🦷 You brush your teeth—but are you brushing for your heart?

A peer-reviewed study just confirmed something we’ve known in functional dentistry for years:

The inflammation in your mouth doesn’t stay there.

It travels.

The sulcular epithelium separating your gums from your capillary-rich connective tissue is extremely thin—less than 0.3 mm in healthy gums. Inflammation makes it even more permeable, meaning the bacteria and inflammatory byproducts in your mouth can sneak into circulation and silently ignite inflammation anywhere in your body—your heart, your brain, even your joints.

This isn’t about plaque or fresh breath. This is about protecting your life from chronic inflammation—and it starts with how you care for your mouth.

A Quick Recap of the Study:

Published in Scientific Reports, this peer-reviewed study followed 1,675 patients over 3 years and found:

• Those who brushed only in the morning had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease
• The strongest protective association in the study was observed with consistent nighttime brushing.
• The likely mechanism? Oral dysbiosis and periodontal inflammation are thought to contribute to systemic inflammation by elevating cytokine levels (like IL-6 and TNF-alpha), which in turn increase CRP. Bacterial endotoxins may also enter circulation via damaged gingival tissue.

If you’re not brushing before bed, you could be accidentally fueling the very inflammation you’re trying to reduce.

Here’s what I use and recommend daily to keep oral inflammation down and systemic health protected:

✅ Electric Toothbrush

• Helps prevent overbrushing (which also contributes to gum recession and inflammation)
• These two are the ones I recommend

✅ The Right Toothpaste Toothpaste

• Use an oral microbiome supporting, prebiotic, nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste to rebuild enamel without fluoride or toxins
• Make sure your toothpaste is free from  SLS and emulsifiers and surfactants that disrupt your oral microbiome
• You can see my DIY recipe here to make your own at home, or use Fygg which I created after years of trying and failing to convince toothpaste manufacturers to create an oral microbiome friendly formula.

✅ Stainless Steel Tongue Scraper

• Up to 90% of oral bacteria live on your tongue
• Scraping daily removes a major source of inflammation
• Any of these on Amazon will do the trick, or this one with a travel pouch from Fygg 

✅ A High Quality Magnesium Supplement

• Magnesium is a natural inflammation regulator that helps lower CRP
• It’s critical for over 300 processes in the body—especially sleep and cardiovascular health
• Make sure to get one with more than just one or two types of magnesium —THIS one is the best that I’ve found.

✅ The CRP Letter

• Most doctors and dentists never talk to each other. That disconnect puts your health at risk—because inflammation doesn’t stay in one part of the body.
• You can’t manage what you don’t measure. If inflammation is the link between your mouth and your heart, wouldn’t you want to know how inflamed your body actually is?
• This CRP Letter is a free resource I designed many years ago, and has since be downloaded tens of thousands of times, and even adapted by the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)

✅ Floss

• This is critical for reducing gum inflammation and preventing periodontal disease.

✅ Get professional cleanings at least twice a year.

• Even with perfect brushing, plaque hardens into tartar, which only a hygienist can remove.

✅ Ask your dentist for a periodontal evaluation—especially if your gums bleed, recede, or feel tender.

• Many people have early-stage gum disease (gingivitis) without knowing it.

Inflammation is the common thread behind heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and autoimmune disease. And the mouth is a major source of inflammation. We have to start acting like it!

P.S. Which study would you like me to do a deep dive on next?