There are few things more revealing about a civilisation than what it does with its shoes. The Japanese remove them with the solemnity of a minor religious ceremony. Scandinavians abandon them at the door as naturally as they take off a coat. The British, however, tend to regard shoes as permanent anatomical attachments: things that […]
For years we’ve marched into the bathroom twice a day like obedient children, armed with toothbrushes, floss and enough mint to stun a horse, convinced that the purpose of oral hygiene was to wage war on germs. The advertisements showed armies of evil bacteria fleeing before a torrent of blue mouthwash as if the Normandy […]
This week I’m going to recommend something absurdly unfashionable. Kindness. Not the sort that’s photographed for social media, polished with a flattering filter and hashtagged into self-congratulation. The quiet sort. The anonymous sort. The kind that leaves no receipt except in somebody else’s memory. The one act that carries a healing power, itself a kind […]
Bruxism is the unglamorous habit of grinding your teeth, usually while asleep, when the subconscious takes the opportunity to express itself through the jaw. This condition affects almost 30% of the adult population. Human beings are remarkably inventive in finding new ways to worry. We no longer spend our nights listening for wolves or rival […]
Let us consider ageing from the other end of the telescope. Not as a statistic or a social issue, but as a destination. Your destination. Mine too, when we’re fortunate enough to reach it. Twice this week I was made aware of age becoming invisible. The first encounter took place in a supermarket. An elderly […]
Oral health • Natural medicine • The future of the practice The dentist’s chair is the most reliably terrifying seat in civilian life. There is a particular kind of dread that belongs exclusively to the dental waiting room. The laminated leaflets. The faint chemical reek of someone else’s anxiety. The receptionist who smiles at you […]
There are truths so obvious that only modernity can mislay them. One is that light matters. Not metaphorical light, not the sort lifestyle coaches prattle about, but actual sunlight: the old, vulgar, democratic blaze that rises every morning and asks nothing of us except that we step outside. Richard J. Wurtman, a nutritionist at the […]
It is, without question, the most deliciously subversive plot twist of modern health lore. You know the sermon by heart. Free radicals, those chemically feral louts, reactive oxygen species, rampage through the body like stag-do yobs in a provincial hotel, trashing lipids, mugging DNA, upsetting the furniture. And we, eager for redemption, dutifully chew our […]
For over 7,000 years, people had perfect mouths, until 1986 when the WHO officially recommended that people do not chew on sticks. It wasn’t a joke! In clinical trials these “miswak sticks” outperformed toothbrushes. A preventive health researcher spent two years asking why ancient peoples had 0.09% cavities while modern man had 92%. There are […]
Essential oils were doing their quiet, leafy work centuries before antibiotics swaggered in with their white coats and miracle promises. These plant brews, distilled forests really, can unsettle microbes without teaching them new tricks, which is a rare courtesy in a bacterial world addicted to adaptation. In integrative dentistry and medicine, the ambition isn’t a […]
