just put it in your mouth before you go in the shower. do you have someone you need to talk to in the shower?
im sure if we looked at your day, it would be pretty full of nonsense as well. i’ll put my schedule up against yours any day.
Yes, because if they were instructing me on how to do stir fry, and said “I like coconut, but you can use whatever”, and then the recipe said that it tastes “the best,” then information is missing. The type of oil would clearly influence the taste of the recipe.
It’s really hard to expect anyone to assume the veracity of a claim with such a) specific information on one hand (20 minutes! No less!), but b) lack on the other (coconut, vegetable, mineral…it’s all good). We’re supposed to believe that the time is the only factor? Different oils don’t have a different makeup? We’re talking about an incredibly complex organic ecosystem, and the idea that “oil is oil” is what is one of the major deal breakers for me. Oils have vastly different chemical makeups. Heck, I bet if you sat a bunch of chemists down and asked them if coconut oil = canola oil = almond oil = mineral oil, you’d have quite the dispute in whether they all even qualify as “oil,” much less what defines oil.
Kinda like telling someone to just swish chili around in their mouth. Texas, vegetarian, whatever.
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NIH/PUBMED seems to support it.
An overview (here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3131773/ )
The oil pulling therapy showed a reduction in the plaque index, modified gingival scores, and total colony count of aerobic microorganisms in the plaque of adolescents with plaque-induced gingivitis.
(I can only post 2 links - so you can change the # to view two more studies)
also see 18408265
Oil pulling can be used as an effective preventive adjunct in maintaining and improving oral health.
another 21911944
Oil pulling therapy has been equally effective like chlorhexidine on halitosis and organisms, associated with halitosis.
EDIT:
How about this one? It ain’t the specific phytochemicals/esters doing the job - it seems to be natural saponification.
21525674
Mechanism of oil-pulling therapy - in vitro study.
RESULTS: Sesamin and sesamolin isolated from sesame oil did not have any antibacterial effect against oral microorganisms like Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus viridans. Emulsification of sesame oil occurs during oil-pulling therapy. Increased consumption of NaOH in titration is a definite indication of a possible saponification process.
CONCLUSION: The myth that the effect of oil-pulling therapy on oral health was just a placebo effect has been broken and there are clear indications of possible saponification and emulsification process, which enhances its mechanical cleaning action.
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I just posted three peer reviewed articles below. Your preconceptions are the only psuedoscience here.
I’m not saying that it has “no effect” but that it’s an inefficient use of time versus what people ought to be doing.
Please describe here, from the studies mentioned, the effectiveness of only “oil pulling” versus flossing, mouthwash, and brushing like is currently recommended. Hell, or even for fun as compared to the historical use of charcoal and a rag.
Otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time with your bizarre alt-med hipster preferences.
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For the record:
I have lived for long periods of time with and without fluoride in my water. I’ve had exactly one cavity (at three years old), sealants applied twice (as a teenager - 14 or so and again at 29 when I had access to a dental program via Portland State University). I’m also something of a lucky mutant- I still have a baby tooth in my mouth and never grew wisdom teeth.
I do not know if the water I drank as a child contained fluoride or not, but I did chew fluoride pills provided by my dentist. I was not allowed to participate in classroom fluoride rinses that happened after we moved when I was nine… we had groundwater there, with naturally-occurring fluoride. I drank it until I was 19 and moved to Portland.
Shortly before the move, I have my final trip to the dentist for 10 years. The cleaning, x-rays, flossing lecture… and then the dentist started asking me why I hadn’t had any cavities for so long as if I’m supposed to have them on a regular basis. I left frustrated and confused and unsure if my dentist knew what was best for my teeth.
Fluoride needs to be consumed at specific quantities for maximum benefit. Children absorb fluoride at much higher levels than adults do and sometimes end up with irreversible damage to their teeth (dental fluorosis, which occurs in 1/6 individuals at quantities of 1mg/L of water). In excessive quantities, it’s toxic.
Cavities are not the only reason why people need access to proper dental care, simply a part of the problem. Adding fluoride (or any other compound) to the water is a little strange but if we’re going to go that route, why not penicillin or vaccines? Let’s skip the water and have milk gush forth from our faucets instead!
Edit: I looked at those “studies”.
The first one was a review of “holistic” hygiene, which is not a “support” suggestion from the NIH?
The second one promised a comparison between mouthwash, but did not note the comparison in the abstracted results.
I swear, you junk-peddlers just link to things that match keywords, but never bother to read them.
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So you had fluoride applied to your teeth all your life, have great teeth, and can’t understand why people don’t see the brilliance of your appeals to ridicule.
One (unlikely) benefit could be that oil-pulling alters the gingival environment in a way that tilts the bacterial ecology in favor of non-corrosive species. But I’d have to see some persuasive statistical evidence.
Note that neither @sitaramdas nor the original blogger offer statements of fact – they offer their own experiences (anecdote) and citations of what they have been told, taught, or references they’ve seen (and note when not actually read).
I generally brush my teeth with a fluoride toothpaste. Because my dentist told me to. I have no idea how fluoride works.
The plural of anecdote is not fact. But that doesn’t mean we cannot be informed by properly framed anecdotes.
How does anybody get anything done in the day without anecdote? “Oh I heard that movie sucks. That’s a good restaurant. I’ve never had any luck finding a parking spot there. Their vacuum cleaners have an irritating whine. You should try this toothpaste. Her doctor is amazing!”
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Despite my generic defense above, I am suspicious of anything that promises to remove generic “toxins.” Always reminds me of those detox-footpads that turn dark brown because of their own chemical reactions…
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Ok, you called something pseudoscientific and @bigattichouse linked to several journal articles showing scientific studies showing some validity to the claim. Your name-calling now isn’t standing up for science, it’s just being a dick.
If you had read the article abstracts bigattichouse posted, you would see that (1) oil pulling was shown to be as effective as chlorhexidine mouthwash on a variety of measures, including counts of Streptococcus mutans, plaque index an gingival index scores; and (2) oil pulling was specifically claimed to be a good alternative to brushing when brushing was medically contraindicated.
I, too, was surprised to see journal articles on this, and I don’t plan on doing this gross-sounding thing any time now. But the correct response when someone shows you peer-reviewed scientific studies is to thank them and then engage at the scientific level (e.g. counter-studies), not to stick to your guns that it has to be pseudoscience. That isn’t the scientific method at all.
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i hear you, and i would be thrilled if someone with a lab was willing to test my sesame oil before and after i held it in my mouth for 21 minutes while mentally chanting mantras for health and prosperity.
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In the meantime, whatever floats your ayurvedic boat!
I tap the top of my soda cans before I open them. Science has shown I should tap the sides, to nigh-imperceptibly reduce the number of bubbles. But I still do it anyway!
Your first sentence is almost impossible to parse. As near as I can tell, you’re saying that it’s useless because it’s pseudoscientific, which is completely moronic. There are plenty of pseudosciencey things which are quite useful; for instance, I doubt most people bother to think about the physical chemistry of why soap works, and anyway it worked perfectly well even before modern chemistry was developed.
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If oil-pulling works, then it makes just as much sense that eating again works just as well, because that would also displace food lodged between one’s teeth with a whole new set of newer, cleaner food particles and some newer bacteria as well. Or, for that matter, water-pulling, except that it might not wreck biofilms quite as well - but nobody with a waterpik has complained, that I’ve heard…
It’s kind of like people who run around washing their hands in soap and water constantly. Bacteria are teeny weeny things. Water pressure is a big, heavy thing. They will go wherever you send them. Mostly, soap just adds a degreaser (skin dryer-outer), or a suponifier (skin wetterer) to the process. At least, if you use baking soda, it does a good job of rendering the liquids it mixes with more alkaline - that should wreck some biofilms and kill various bacteria pretty nicely.
Guess it just depends how many chemicals you want to flush down the sink, and how definitely dead the bacteria are when they also get there.
If fluoride works so well, though, why do so many old people still have osteoporosis and osteopenia?
Because osteoporosis and osteopenia are caused by having 70 year old bones that have been completely destroyed and rebuilt cell by cell 10 times using progressively older osteoclasts and osteoblasts that have increasingly frayed DNA. Not by having a deficiency of fluoride exposure.
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I don’t care if it’s the lightest most organic hemp oil harvested and roll-processed on the bodies of the purest blind virgins of the hindu kush valley, the idea of it leaking past my lips down my chin through my beard and OH GOD I HAVE TO STOP NOW
Is that pseudo-science (“because: humours are out of balance!”) or just unknown (“uh… aspirin lessens headaches… because… ???”).
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…my, what a nice, shiny glistening beard you have!
