Allen

But, it makes more sense to me that eating HEALTHIER foods (less Big Macs and Snickers bars and SODA; more veggies and lean proteins) would mean less "sugar gunk" on your teeth in the first place for the bacteria to eat.

I didn't change that much of my diet at all. I don't really eat much less fast food and sweets, and I've been on no-sugar soda for decades. I don't eat any vegetables because of life threatening allergies.

So the change isn't that much to do with diet. About the only thing that changed was the exercise side, which has had a huge change in volume. There has also been noticable fat loss and a lot of muscle gain.

OK a quick look at PubMed shows that the oral bacteria are more able to cause dental caries when they can accumulate their version of glycogen (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10197997&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum). Also here. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=7790069&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum) Other carie producing bacteria actually synthesize glycogen and then use it to produce the troublesome acid. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=1403842&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum) Many other citations showed up for this.

So it looks like the bad guys need sugar, and they store it in glycogen and glycogen-like polymers. This lets them produce the decay causing acid.

Now blood glucose and saliva glucose levels are not closely correlated - people have looked at this in the effort to come up with saliva based diabetes monitors. So it's not as simple as lowering the blood glucose and the saliva glucose goes down at the same time. But that is consistent with a short term reserve of the bacteria being used to stabilize the oral glucose level. The subjects in the experiments to test blood glucose and saliva glucose levels were not in a significant glycogen depleting protocol.

But elementary chemistry predicts that as you keep diet constant, and increase the demand on that diet for muscle glycogen, the bugs are losing the war as long as you are able to increase the glycogen use. Where else are the bacteria going to get it?

So although I don't see a direct prospective study of this effect, it makes sense. And since the dentist mentioned it, it's probably in the literature somewhere I didn't find it.

That's amazing!
I've noticed a lot less plaque myself.:confused:

I just had a cleaning today, and again, the Dentist remarked on how clean my teeth were and the quality of my home care; and I haven't really changed how I care for my teeth for many years. Based on the first forty years of my life being one long sad story of decay and expensive dental treatments, it's still surprising and gratifying to me. And I still think it's the workouts that are making most of the difference.

Same thing happened to me last week. The dentist marveled at how shallow the pockets between my teeth and gum were. In fact, he was planning to pitch osseous surgery to me since I balked at it before and my gums were weak for quite some time. But now my gums are very healthy and he just kept marveling at my improvement and asked me what I was doing different. Was I flossing more? Using the oral irrigator he sold me? Brushing more? The truth is I was kind of worried about this visit because my home-care was deteriorating for the past several months.

I also attribute the improvement to exercise.

As someone who has been through a good deal of dental work, this is one of the most satisfying reasons I can think of for lifting seriously.

wowzers. i think this just made my day. :nod:

Same thing happened to me last week. The dentist marveled at how shallow the pockets between my teeth and gum were. In fact, he was planning to pitch osseous surgery to me since I balked at it before and my gums were weak for quite some time. But now my gums are very healthy and he just kept marveling at my improvement and asked me what I was doing different. Was I flossing more? Using the oral irrigator he sold me? Brushing more? The truth is I was kind of worried about this visit because my home-care was deteriorating for the past several months.

I also attribute the improvement to exercise.

Yeah I suspect it might be a bigger deal for people who have a history of bad teeth - where the improvement can be dramatic, as opposed to people who have never had much problem with their teeth. I wonder if we will get many more examples as time goes on? Frankly, with the cost of dental care being what it is, this can be a significant benefit of working out.