First up, big thank you to those lovely people at the McTimoney Chiropractic Association in Oxford who hosted myself and a series of other excellent lecturers over the weekend.
Regardless of lectures, one thing the McTimoney group do very nicely is fancy dress evening do, and barbecue.
This year’s theme was the kings and queens of chiropractic. As you can see, I’m quite obviously dressed up as a king. While Paddy Thomas, who was there teaching afferentology, was dressed up as BJ Palmer riding an elephant.
I covered why the ingredients in Turmeric Plus are the most tested turmeric/curcumin on the planet, with over 40 studies to support their efficacy.
You can review all that and how to use Meta-boost with it in this evening webinar from last year.
https://vimeo.com/1113537700/26cd970222
We also covered collagen and glycine.
https://vimeo.com/1117104079/15a0836d95
And
https://academyofchiropracticnutrition.com/collagen-deconstructed/
If you know about my journey, it involves a lot of dental infections requiring multiple operations.
My root canal tooth had to be pulled out and my wisdom teeth extraction sites became infected that were then the trigger for my psoriasis.
Thankfully, I’m a remission and the teeth are in generally good nick. However, it has left me with a somewhat paranoid feeling regarding my oral health.
So I’m always on the lookout for effective treatments that can help maintain and prevent any future infections.
If I can make them effective and also cost effective, then that is a pretty happy combination.
Sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda, has been used in dentistry for decades, yet its potential benefits extend well beyond simply whitening teeth.
Emerging evidence suggests that a simple bicarbonate mouth rinse may create an oral environment that is less favourable for many pathogenic bacteria and fungi, including Candida species, by altering pH, disrupting biofilms and changing osmotic balance.
Unlike antiseptic mouthwashes that work by directly killing microbes, bicarbonate appears to work primarily by changing the environment in which they live.
Many oral pathogens thrive in acidic conditions. When bacteria ferment sugars, they produce acids that lower the pH around the teeth and gums, encouraging enamel demineralisation and favouring acid tolerant organisms such as Streptococcus mutans.
Sodium bicarbonate acts as a buffer, helping neutralise these acids and raising salivary pH toward a healthier range.
This shift in pH is particularly interesting from a functional medicine perspective.
Candida albicans is remarkably adaptable, but acidic environments favour its transition from a harmless yeast form into invasive filamentous hyphae.
By maintaining a more alkaline oral environment, bicarbonate may make this transformation less likely, reducing one of the key virulence mechanisms associated with fungal overgrowth.
Laboratory research has also shown that alkaline conditions can impair fungal adhesion and biofilm formation, making organisms easier to remove mechanically.
Biofilm is a stick protective matrix of sugar, minerals and proteins, and is a common issue in gut infections and this is not a nutritional thing per se; it is mainstream medical issue.
You have felt biofim on your teeth if you didn’t clean your teeth for a day.
Fungus/bacteria “hide” under a biofilm and this evades the immune system and also prevents antibiotics from working.
The antimicrobial mechanisms of bicarbonate appear to be multifactorial.
Its hypertonic properties can draw water out of bacterial cells through osmotic forces, leading to dehydration and reduced viability.
It may also disrupt the extracellular matrix that holds dental plaque together, weakening bacterial attachment to tooth surfaces and making brushing more effective.
Rather than acting like an antibiotic, bicarbonate makes the microbial ecosystem less hospitable while simultaneously making established biofilms easier to disrupt.
Interestingly, bicarbonate has demonstrated activity against several oral bacteria implicated in periodontal disease, including Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, Haemophilus aphrophilus, Eikenella corrodens and Capnocytophaga gingivalis.
Concentrated bicarbonate solutions can immobilise oral spirochetes and combining bicarbonate with hydrogen peroxide may produce synergistic antimicrobial effects.
Several human studies support these laboratory findings. In one prospective cohort study, rinsing with sodium bicarbonate significantly increased salivary pH above the threshold associated with enamel demineralisation while also reducing oral bacterial counts.
For practitioners interested in health, this may have broader implications. Oral dysbiosis often reflects wider microbial imbalance throughout the gastrointestinal tract and the rest of the body.
“Periodontal disease appears to be associated with a 19% increase in risk of future cardiovascular disease”
While bicarbonate mouthwash is unlikely to eradicate established candidiasis on its own, BUT creating an environment that discourages fungal growth may complement dietary strategies, optimisation of oral hygiene, and PREVENTION of issues in genral and after antibiotics, or with immune suppression.
WHAT TO DO: Half a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate dissolved in approximately 250 mL of water is the amount used in most studies. Rinse for 60 seconds and spit out.
This solution is inexpensive, generally well tolerated and lacks the alcohol found in many commercial mouthwashes.