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Tag: ayurvedic medicine

  • Oil Pulling: Even Gwyneth Paltrow is Doing It

    Oil pulling is an increasingly popular method of cleaning teeth naturally.

    Actress Gwyneth Paltrow recently told E! that she’s jumped on the oil pulling bandwagon.

    “… I just started ‘oil puling,’ which is when you swish coconut oil around [in your mouth] for 20 minutes, and it’s supposed to be great for oral health and making your teeth white.”

    Blogger Trina Holden caused a stir when she admitted to readers that she hadn’t used toothpaste in over a year.

    Holden swears that after a month of oil pulling, the pain and sensitivity she’d been experiencing in her lower molars disappeared.

    And it gets better: her husband developed a nasty-looking cavity – his first, by the way – in his back wisdom tooth. Mr. Holden started oil pulling five to six times a week and a little over a month later, the infected tooth was “[w]hite. White with a bit of yellow, but the black and green and brown were all gone, and the surface of the tooth was smoothing out instead of being pitted.”

    Oil pulling devotees operate under the basic principle that, as Holden says “what we eat has so much more of an affect on our teeth than the substance we scrub them with.”

    Oil pulling acts to pull the toxins out of the teeth, basically absorbing them into the coconut oil, which practitioners spit out after swishing in their mouths for 20 minutes.

    “Oil is antimicrobial and gets into the tissues of the mouth to inhibit bacterial growth,” says Todd Caldecott, Ayurvedic practitioner and Executive Director of the Dogwood School of Botanical Medicine.

    Oil pulling has its roots in Ayurveda, an alternative system of medicine native to India that’s been around for over 3,000 years.

    “It’s used to prevent tooth decay, to prevent mouth odor, bleeding gums, dryness or hoarseness of the throat, while strengthening the teeth and gums,” says Dr. Scott Gerson, an Ayurvedic physician based in Brewster, NY.

    According to Gerson and other Ayurvedic experts, for best results oil pulling should be performed consistently every morning.

    Most practitioners use coconut oil but sesame oil is also an option. Both oils contain essential fatty acids, which act as a solvent for most of the body’s toxins.

    Dr. Sheila Patel, Medical Director of The Chopra Center, says that oil pulling “should be part of a healthy holistic daily routine that includes brushing your teeth and cleaning your tongue.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Oil Cleansing And Pulling: 20 Minute Mouth Remedy

    When a friend replied to me recently, saying he was busy “oil pulling” and would get back to me, I really didn’t want to know what that meant.

    He told me anyway.

    Essentially, the idea is that you slosh around a tablespoon of oil (sesame, coconut, or sunflower are some popular ones) through the teeth in your mouth (hence the name “pulling”) for ten or twenty minutes, and the toxins get sucked from your body.

    Ayurvedic medicine has claimed the practice can prevent about 30 different diseases. After being put to use as an Indian remedy for numerous years, it’s been gradually catching on way out west. Reportedly, it has helped prevent tooth decay, bad breath, bleeding gums, cracked lips, and also helped strengthen teeth, the jaw, and gums. Some even claim it can help with non-oral afflictions in the body, like insomnia, skin health, or hormone imbalances.

    How does it work? In a word: neutralization.

    The stuff many of us eat causes an acidic pH in our mouths (low pH). This sort of environment is grade-A real estate as far as bad bacteria are concerned, so they settle down on Teeth Street and can cause a litany of issues from there. Oils, however, are alkaline bases (high pH). Thus, they can help even out that pH, raise the mouth’s pH, drop acidity levels, and evict the bad bacteria from their dental residence.

    But don’t trust me – let’s hear from some professionals with letters after their names:

    “Well you know, it can’t hurt,” Dr. Wayne Brueggen of Houston, Texas, stated, “There is at least one study that shows it reduces strep bacteria in the mouth.”

    As for curing other infirmities not immediately related to the mouth, Snopes believes there isn’t any “sensible scientific explanation for how simply swishing oil around in one’s mouth could accomplish any of those things.”

    Dr. John C. Comisi (spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry) states, “Many people don’t even take the time to effectively brush their teeth for two minutes.” Doc has a point there. My mom used to set an egg timer for teeth-brushing when we were kids. It felt like an eternity, so I broke it. And that’s why I need fillings.

    So, the scientific research on this practice seems inconclusive, but what does that matter? We blindly trust all we hear until studies get retracted and we don’t know if broccoli cures or causes cancer anymore. There are a couple things to consider. Regardless of what Snopes or Scientific American says, a holistic understanding of the body is that it doesn’t exist in pieces, so nothing happens in a vacuum; with that view, oral care could affect other bodily on-goings. What’s more, no harmful effects have been reported. So, keep doing it if it feels helpful! If you’re still wondering, however, how this could possibly be beneficial: perhaps for fast-paced people who take 20 minutes to try this, there’s something meditative, introspective, and relaxing about it that affects overall well-being.

    Then again, maybe it’s just the first good oral cleansing they’ve gotten in years.

    Image via Youtube