Fremont Natural Dentistry

10/16/2026

National Dental Hygiene Month’s brush, floss, and rinse (with an herbal or botanical rinse) is a good checklist, but don’t forget what you put in your body! For a healthier smile from the inside out, focus on diet and nutrition: reduce refined, fermentable carbs; choose whole foods; include healthy fats, antioxidants, and essential minerals. After all, diet is the foundation of good oral health!
Link: https://dentistrytoday.com/?p=51571

10/09/2026

Sleep and gum health may be connected. A 2026 umbrella review of 13 systematic reviews found a possible link between poor sleep (short sleep and sleep apnea included) and gum disease, though the certainty of the evidence is low. That's no reason to panic about a bad night. It's a prompt to look at how sleep, stress, and your mouth fit together. What does your wind-down routine look like?

Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oral-health/articles/10.3389/froh.2026.1761243/full

10/07/2026

Your mouth doesn't stay in your mouth. Researchers followed 903 older adults for four years and found that having fewer teeth (especially molars) and losing the gum and bone that support teeth were linked to a higher chance of gaining weight. Chewing comfort may shift food choices over time. It's an association, not proof, but it makes you think: What does chewing comfort look like for you?

Links: https://www.perio.org/press-release/new-research-reveals-link-between-gum-health-tooth-loss-and-weight-gain-in-older-adults/

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-teeth-weight-gain.html

09/22/2026

Mukbangs originated in South Korea, their name combining the Korean words for “eating” and “broadcast.” Some are more extreme than others, but the basic idea is right there in the name: Someone eats, and other people watch.

And watching a lot of them was found to be linked with poor oral health according to some new research, which we explored a bit recently on our blog...

You might not know the word mukbang, but watch a few seconds of one, and there’s a good chance you’ve seen something like it before: Lots of food. Really big bites. And the sounds — the crunching, slurping, and chewing — are very much part of the experience. Mukbangs originated in South Kore...

09/15/2026

Whenever talk turns to concerns about fluoride, the conversation usually centers on toxicity. That’s as it should be. Whenever any substance is to be put into the human body, questions about safety matter.

Yet toxicity isn’t the only way a material can affect the body.

Whenever talk turns to concerns about fluoride, the conversation usually centers on toxicity. That’s as it should be. Whenever any substance is to be put into the human body, questions about safety matter. Yet toxicity isn’t the only way a material can affect the body. Now, the kind of fluoride ...

09/10/2026

09/01/2026

This is a neat set of photos of how dental offices used to look.

Especially check out that x-ray room in the third photo -- and that hulking equipment! Its a far cry from the lightweight digital imaging units we use today -- with far less radiation than used to be needed for traditional film.

For more on why x-rays are needed and how we take them safely, check out this post from our blog archives: https://fremontnaturaldentistry.com/natural-dentistry-essentials-x-rays-your-safety/

08/28/2026

08/26/2026

If you're already taking a vitamin C supplement or making a point to eat more citrus, peppers, or berries, your gums are getting a quiet benefit. Vitamin C is essential for collagen production, and collagen is literally what holds gum tissue together, so a real deficiency can show up as bleeding, inflamed gums before it shows up anywhere else. It's not a substitute for brushing and flossing.

Find more here: https://tinyurl.com/93es47s6

08/22/2026

Tip:
If your jaw feels tight by the end of the day, breath is a legitimate place to start, not just a suggestion to "relax more." A 2025 review of breathwork research found that slow, extended-exhale breathing measurably lowers cortisol and calms the nervous system within a single short session. Try it before bed: in for four seconds, out for six, for about two minutes. The same stress response that tightens your shoulders tends to tighten your jaw too, so calming one side of that equation often eases the other.
It's not just muscle tension either.
A 2025 case-control study found that people with higher perceived stress and elevated salivary cortisol also showed more severe periodontitis, likely because chronic stress dampens the immune response that normally keeps gum inflammation in check. Calming your nervous system isn't just about a looser jaw. It's quietly part of gum health too.
Read more here:

Background Psychological stress is linked to elevated salivary cortisol levels, potentially worsening periodontitis by exacerbating inflammation. This study examines the impact of stress on cortisol levels in periodontitis patients, aiming to explore salivary cortisol as a biomarker for disease seve...