Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

Still, there is no disguising that this is a dentist’s office where unpleasant dental procedures take place. You can put patchouli oil on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

Then again, maybe I should stop complaining. I just read an interesting and terrifying book called The Excruciating History of Dentistry. If you ever feel mopey about modern life—about how you can’t get Wi-Fi in the train station, say—pick up this book. I don’t have room to explain its horrible revelations, but consider these two facts: Dentists used to extract teeth with a large wrench while squeezing the writhing, unmedicated patient’s head between the legs. And ancient Roman dentists prescribed tying a frog to the jaw as a way to fix loose teeth. So in comparison, a dental spa is paradise.

The dental spa offers the usual delights—fillings and root canals—but I’m here to get a regular old cleaning. And also to try a new procedure, or at least new for me: teeth whitening. CNN ran a story on my in-progress health quest, and I went ahead and read the comments on the Internet about the report. You know, just in case I was feeling too happy or secure. Some were nice, but I’ve blocked those out. The only one I remember: “He has yellow teeth, and he’s trying to tell me how to be healthy?”

I wouldn’t call them yellow. I prefer butter, oatmeal, or calla lily, or something else more Benjamin Moore paint wheely. But the commenter had a point. So off I went.

The dental hygienist—a bald, pudgy man—squirts bleach on my teeth, paints my lips with petroleum jelly, and inserts a large, blue rubber Hannibal Lecterish mouthpiece. Then he pulls the UV-light blasting machine down and sticks it against my teeth. I look like I’m kissing a DustBuster.

He explains that the UV light will activate the bleach and give me glowing teeth.

“Ishn’t oo-vee light da-n-er-ous?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No, no. This UV light is not dangerous.”

He flips the switch, and the DustBuster starts humming. Forty-five minutes later, I look in the mirror. My teeth are definitely a few shades whiter. No one is going to mistake my mouth for an Antarctic snow drift, but they’re better than before.

When I get home, I Google the safety of UV-light tooth-whitening treatments. Sure enough, it’s not recommended. One study in a journal called Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences found that the treatments gave patients four times the radiation of sunbathing. Vanity can be dangerous.

String Theory and Practice

In the weeks preceding my dental spa appointment, I’d made several pilgrimages to a traditional, Western dentist and also interviewed an American Dental Association spokesperson. My question: How do I get the world’s healthiest teeth? The answer is threefold, two-thirds of which are disappointing.

Let me get those out of the way first. Brushing and flossing. You can’t avoid them.

Before this project, I’d flossed maybe three times in my life. I saw it as unnecessary, a bit show-offy. I brushed my teeth. Wasn’t that enough? Sadly not. You need to clean your tooth cracks of the aforementioned thousand types of bacteria before they migrate to the bloodstream.

I started sharing Julie’s Glide Comfort Plus floss. I do it each night before brushing (before is preferable, so that you can brush out the dislodged bacteria). Were you aware there’s controversy over flossing methods? One faction recommends pulling the string all the way through the crack between each tooth so you don’t cause damage when you tug the floss upward. I tried this. It took almost an extra scene of 30 Rock to get through. So I’ve gone back to the slacker up-and-down method.

It’s both amusing and depressing to me just how quickly I became self-righteous about my dental regimen. Only a month after I began flossing regularly, I had lunch with a friend who said she never stuck string between her teeth.

I looked at her dismissively. Then I heard myself saying: “How can you not floss?” Ah, the enthusiasm of the recent convert.

I also changed the way I brush. I got a soft toothbrush and pledged to scrub for two minutes. Two minutes! This is no small thing. Normally, I brush for twenty seconds. Two minutes requires Dalai Lama–level patience. It’s best if you do those two minutes using what’s called the modified Bass Method.

“Let me give you a lesson,” I said to Julie one night in front of the bathroom mirror.

“Don’t go up and down like you’re erasing a pencil mark. Start at the gum at a forty-five-degree angle, and push the brush down. Then lift the brush back up to the gum and do it again.”

She listened and tried it.

“Now, that was actually helpful,” she said.

“That’s nice to hear.”

“It’s weird to realize you’ve been doing something wrong for forty years.”

I know what she’s saying. Before this project, I never knew I was doing so many everyday tasks incorrectly: chewing, going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth. Am I yawning properly? Sneezing? High schools should offer a class called Really Basic Life Skills 101.

And now for the third, far more pleasant part of tooth care: chewing gum.

Several studies have indicated that chewing sugar-free gum after meals can help prevent tooth decay. This is especially true if the gum contains xylitol, a sweetener found in such brands as Ricochet, PowerBite, and some Trident products, because bacteria can’t break it down. The Nordic nations are far ahead of us on this one. In Finland, schoolchildren are encouraged to chew xylitol gum. There’s some evidence xylitol can help prevent ear infections in kids.

Chewing gum provided a double thrill—unconsciously, I felt like I was doing something wrong, thanks to years of antigum propaganda from my parents. But intellectually, I knew I was doing something right.

Checkup: Month 13

     Weight: 158

     Total miles walked while writing: 810

     Total hours spent watching Dr. Oz show: 156

     Years closer to death: 1 (I had my birthday).

     Sweet-potato fries stolen from my son’s plate at various brunches: 36

I’m plugging away at my