Do you have bleeding or receding gums? Sensitive teeth? Cavities?
First things first, let’s be clear: there’s no substitute for regular dental care.
If you have tartar buildup, that’s only coming out in a dentist’s office. You can’t brush it away, floss it away, or “healthy eat” it away. It takes specialized equipment to remove. For many, this is the true first step to a healthy mouth.
Having said that –– many people swear that drinking bone broth made a positive difference in their oral health.
And we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge it.
No, we’re not talking about sketchy social media posts or wild claims from random people.
Laya and I were intrigued by an article from Katie Wells (the founder of Wellness Mama) called How To Remineralize Teeth Naturally & Reverse Tooth Decay.
The article was medically reviewed by Dr. Lauren Jefferis, MD and Dr. Steven Lin, DDS. And it shows how Katie dealt with some concerning symptoms: her first cavity, soft spots, temperature sensitivity, and early stage gingivitis.
After a dental cleaning, Katie started following a nutritional protocol based on cutting out phytic acid (which leaches calcium and lowers mineral absorption) and increasing bioavailable vitamins and minerals in her diet.
She learned about this protocol from the popular book Cure Tooth Decay: Heal & Prevent Cavities With Nutrition which recommends drinking bone broth every day (among other changes, like eating organ meats.)
That made sense to us. A true slow-cooked broth gives you meaningful and bioavailable amounts of Calcium, Phosphorus, and Magnesium. Not to mention real, food-based Collagen as well as Sulfated GAGs like Hyaluronic Acid.
In a list of the four biggest changes she made, Katie said:
“I made an effort to consume a lot of homemade bone broth for its added minerals.”
A couple of months later, Katie said: “my teeth were whiter and much less cold” which was “big news to me as I used to have such sensitive teeth that drinking too cold of a drink could literally almost bring me to tears.”
What’s more, at her next appointment, the dentist said nothing about her cavity or soft spots and “remarked that my gums looked great.”
Yes, this is just one person’s story –– not scientific proof that bone broth will improve your oral health.
Still, there are a lot of people with stories like Katie’s.
And several studies show promising oral health results from nutrients found in Broth Masters (like Glycine, Collagen and Hyaluronic Acid.)
- One study in the Journal of Periodontal Research found that giving Glycine to rats with periodontal disease “significantly reduced periodontal bone loss.”
- Another study in Head & Face Medicine involved 14 human patients with recessed gums. Each person had Collagen implants fastened around the affected teeth with surgical thread for 2 weeks. 6 months later, after examining the patients, Dr Markus Schlee said: “In all cases the healed-over implant improved the look and severity of the recession, and, in over half of all treatments, resulted in total coverage of the exposed root. We would not have expected any of these patients to get better without surgery."
- If you have “black triangles” (gaps between teeth that aren’t filled by gum tissue) a study in the Journal of International Society of Preventive and Community Dentistry might be especially interesting. Researchers set out to “reconstruct the lost interdental papilla” of such patients by injecting Hyaluronic Acid into their gums. 3 months later the researchers compared before-and-after photos and said: “This technique resulted in significant gain in papillary volume and esthetic improvements were notable.”
There’s real optimism around Hyaluronic Acid as a treatment for periodontal disease in general, which another team of researchers summarized in their North American Journal of Medicine and Science review Hyaluronic Acid: A Boon in Periodontal Therapy.
As usual, we want to be realistic about what these studies do and don’t tell us. Collagen implants aren’t identical to dietary collagen. Getting direct injections of Hyaluronic Acid into your gums isn’t the same as drinking it in bone broth.
However, drinking Broth Masters bone broth as a natural dietary supplement falls in line with our belief in a functional medicines approach to healing with food:
While there’s never been an official study on drinking bone broth to improve oral health, it does contain the nutrients that have been shown to do so.
We share these stories and studies for those with interest in experimenting for themselves.
Each yummy batch is slow-simmered 48 hours with tons of veggies and shipped frozen as real, living food. Not pasteurized, not shelf stabilized, no added ingredients :)
You’re going to love every delicious golden drop! ❤️
Warmly,
-Dorothy & Laya