Eating for Healthier Teeth

Thoughts about Weston Price’s Research and Philosophy of the Body’s Ability to Heal

In my study of holistic medicine and lifestyle, I often come across new diets or supplements “guaranteed” to support the body in healing this ailment or that ailment. Much of these diets and supplements attack a heightened level of inflammation in our body, and by reducing that level of inflammation we may be able to curb some chronic disease. But then I came across Dr. Weston Price, who described a more rudimentary cause and approach for how best to heal our body.

Dr. Weston Price was a dentist in the 1920s. His work led to the advancement of new x-ray techniques to see the results of dental work, and management of chronic disease with new endodontic techniques and equipment. Throughout his career, he became perplexed with rampant incidence of poor dentition, tooth decay and facial deformities in developed countries, and how they typically went hand-in-hand with other chronic illnesses such as anemia, arthritis, diabetes and generalized fatigue. 

Dr. Price questioned if this growing trend was present only in the developed world, or had it spread to other isolated civilizations. He studied many isolated tribes in North and South Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia for both their dental and overall levels of health. In every civilization he studied, he was fascinated to find a lack of facial deformities and almost no tooth decay, as well as absence of any other physical illness. He did not even notice this in cultures that were living in harsh conditions. 

This led him to believe that the key to answering his hypothesis was in the foods the traditional native people ate compared to the developed world. Upon investigating the foods he brought back home to his lab in Cleveland, Ohio, he found that the native diet had extremely high levels of minerals and soluble vitamins such as vitamin C and B-complex, and over TEN TIMES the amount of vitamins A and D! The main vitamin that was involved in dental regeneration and fertility, was a substance he described as Activator X, later to be defined as Vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 is found in butter from heavily grass fed animals during peak fertility seasons. He reported cases where treatment with Vitamin K2-rich butter helped to REVERSE tooth decay!

With his compelling studies and first hand experiences from around the world, Dr. Price began to propagate a new way of eating, particularly with nutrient dense, high fat and high protein meals with elimination of processed foods to increase the absorption of these important vitamins in maintaining overall health and wellness. 

In modern dentistry, rarely do you hear about reversing dental disease simply with the foods your eat. In fact, one tribe in Switzerland had green slime on their teeth from lack of oral hygiene but did not show signs of tooth decay! Overall, the importance of nutrition for the body is paramount. The body can be a healing and regeneration powerhouse, but it is up to us to feed it with the right fuel to support its growth and healing properties.

For more information, please visit The Weston Price Foundation’s website at:

https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/dentistry/diet-in-relation-to-dental-caries/