Why We're Promoting Some New Gluten-Free Products

Dr. Johnson's office is promoting some new gluten-free products -- please stop by and ask! And we've gotten some questions about why a dentist, of all people, is interested in gluten intolerance.  The answer is technically complex, but sweetly simple to explain; people with gluten intolerance who eat gluten frequently have horrible dental health.

The Technically Complex Explanation
Gluten causes someone with celiac disease -- the 'technical' name for gluten intolerance -- to have an autoimmune 'tantrum' whenever they eat wheat.  This sudden flurry of autoimmune activity takes places entirely in the intestines, so there are no outward signs, but the results can be devastating.

1. The immune system attacks and kills the villi (the threadlike projections inside your intestines that rummage through your food and extract the nutrients from it) in an attempt to keep the gluten from being absorbed into the body.
2. With no villi, the intestines are unable to extract nutrients from your food properly. No matter how good your diet is, you simply cannot get the nutrients you need from your food.
3. When your body is low on nutrients for an extended period of time, it directs what nutrients it can glean toward the most critical-for-life organs: the heart, brain, lungs, and so forth. The teeth are not on the body's 'critical' list.
4. Over months of not getting any nutrients from the body, the teeth lose their ability to defend themselves from your normal oral bacteria, and you end up with cavities, gum disease, and more.

What Can The Dentist Do?
The nutrient deficiency caused by a person with celiac disease eating gluten for an extended time can be seen in many places other than the teeth -- they often have bad skin, bad hair, emotional or mental imbalances, and so forth -- but rarely can the evidence be seen more powerfully than inside the mouth. That makes your dentist one of the best people to warn you that you may be gluten intolerant -- and by a happy coincidence, the dentist is already prone to dispensing advice about diet and health matters. Drs. Johnson and Risbrudt's decision to carry and promote some gluten-free products is the result.