Another Cavity Healing Diet Update; Another Liver Recipe

It's been a year since I started the cavity healing diet. Last week, I went back to the dentist for a routine cleaning and exam. Results:

Dr. Michelangelo (not his real name) still wanted to fill the small cavities he found last year. I had this done today. I don't think the fillings will hurt anything, and having them should prevent crud from finding a place to settle for the day. And I don't think he's given to drilling and filling for the sake of it: he never gave my best friend a filling while he was her dentist, and back in February when one of my wisdom teeth hurt, he said the tooth was fine and diagnosed a sinus infection. (Infection can raise your blood sugar, which probably didn't help my teeth over the last six months.)
After he was finished, Dr. Michelangelo said the cavity had probably been forming for years.I know the groove on my lower tooth was there for years.
He remarked that how white my teeth were, down to the roots (he used A2 colored fillings for my upper teeth; it looks dark against the white background, but it's a light tooth color). Even before I started the cavity healing diet, they started getting whiter.
Both the dentist and one of his hygienists recommended avoiding sugar and starch. They all but came out and said "Atkins!" They also recommended a Sonicare electric toothbrush. I replaced my broken one last weekend and was pleasantly surprised that starting it again didn't hurt my gums as it did years ago when I first got one. (My experience is that it also makes your teeth whiter.)

On one hand, some small cavities did continue to form (but stayed small) while on the cavity healing diet. OTOH, since starting a LC diet, my teeth are whiter than before, my TMJ problems and tooth grinding are gone, my teeth and gums aren't very sensitive (something Dr. M. remarked on the last time) and no new cavities have formed in the past year. While I haven't had perfect results, there's been a lot of improvement.

Dr. Michelangelo and I started talking about diet (I mentioned Drs. Price and Mellanby). He told me how he fixed liver, and I made a variation on it tonight.

Liver Curry
1/4 pound of liver
1 T coconut oil
1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 c coconut milk
1 T tomato paste
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t curry powder

Heat the coconut oil on medium low heat. Cook the liver for five to ten minutes, just until it's no longer bloody. Place on a plate. Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add the coconut milk and tomato paste; stir well, and bring to medium heat. Add the spices, stir well, let simmer for a few minutes and spoon over the liver. Serves one.

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Decongestant Ineffective; Vibration Plate Works

A common ingredient in many cold medicines has been shown so ineffective that the FDA recently proposed taking it off the market. The ingredient, phenylephrine, "failed to outperform placebo pills in patients with cold and allergy congestion," say researchers from the University of Florida. "The same researchers also challenged the drug's effectiveness in 2007, but the FDA allowed the products to remain on the market pending additional research," according to CNBC . Mostly placebos. Photo from Pixabay . I can attest that phenylephrine doesn't work. Before I stopped eating wheat, I constantly had nasal and sinus congestion. I helped keep Sudafed in business when the active ingredient was pseudoephedrine, but I noticed the PE (phenylephrine) variety didn't work at all. The only other decongestants I've found helpful are guaifenesin (Mucinex) and spicy food. Mucinex is expensive because it works! (The cheaper store brands work just as well, though.) Su

Paleo Diet: Eating Differently from Everyone Else is Fine!

I've been seeing more and more articles by women (it's always women) whose heads have exploded trying to figure out life without yogurt and cupcakes. Oh, the shenanigans they get up to: bathroom problems from stuffing themselves with vegetables, paleo baked goods that don't taste the same as ones from the bakery, and especially the irresistible urge to eat "normally." The technical problems aren't hard to sort out: substitutes like baked goods will taste different because they are different, but an adjustment period of a few months will make those foods taste normal. And whatever you eat, don't stuff yourself. First, though, read a book by Loren Cordain or Mark Sisson to learn about the paleo diet before diving in. The articles I keep reading, though, have more to do with attitude: the urge to be exactly like everybody else or the urge to be helpless. If you're in the second category, I can't, by definition, help you. If you'd rather be Lu

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder .

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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