Dr. Michelle Coleman - Oil Pulling Revolution: The Natural Approach to Dental Care, Whole-Body Detoxification and Disease Prevention

Copyright 2015 Michelle Coleman. Design and concept copyright 2015 Ulysses Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized duplication in whole or in part or dissemination of this edition by any means (including but not limited to photocopying, electronic devices, digital versions, and the Internet) will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Published in the U.S. by

ULYSSES PRESS

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Berkeley, CA 94703

www.ulyssespress.com

ISBN: 978-1-61243-461-2

Library of Congress Control Number 2014952012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acquisitions Editor: Kelly Reed

Managing Editor: Claire Chun

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Indexer: Sayre Van Young

NOTE TO READERS: This book has been written and published strictly for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as medical advice or to be any form of medical treatment. You should always consult your physician before altering or changing any aspect of your medical treatment and/or undertaking a diet regimen, including the guidelines as described in this book. Do not stop or change any prescription medications without the guidance and advice of your physician. Any use of the information in this book is made on the readers good judgment after consulting with his or her physician and is the readers sole responsibility. This book is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition and is not a substitute for a physician.

This book is dedicated to all of the amazing doctors I have had the pleasure to know and work with and to all the beautiful people I feel honored to call my patients.

CONTENTS

Every day I am blessed with the pleasure of helping a bustling community in a thriving, affluent neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area live healthier and happier lives. My journey studying health has been a long one that started well before I earned a doctor of chiropractic degree in 2005 and advanced to become a platinum level nutrition practitioner in 2013.

As a child I suffered from frequent attacks of bronchitis, colds, and other respiratory illnesses. I never felt better taking traditional Western medicine and even at times suffered side effects that were worse than the reason for taking the medication. My quest to learn about health started when I was 11 years old, when I started reading Dr. Deepak Chopras works about Ayurvedic medicine and the mind, body, and spirit connection of healing.

I also started to incorporate proactive steps into my own life, like regular exercise and positive mental affirmations that made a huge shift in improving my health. I saw a chiropractor for checkups and learned that the brain and spinal cord communicate to every part of the body via the nerves. This greatly improved my health in many ways, one being a dramatic decrease in lung-related sicknesses.

Small changes to my diet made a huge impact on how I felt as well. In college I studied about the human body for a full 10 years; however, even into my doctorate program I kept reading about the mind, body, and spirit connection in Ayurvedic medicine. It was very real to me that all of these factors matter. I noticed that the weekly practices of yoga, Pilates, prayer, and walking greatly enhanced my energy. Shifting to a heavily plant-based, organic diet gave me even more energy. As time went on, I kept seeing my chiropractor then added an acupuncturist and holistic dentist to my team of health leaders.

Oil Pulling and Wellness

I started studying the work of Dr. Weston A. Price five years ago when I decided to expand the level of nutritional counseling services we offered in our clinic. Dr. Price was a dentist who had traveled the world and made profound discoveries in the field of nutrition and health. He went to remote societies and figured out that they have better health than more industrialized nations do, and that evidence of this is in their gleaming white teeth. He discovered that eating real foods and incorporating vegetables, animal fats, and protein are necessary to strengthen the health of each generation. Sugar, processed wheat, and manufactured starches are most certainly things that tear the body down, starting with oral health then traveling through the entire body. He found that people with diseased teeth subsequently have diseased bodies.

As a result of Dr. Prices influence I began eating a primarily vegetable and meat diet, incorporating some fruits and whole grains and lots of healthy fats. On this diet, I noticed the biggest leap in health I had ever experienced. The cold I would get a few times a year lessened in severity and duration and, at times, I would go almost a whole year without getting sick. Not yet sure of its full benefits, I added occasional oil pulling to my wellness regime. My dentist remarked that I could do my cleanings only once a year and, even then, there was hardly anything to clean. This is when my oil-pulling research really started.

Inspired by a seminar headed by Dr. Freddie Ulan, a well-known chiropractor and nutritionist out of Florida, whose work is frequently studied by many in my field, I had already been reading studies on different fats and how they affect the body. Dr. Ulans advice had been to use oils on scars to keep them from blocking the bodys energy flow.

Experience had shown me that certain oils used on the body do in fact help scar tissue on the skin to heal. At my wellness clinic, the acupuncturist and I often recommended the use of oil on certain scars for one to two months, after which our patients saw huge improvements in health. One patient started using sesame seed oil daily on a scar under her chin, and after 30 days she was sleeping better and suffered less from symptoms of hypothyroidism.

After reading article after article on sesame oils benefits to heart patients, I turned my attention to my own father, who has a long history of root canals. He was eventually diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. While there were some dietary reasons, including too much refined sugar, wheat, and processed dairy consumption that had led to the diabetes, the heart disease was a mystery to the doctors. There was zero family history of heart disease, and his diet had already been greatly improved at the time of the heart attack and subsequent heart disease diagnosis. I ran into PubMed articles about heart patients all having one common thing in common: a history of root canals or gum disease. In this book, well explore the undeniable connection between oral health and the body.

Dr. Weston A. Price was the pioneer that led me to this understanding. Dr. Deepak Chopra had led me to Ayurvedic medicine, which frequently applies fats to the body in a manner similar to what I had been doing under Dr. Freddie Ulans advice to keep the meridians flowing.

After finding that fats are equally important to oral health, I started oil pulling, or gargling with oil, and recommended my family and patients do the same. Here are some examples of how its helped them:

My dad had a flare-up of an old dental problem, so I gave him coconut oil, cinnamon, and clove. After oil pulling for a few days, his pain disappeared and his inflammation came down. I encouraged him to keep pulling for 20 minutes daily.

A former patient had osteonecrosis of the jaw, or destruction of the jaw via an autoimmune condition in the body. This was the result or side effect of using an osteoporosis drug many years before. I had her start oil pulling with coconut oil and a few drops of lemon oil. After a few days she, too, noticed the destruction slowing down and started to experience more comfort in her mouth.