what makes teeth white and will supporting the oral microbiome make our teeth whiter yeah and by the way there are some folks out there whose teeth need to be less white in my opinion agree totally agree now we're being somewhat facetious but not really um but i think most people would like to have teeth that are uh would be uh characterized as mostly white yeah we want to look good i mean i appreciate and respect that i do think we've moved a little away from reality with some of that so i agree with you i think there's there are um teeth out there that could could not be quite so bright but you do you i think everyone should do what makes them happy so what makes teeth white so interestingly if you look at a baby tooth next to an adult tooth and i get this call all of the time from parents so the child loses their first baby tooth the adult tooth starts to come in and adult teeth are quite a bit darker than baby teeth which are very white and bright and they're worried what's wrong with my child's teeth they're so yellow that's actually a very natural shade of enamel and why is that it all has to do with that crystalline structure in the mineralization so baby teeth are less mineralized and the crystalline structure is a little more haphazardly arranged it's not quite as organized so instead of like lincoln logs lined up it's more like pickup sticks to some degree why is that baby teeth are meant to resorb dissolve and fall out okay so this is why baby teeth are also much more susceptible to decay so the whiteness is coming how the light reflects and refracts off the teeth which is a lot of times while you why you hear if you use hydroxyapatite or even coconut oil is changing the surface surface modification so it's changing the way light reflects and refracts off that tooth to make it seem whiter and brighter now certainly with adult teeth if you're using bleaching agents you know hydrogen peroxide or um carbon mine peroxide some of the stronger bleaching that's actually penetrating into the tooth and changing the structure pulling out stain do people do that they gargle with hydrogen peroxide well they do bleaching trays essentially um i don't well people will rinse with hydrogen peroxide yes and it will make your teeth brighter and whiter but i'm telling you it's going to do a number on your oral microbiome so i suggest it very in a very limited fashion the only time i ever had a bad canker sore was because i gargled with um 50 water 50 hydro hydrogen peroxide because an acupuncturist recommended it i he looked at my tongue and then he said you should do that you know and then i did that and then you know four or five days later i had this like you know nickel sized canker sore on the roof of my mouth and i was like oh and um i will say and i have no product affiliation whatsoever but um to any any specific products by but by switching to hydroxyapatite containing toothpaste my teeth they definitely have gotten whiter i drink a lot of yeah yerba mate and coffee and um and i brush but that that was it it was it was sort of a progressive issue of my teeth dimming um so that's been been great i also used to get cavities fairly often when i was a kid we i'll talk about that a little bit later um but since switching to hydroxyapatite toothpaste i've had like stellar um dental reviews assuming my dentist is looking carefully i believe he is but we'll see and to me it just makes so much more sense like give teeth the mineral that they normally use to re mineralize um it just makes sense like it's biomimetic it depends on how you look at life i think i prefer biomimetic materials personally it's again it's a personal choice but i agree with you my patients who have switched to hydroxyapatite and i'd like to point out not all hydroxyapatite toothpaste are the same it depends on sourcing and the other ingredients that are in there but generally speaking their teeth look healthier stronger whiter and brighter they're they just look more nourished more hydrated their microbiomes look more balanced too you're talking about kids and the fact that sometimes if their teeth are a little bit yellow that's normal one thing um that i've been really struck by as the discussion around longevity seems more and more prominent these days is um occasionally i'll run into somebody who's in their 70s or 80s um even 90s and it's very rare to encounter somebody in their 80s or 90s whose teeth are not like the color of this tea and for those that are listening it's like a very dark brown um i've never seen somebody unless they're doing something highly artificial with bleaching um i've never seen somebody 75 or older whose teeth aren't basically yellow to brown darker and when you look at people when they're very close to death their teeth often look uh very opaque uh what is that is that a blood flow issue is it um what's going on there yeah it can be a zero stoma dry mouth so we definitely lose salivary capabilities as we age very likely more mouth breathing so mouth breathers will tend to have darker teeth because the teeth desiccate they dry out and over time you will experience mineral loss um decades and decades of coffee tea wine will do it too well i don't drink the wine but i'm definitely coffee tea since i was a little kid i've been drinking bata since i was like five it's good yeah it's delicious yeah gotta live life yeah but um yeah and so they're and they they're losing minerals too you know over time your teeth take a beating i mean they're we're living to be a hundred now that's a long time to maintain this non-shedding surface in our body you know so um and then it depends on the generation too but some some generations especially as you mentioned 70s 80s i'd wonder about tetracycline exposures when there's certain antibiotics that we don't use anymore that can um were known to darken the teeth which is why they pulled them from common prescription which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth which is why they're living to darken the teeth