Taking supplements can be a great way to ensure good oral health in addition to your usual oral hygiene habits. While it’s always best to get your nutrients from whole foods, supplements can help fill in any gaps in your diet and provide additional benefits.
Here are some supplements that may improve oral health:
- Vitamin D: plays an important role in oral health by helping your body absorb calcium and phosphorus, which are essential for healthy teeth and bones.
- Calcium: helps form and maintain strong bones and teeth.
- Vitamin C: helps prevent gum disease by strengthening blood vessels and reducing inflammation.
- Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10): helps reduce inflammation in the mouth and may help treat gum disease.
- Probiotics: may help reduce inflammation in the mouth and improve oral health.
You can get these vitamins naturally from foods such as milk, cheese, yogurt, leafy greens, citrus fruits, berries, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, nuts, seeds, and fatty fish.
Incorporating these supplements into your diet can help improve your oral health and overall well-being.
You should also look at adding more vitamin K2 foods to your diet as they can benefit your oral and dental health in the following ways:
1) Builds New Dentin
K2 activates osteocalcin, which then encourages new dentin (the calcified tissue under the tooth’s enamel) to grow. Working synergistically with vitamins A and D, this creation of dentin results in fewer cavities.
2) Slows Tooth Degradation
Because it directs calcium where it’s supposed to go—out of the bloodstream and into the teeth and bones—most experts agree that K2 can slow down the loss of tooth and bone mass that usually comes with age. In fact, vitamin K2 can actually increase bone mass.
3) Leads to Normal Facial Structure
Vitamin K2 may be particularly important for the development of the bones and structure of the face. Although the severe version of this, known as maxillonasal dysplasia or “Binder’s syndrome,” is rare.
The lack of K2 in most mothers’ diets may lead to more frequent needs for braces and other oral interventions in children. Ensuring activation of all the K2-dependent proteins might be the most important step we can take to safeguard the smiles of our children and grandchildren.
4) Kills Cavity-Causing Bacteria
The salivary glands are the third-largest storage space for vitamin K2 in the body, after the bones and pancreas.
Disruptions in the oral microbiome play a major part in cavity formation, so keeping bad bacteria in check by ensuring adequate K2 consumption may lead to fewer cavities.
5) Supports Total Body Health
We are firm believers that what happens in the mouth happens in the body. It’s not surprising, then, that vitamin K2 isn’t just good for your teeth—it can support health and wellness throughout the body.
Research has documented vitamin K2’s role in treating or preventing the following conditions:
- Heart disease (vitamin K2 is the only nutrient that not only protects from heart disease but can actually reverse the build-up of arterial plaque)
- Osteoporosis
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Diabetes
- Varicose veins/thrombosis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Cancer
- Kidney disease
- Infertility
K2 Deficiency Signs and Symptoms
Although K2-specific blood tests are not yet available in most medical practices, there are some common signs and symptoms that may point to a vitamin K2 deficiency.
These include:
- You are a vegan and don’t eat natto or other vitamin K2 foods
- Experience plaque build-up in arteries
- Develop kidney stones
- Frequently get cavities
- Required braces as a child
- Are insulin resistant
- Often break or fracture your bones
- Varicose veins
Top Vitamin K2 Foods
By consuming the following vitamin K2 foods, you can easily increase your levels of this important nutrient and better support tooth remineralization, while also preventing cavities. In 3.5-ounce portions, the highest vitamin K2 foods are:
- Natto—1103.4 micrograms
- Goose liver pate—369 micrograms
- Hard cheeses—76.3 micrograms
- Soft cheeses—56.5 micrograms
- Goose leg—31 micrograms
- Egg yolk—15.5 micrograms
- Butter—15 micrograms
- Chicken liver (raw)—14.1 micrograms
- Chicken liver (pan-fried)—12.6 micrograms
- Cheddar cheese—10.2 micrograms
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