re`mineralization of teeth = Primitive control of caries

[Guest guest]

From pages 293 to 295 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price

Primitive control of caries

Our Agister makes this butter oil - mentioned by Dr Price, below - from our milk, in the spring and in the fall. It costs $70 per 8 ounces, by the time it gets to the shareholder.

It's available from the people in Nebraska, year 'round

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In my clinical work I have sought for extreme cases of active tooth decay in order to test the primitive wisdom. Many of these cases have been furnished by members of the dental profession in other cities and states. By the simple procedure of studying the nutrition of the individual, obtaining a sample of saliva for analysis, seeing Xrays of the individual's teeth and supporting bone, and getting a history of the systemic overloads.

I have been able to outline a nutritional program which, in well above 90 per cent of the cases has controlled the dental caries. Improvement in the condition of the teeth has been confirmed by later x-rays and reports by the patient's dentists. In a few cases where I had contact with the patients only through correspondence the cooperation was not adequate for accomplishing complete improvement. While it is true that there is a marked difference in the susceptibility of different individuals to dental caries, even those who would ordinarily be classed as highly susceptible, have generally received permanent benefit from the treatment.

These principles of treatment have now been applied to many hundreds of patients as indicated by the fact that over 2800 chemical analyses of the saliva have been made. The dietary programs that have been recommended have been determined on the basis of a study of the nutrition used by the patient, the data provided by the x-rays, from the saliva analysis and case history. The diets have been found to be deficient in minerals, chiefly phosphorous. Fat-soluble vitamins have been deficient in practically every case of active tooth decay.

The foods selected for reinforcing the deficient nutritions have always included additional fat-soluble vitamins and a liberal source of minerals in the form of natural

food. Human beings cannot absorb minerals satisfactorily from inorganic chemicals. Great harm is done, in my judgment, by the sale and use of substitutes for natural foods.

One of our greatest difficulties in undertaking to apply the wisdom of the primitives to our modern problems involves a character factor. The Indians of the high Andes were willing to go hundreds of miles so to the sea to get kelp and fish eggs for the use of their people. Yet many of our modern people are unwilling to take sufficient trouble to obtain foods that are competent to accomplish the desired results.

Jobbers and middlemen as well as supply depot managers want butter sold in accordance with its label rather than in accordance with its vitamin content. One large distributor whom I asked to cooperate by maintaining a stock of high-vitamin butter to which I could refer people, told me frankly that he wished I would stop telling people about the difference in the vitamin content in butter. He did not wish them to think of butter in terms of its vitamin content. Another large concern told me that when I had worked up a sufficiently large market they would become interested in supplying the demand. I counsel people to put in storage some of that butter which has the grassy flavour and which melts easily and is produced when the cows go onto the rapidly growing young grass. Unfortunately, cows that have been on a stable fodder low in carotene and under stress of gestation often are so depleted in their own body vitamins that it takes them three to four seeks to replenish their own bodies when they get on good pasture. Then the vitamins will appear in liberal quantities in their milk. This has made it necessary for me to assist many patients in obtaining a supply by analysing butter for its vitamin content and then putting this material in storage and making it available for special cases as needed.

The program that I have found most efficient has been one which includes the use of small quantities of very high vitamin butter mixed in equal parts with a very high vitamin cod liver oil. A simple method of preparing the butter is by melting it and allowing it to cool for twenty four hours at a temperature of about 70 degrees F, then centrifuging it which provides an oil that remains liquid at room temperature. When this butter oil is mixed in equal parts with a very high vitamin cod liver oil, it produces a product which that is more efficient than either alone. It should be used within a couple of weeks of the time it is mixed. It is desirable that this material be made available in various parts of the country.

Even the high-vitamin butter produced on the early summer growth of grass put in storage and used during the winter will go far toward solving our great national problem of shortage of fat-soluble vitamins. The quantity of the mixture of butter oil and cod liver oil required is quite small, half a teaspoonful three times a day with meals is sufficient to control wide-spread tooth decay when used with a diet that is low in sugar and starches and high in foods providing the minerals, particularly phosphorous.

A teaspoonful a day divided between two or three meals is usually adequate to prevent dental caries and maintain a high immunity ; it will also maintain freedom from colds and a high level of health in general. This reinforcement of the fat-soluble vitamins to a menu that is low in starches and sugars, together with the use of bread and cereal grains freshly ground, to retain the full content of the embryo or germ, and with milk for growing children and for many adults, and the liberal use of sea foods and organs of animals, produced the results desired.