The health benefits associated with resistance training are not under debate and include decreased gastrointestinal transit time, reduced risk of colon cancer, increased resting metabolic rate, improved glucose metabolism, improved blood-lipid profiles, reduced resting blood pressure, improved bone mineral density, pain, and discomfort reduction for those suffering from arthritis, decreased lower back pain, enhanced flexibility, and improved aerobic capacity. What has been under debate is how to do it best. 1 The American College of Sports Medicine, long considered the expert in resistance training, has dispensed poor advice over the years, largely unsupported by rigorous science.

In 2011, researchers used existing studies that employed rigorous science to more fully understand how we should work out. They included intensity, the number of repetitions, the length of training sessions, the volume of work, whether core exercises were as important as we think, the speed of repetitions, rest time between sets, and whether free weights are better than machines. Their findings might surprise you.

The Five Most Common Micronutrient Deficiencies and How to Avoid Them

Micronutrients are the smaller building blocks, such as minerals and vitamins, we need to sustain life and have optimal function. Micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs) are quite common worldwide. Iron, iodine, folate, vitamin A, and zinc deficiencies are the most common MNDs. They are responsible for perinatal complications, poor growth in children, and increased mortality and morbidity. 1 They can be just as devastating to adults. This post will describe the deficiencies, their symptoms, and how to correct them.

Earthing: The Simplest Health Booster Available

All animals, including humans, evolved to contact the Earth. We mostly walked barefoot or with footwear made of animal skins and slept on the ground or skins. Humans routinely do not touch the Earth anymore due to shoes with synthetic soles, modern homes, and beds. Insulating ourselves from contact with the Earth has had negative health consequences that few are aware of, including health care providers. Have you ever noticed that you feel better after a barefoot day at the pool or beach? It isn't just the sun and fresh air that is responsible. The contact with the Earth is too. This post will cover the numerous health benefits of routinely contacting the Earth's surface, a practice called Earthing or grounding.

Beware of Dentures

It may surprise you, but I would not wish a denture on my worst enemy. This may seem hyperbolic, but it is accurate-I wish good health over less-than-perfect treatment for everyone. I make them, but I warn patients that as much as they can replace teeth and improve appearances and chewing, they have many pitfalls. I warn patients that they may appreciate appearing as if they have all of their teeth, but there will be a host of problems with them. In short, the best dentures in the world will still have numerous problems; they may marginally function as natural teeth. This post covers the good, bad, and ugly of dentures.

The Incredible Human Part Five: Toothpick Use

Welcome to part five. The use of toothpicks is uniquely human. The famous dental anthropologist Peter Unger discovered tiny striations in teeth that could not be caused by chewing. He concluded that the marks could only have been caused by the overuse of toothpicks made of hard materials like bone. He also drew a parallel between tool use and the introduction of meat to humans' diets. Ungar said toothpick use is one of the first lines of evidence from the hominid fossil record that shows our genus consuming significant amounts of meat in the ancient past. Tooth picking likely served to remove food, especially meat, but it caused visible damage. To quote him, "Teeth are not well designed for eating meat, so our early ancestors had to use toothpicks." This post will cover the evidence and discuss the proper use of toothpicks.

The connection between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vitamin D status has been known for some time. A 2015 review of the literature concluded that being deficient in vitamin D presented a 21% greater chance of developing Alzheimer's compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D above 50 nmol/L. Researchers at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada and the University of Exeter in England explored the relationship between vitamin D supplementation and dementia in more than 12,388 subjects. They found that subjects who had a history of vitamin D supplementation were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The results are exaggerated due to normal statistical trickery, but there is still a strong correlation. I will break the study down and explain the real results. I will also give my two cents on whether you should supplement.

Our Fat Cells Think We Are Carnivores!

The carnivore diet is based on eating animal-based foods as much as possible. In some of my previous posts, I have listed supporting evidence that we tolerate animal-based foods well. Our highly acidic stomachs, longer small intestines, and lack of a cecum are a few patterns we share with carnivorous-leaning mammals. Additionally, fat cells have two patterns: one indicating herbivory and one carnivory. It turns out that humans have the carnivorous pattern.

The Downside of Bedrest (PS. I love You Dad)

My father had been hospitalized several times recently and lost significant leg strength. Lately, he was put on hospice due to heart failure, and his legs ceased to be of any use after about two weeks. After living a great life, he sadly passed on March first, 2023, at 93, three days before his 94th birthday. He had a massive heart attack when he was about 52. His heart was so damaged they gave him poor odds of survival. They told him he would die young, even if he survived the next few weeks. They told him not to exert himself. He complied initially but then started lifting weights and walking. He regained his youthful vitality, which kept him alive for the next 42 years. One of his last lessons was about being confined to bed and its many downsides, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. This post is dedicated to him.

Diet, Functional Medicine, General Health, MovementScott Solomons, DDSMarch 6, 2023Bedrest, Sedentary, Sarcopenia, metabolism, DiabetesComment

What Is Root Resorption?

A strange phenomenon can happen to patients when tooth structure disappears without decay present. The roots of teeth are the most common area affected. The term resorption is used in such instances. There are two main types of resorption; internal and external. Because internal resorption occurs inside the teeth and external resorption happens mostly on roots, detection without radiographs (x-rays) is difficult. Surprisingly, the process often happens without pain, and most patients are unaware it is happening. The process can result in tooth loss, so early diagnosis and treatment are critical. This post will cover how tooth and root resorption are diagnosed and treated.

Moderation Versus Optimization

As part of patient care, I have conversations about the introduction of processed grains to our diets about 10,000 years ago and all the detrimental effects that came with it; tooth decay, gum disease, stunted growth, etc. I also discuss the introduction of industrially processed seed oils like corn, canola, and soy and their connection to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, inflammation, and more. A frequent response I hear is the phrase, "everything in moderation." I am unsure what they mean, and I wonder if they do either. I believe seeking moderation has risks. I suggest optimizing as a better approach to health. This post will cover the difference between the two and seven things we should optimize for health.

How Poor Dietary Advice Failed My Father

My father is almost 94. When he was in his early 50s, he had a massive heart attack and has had heart problems since that time, including heart failure. Sadly, he followed all of the advice to avoid heart attacks but still had a few. I will explain some of the reasons in this post.

Telluride Pediatric Conference PowerPoint Presentation

This post contains the slides for my presentation at The Southwestern Society of Pediatric Dentistry. It is intended for the attendees, but all are welcome to view it and share it. Enjoy.

Is Obesity a Genetically Induced Brain Disease?

You may have heard that a piece on the TV program called 60 Minutes recently sparked some controversy. A doctor stated that obesity is a brain disease, and the largest contributor to obesity is genetics. To quote her, "That means if you were born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50-85% likelihood of having the disease yourself even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, [and] stress management..." She tells us that lifestyle won't make a difference for genetically flawed people.

The 60 Minutes Program then segues into the new weight-reducing medications, stressing how effective they are, potentially leaving the audience with four takeaways: 1) Obesity is a brain disease. 2) Obesity is genetic 3) Lifestyle changes won't work for the genetically flawed. and 4) Drugs are better than lifestyle changes, especially for the genetically flawed. This post will address these issues and more.

The Ice Age and How it Shaped Human Evolution

Evolution takes place because we successfully adapt to changes in our environments over vast amounts of time, leading to the false belief that evolution occurs only when the environmental change is stable over time so that the adaptive changes can take hold and the species can flourish. After all, if the adaptative pressure goes in one direction and then reverses course, the adaptive changes might never happen or become maladaptive and cause extinction. But the climatic record during human evolution has been extremely variable, especially in the recent past, so it does not support the idea that environmental stability produced our adaptation. This post will discuss the accepted definition of ice ages, glaciations, interglacials, and their effect on human evolution.

The Intriguing World of Pottenger's Cats

Francis Pottinger jr. MD is one of those names we all should know. Sadly, few do. He experimented with Cats for ten years, from 1932 to 1942. His research and findings are now known as the Pottenger Cat Study. I will get into the amazing findings of his work and their dire implications for us later in this post, but his work was one of the first to look at epigenetics, although that term was unknown to him. Additionally, he paralleled the changes he saw in his malnourished cats to humans, which I will also cover today.

A Primer on Dental Local Anesthetics

I use local anesthetics every single day at work without fail. Even most of my ardent holistic patients who shun "chemicals" don't object to its use. The reasons are clear. Their use is generally very safe, and most people don't want to risk feeling dental pain, which can be intense. This post will cover what local anesthetics are, what they do, the side effects, and the risks of their use.

The Vitamin D, Statin, and Cholesterol Paradox

The major precursor of vitamin D is cholesterol. Without cholesterol, we cannot make it. Some people may find this shocking because vitamin D is highly praised, while cholesterol is demonized. Since vitamin D and cholesterol are so closely related, they have an interesting interplay. Statin drugs, which lower cholesterol, also take part in the interplay. The enzyme statins block is active at step two, so we would expect less production of all molecules in the cholesterol pathway, like CoQ10. Statins should block vitamin D production, but they don’t. Statins are supposed to lower your risk of heart disease. But by how much? You may be surprised by the answer. This post will cover the synthesis of cholesterol, vitamin D, and Co Q10 and discuss how statins alter the pathways.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Why Sucking Air Sucks

Poor sleep is often caused by poor breathing, which, in turn, is often caused by poor jaw development. In 2016, the American Heart Association released a "scientific statement" on the connection between poor sleep and heart disease; you can find it here. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine states that severe sleep apnea doubles one's chance of dying from heart disease. I have spoken at length about the connection between facial development and obstructive sleep apnea before. In my post today, I am going to focus on the pressure changes to the body that sleep apnea causes and their consequences.

Hooray For Airway Palooza!

People with properly developed faces will always have straight teeth, room for wisdom teeth, and superior beauty. Sadly, most of us have some level of crowding and lack of jaw space for wisdom teeth today, meaning almost all of us to have deficient jaws. Since most of us have underdeveloped faces, this epidemic has gone primarily unnoticed by us, including most physicians and dentists. This needs to change because it is one of the major contributing factors to many, if not most, of our modern health problems; most of which originate in poor breathing from small airways.

I am writing this post as I fly back home from an amazing conference called Airway Palooza. I want to share some pearls of wisdom that can help you recognize if you have an airway problem and ways it can be addressed.

History Repeating Its Worst Mistake with Help from Our Government

Jared Diamond wrote a famous essay in 1999 called The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. He was referring to the mistake of our transition to agriculture and the production of grain flour. By 1941, the Committee on Food and Nutrition recommended that flour be fortified with nutrients to help combat widespread malnutrition in areas where the American population relied on flour-rich foods. This led to white bread and flour, pasta, and rice being enriched with thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and iron. Then, in the 1970s, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs made grains the basis of our diets. This post tells the story about our tragic switch to grains when agriculture was invented, the health costs, the realization of their poor quality in the 1930s, and, strangely, their illogical placement in the food pyramid as the basis of most of the calories in the American diet.