Here is another special video message that I created last year to share core health wisdom with the world that got hundreds of Likes, shares and comments on Social Media.
In this video I share about the highly toxic micro-beads in toothpaste, that were banned in Canada and USA in 2016, so P&G stopped adding them to their Crest toothpaste there (knowing they were irritants and toxic) and started marketing them as Oral-B toothpaste in AU and NZ and other parts fo the world - see their Media release here
Our new PM Jacinda Ardern passed a new law to ban these plastic micro-beads in 2018, but that is still to take effect. Until then, this junk is marketed on TV in NZ/AU and sold everywhere including many dental clinics!
This is about our moral responsibility as humans to care for our fellow human beings, our local + global environment and thereby care for humanity at large.
I hope that you'll enjoy and share this message.
Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Dr. Hisham and I want to ask you a question: Do you seriously consider, think about or read the labels of what is in your toothpaste, and other oral care products?
Just as much as more and more people today are reading what’s in their food, what’s in their skin care, so many more women, of course men included here as well, care about exactly what’s in their skin care and the organic ingredients even what is called natural. They question it and they check it. They have so many options out there.
Yet so many people, in fact most people. including professionals and dentists like me never question, read or consider what’s in their toothpaste.
This is what I want to show to you today. One specific incident that brought this to mind that made me really want to do this video because somebody has got to speak up about this and not just say that I know it.
I haven’t use toothpaste or any kind of toothpaste for the last 16 years neither does my family, so it’s not about what I know- it’s about asking people do you know? And if you don’t, why don’t you find out before you put things inside your mouth for a lifetime?
The story goes; a couple of months ago a regular guest of ours who’s been coming for many years and always healthy called in. She actually has been using my products for a long time, everything was fantastic.
She calls in for an emergency that her gums are bleeding. Well, that’s not normal for her. We tell her to please come in as soon as possible. We saw her within a couple of days.
She comes in and says, “Suddenly the last few weeks my gums started to bleed when I am brushing my teeth, but also I have this purplish discolouration on my gum.”
Then, I go : “Well, before I look inside your mouth. If your gums are inflamed they usually bleed and when they are inflamed they look reddish-purplish, so the look matches the symptoms, but let’s see why it happened. Did you change your brushing habits? Did you change your eating habits? Because you’ve always been healthy.”
She said, “No, there’s nothing that I could think of.“
I look inside her mouth under the microscope as I always do, and it’s a very clean mouth as always, but yes I can see that purplish stain on parts of her gingiva.
When I touch them, they start to bleed and that’s strange for her. So, I increase the magnification and as I look closer and pick out these little purple/blue dots, with a red halo of obviously an inflammatory reaction forming around it.
I’m like, “That looks like little seeds but they are too small to be seeds. What’s this, do you know?”
She says: “I don’t know! I have never seen these things.”
She hasn’t looked up that close. They look like seeds, but they are too small to be seeds. “Could they be blueberries, or something stuck to your gums.”
“No, I can’t think of anything.”
Well, long story short. We went through all the questions and in the end I ask her: “What do you use to clean your mouth? Are you still using the serum that we’ve given you over the years?”
“I actually ran out when I was overseas. So, when I came back I just bought professional-grade toothpaste from the supermarket and started using that.”
First of all, there is no professional toothpaste in the supermarket. No matter how the packaging looks like. They’re just soap and detergents in tubes.
Anyway, that is not the point. So I said, “What is it? What colour is it? “
She said, “It’s like a gel but it has a bit of grit on it. Actually! It is a bit blue.”
“Really? Do you remember the name?”
She said,” Yes!”
I look it up online and I could see what’s happening !
“I think it’s the toothpaste. Here is some more serum start using that."
We polished all the bad stuff that’s stuck in her gums and gave her the Vital Serum. She went away and everything was fine.
So what did I do? I went to the supermarket and bought that toothpaste. And this is why I am here today; to show you not just to talk. When you see it, when you ask questions, when you think, and you decide for yourself, then you are more empowered.
This is that toothpaste; and I have covered the brand because I am not talking about the brand here. It’s just a type of toothpaste and it comes in a box like this that says; Pro-health Advance, deep clean, anti cavity, all these professional looking things on there.
It says: “with dissolving micro particles - The paste provides you a deep clean that fights plaques even in hard to reach places.”
Of course, in here like all toothpastes, it says apply onto soft bristles, brush thoroughly twice a day. Do not swallow. Not to be used by children under 12.
In case of intake of fluoride from other sources, consult a doctor or a dentist.
I don’t know what that means because fluoride is in everything; it’s in the water, in the food, it’s everywhere these days in countries that fluoridate their water supply.
Regardless of all this, it’s these dissolving particles I’m questioning. When I opened it up I noticed these; I don’t know if you can see it better under the sunshine. It’s very bright blue and very gritty particles.
Now the grit itself is one the reasons why I don’t use any toothpaste even the natural ones, because they all have abrasive grits in them like Calcium carbonate & Silica that’s a bad thing, but that’s all different discussion.
So the concern here is this blue particles, What the heck is the blue stuff?
I went back to the ingredients, other than the usual soaps and detergents and everything else. it says that it has ‘dissolving particles’. I put it in water and soaked up the soap scum and all the other abrasive here just with a tissue and you can see it clearly; they don’t dissolve in water!
Mind you it’s bad if they don’t dissolve and it’s much worst if they did dissolve!
It’s bad if they don’t dissolve, because it means they get stuck inside your body, inside your mouth, on your gums and all these things will get into the environment; these are plastic micro-beads.
And if they did dissolve that’s even worst, because if you read the ingredients and you know what they are. You will find out how horrible it is if they did dissolve.
So the ingredients are Glycerine, Silica abrasive, Propylene Glycol from Propylene Gas- a Petrochemical, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and so on, Saccharin, Fluoride all these things. I won’t discuss all these details.
Nothing about the blue stuff and at the end it says CI74160 – code, I don’t know what that meant and of course most people don’t know and that’s what they rely on. I looked it up and it is Copper Phthalocyanine –that’s an acrylic paint!
A bright blue plastic paint from Copper Cyanide & Dibromobenzene!
It’s got nothing to do with food. It has never been approved for any food ingredient. It is approved for plastic colouring, probably it’s in this packaging here to make it bright blue and that’s ok. I don’t have a problem with that at all. Painters use it for paint as an acrylic paint and it’s in plastics.
What is that got to do with the human mouth? Why is it there?
Copper Phthalocyanine coloured plastic beads to use every day, to ingest into your body and let it out into the environment?
I looked it up more and more and I found out that these micro-beads have recently been banned in the United States & Canada. I think 2 years ago. They’ve been banned over there, and they brought it to Australia and New Zealand as another brand of toothpaste!
It’s very interesting and very challenging really when I consider what’s going on in this world today because what we put in our bodies is what we become.
The mouth is absolutely the most important; it is the portal to your whole body, to your guts, to your health. What comes out of it, what goes on inside and what goes through your mouth, is all going to determine your health plus what we let out in the environment.
Why is this stuff put in our toothpaste and given to us and to our children to be consumed everyday?
Big question to ask but instead of challenging them, we as dentists, tend to accept all these freebies. By the way, we declined toothpaste samples in our practice for many years so that’s why I didn’t know about this.
When I spoke to colleagues, over the last few month since I realised this, during my courses, many said “Oh yeah we got that toothpaste as samples .We started giving it away but then we realised how gritty it is and we noticed these blue things in the gums as well. So we stopped.”
Did anyone speak publicly about this? Or are we just like “In my practice it is good that we are realizing these things and stop them only in our practices.”
Did we speak out and tell more people about this or are we just going to be quiet?
So I decided, well what have I got to lose?
I will just tell everyone about it, you do what you want to do, you think please for your self, for your family and for your best health.
Think, read and analyse if something is gritty and you put it on your teeth and it starts to grit like all so called ‘natural’ toothpastes and conventional toothpastes do. That is not a good thing - the grit itself.
Then the ingredients. Are they natural? What’s the source? However, the most important question is: are they natural in effect ?
Because that same Corporate for example, owns multiple brands. Again I’m covering the brand here because I am not going to mention the brand itself but you’ll know what I am talking about.
They sell a billion dollars a year of these lollies in supermarkets, of course in the Health section not in the lolly section and in pharmacies where it’s sold as a health supplement when you have a sore throat.
One of their brands is called Vapo Naturals; it’s got nothing to do with natural. That’s just a word that is there regardless of the source. There is no natural effect at all in this thing that says: “coats dry and itchy throat with honey”. When you read the ingredients, its clear and thankfully they can’t lie about the ingredients, but people don’t read that, they just look at this.
People trust the brand and they pay the money and then they get sicker. This is what you are supposed to have when you have a sore throat or infections or disease.
First ingredient is sugar; sucrose that’s glucose and sucrose together, second ingredient is glucose syrup - more sugar, third one is honey more fructose and then natural flavour, that’s it!
It’s a hyper sugar bomb that no doctor, no dentist would recommend. Even a voice coach would tell you do not eat sugar or consume sugar regularly or on the day of your performance because it dries up your throat.
It’s bad for your teeth, bad for your gums bad for your guts, it spikes you up. Everything is wrong with it. Yet, this is sold in the health section of the supermarkets and in pharmacies. Many people including doctors, dentists and everyone else that I know of use it all the time. That is horrible.
I don’t mind anything being made out there as long as people know what it is.
If you know that it is not good for you and you choose to use it that is called freedom of choice. However, if it is sold to you as good for you and healthy for you but it’s not that’s not right.
So if I say my products are natural, I say that because of the natural effect of my oral care products. I am not talking about the source of the ingredients only. I am mainly actually primarily talking about natural in effect to the human body, to the environment inside our mouths, to the environment outside of us that’s what matter.
In reality everything is natural, lead is a natural substance, mercury is a natural substance and cyanide is a natural substance. There is no argument about that, they are not just natural for the human body. So leave them where they are in nature or use them for industry or whatever but don’t use them inside the human body.
Please be careful & watch out for the word “natural” - ask what does it mean?
Read the ingredients, think, try test and find better options for you and for your family so you could always look better and feel better and be better.
Thank you.
Stop the #LeakyMouth #LeakyMouthSyndrome #LeakymouthDysfunction