Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.

Dr. Gundry (00:13):
Let’s talk about seafood. If you eat it like my wife and I do once or twice per week, I cannot say this enough, please, please, please avoid farmed raised fish at all costs, even if it’s sustainably or organically farmed. Why is this so imperative for your health? As I always say you are what your food eat, and farm fish are fed in inflammatory omega-6 fat diet, filled with harmful lectins like soy and corn. Long story short, eating farm fish is downright harmful to you and your family.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying avoid seafood. In fact, seafood is part of a healthy diet rich in key nutrients, like long chain omega-3 fatty acids and phospholipids. But in order to ensure you’re eating nutrient rich seafood without hormones or toxins and the wrong fats, it needs to be wild caught. That’s why I really appreciate Wild Alaskan Seafood Box and their commitment to providing only the very best wild caught fish for their customers. You see, the company works with small boat fishermen to deliver the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious Alaskan seafood, right to your door every single month.
They offer three different boxes, the salmon box, the white fish box, or the red and white combo, which is the one I order. Plus a customized box, you can change it anytime, and right now, you can try it yourself and get $25 off your first month’s box and get free scallops for life, when you use code DrGundry, all one word at checkout, just go to wildalaskanseafoodbox.com. Again, that’s wildalaskanseafoodbox.com and use code DrGundry. D-R-G-U-N-D-R-Y, and get $25 off your first month’s box and free scallops for life.
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. You know these days a lot of people are wondering about maintaining the health of their immune system. If you’ve been listening to my special episodes on the coronavirus, then you probably heard me talk about the importance of your gut microbiome. But one thing I didn’t talk about is the importance of the bacteria living in your mouth. That’s right, healthy dental hygiene can actually play a huge role in the health of your immune system. My guest today is going to tell you all about it. Nadine Artemis is the author of Renegade Beauty and Holistic Dental Care, The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums.
On today’s episode, she and I are going to discuss what to look for in your toothpaste, how to floss properly and how taking care of your teeth can help keep your immune system strong, perfect for this time of the year and really going forward. Nadine, it’s great to have you on the show.

Nadine Artemis (03:08):
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Dr. Gundry (03:10):
Okay. So, here’s the big question that everybody who’s just tuned in is going, “What does our oral health have to do with the health of the rest of our body?” Come on, Nadine.

Nadine Artemis (03:23):
Well, as I’m sure we all know the mouth is a principal portal into the body and it helps us assimilate our world, it’s a portal, though, where everything’s at play. As I know, you’ve educated everybody so well on the gut microbiome. What we also need to know is that there’s an oral microbiome, and the two microbiomes, the oral and the digestive, the gut microbiome are inextricably bound. To have a healthy gut is to have a healthy mouth and vice versa. So, we really want to understand how that first port of entry into our body is a part of our immune system and how just some really simple switches to what we’re doing daily can really boost the health of our mouth.

Dr. Gundry (04:14):
So, there’s also been a lot of talk about the connection between mouth health and brain health. I guess the mouth is right next to the brain, right?

Nadine Artemis (04:27):
Yeah, it’s right next to the brain, and of course, it’s also connected through the lymphatic system, through the vagus nerve, which is a super highway for the microbiome communication and all of that, but yes, definitely our mouths are so closely connected to the brain. One of the main things is that, just like we have leaky guts where through eating poor diet or these chemical irritants that we happen to eat or lectins or gluten, how that can create microscopic perforations in the gut lining, the same thing can happen to our mouths. So, bleeding, receding gums is basically like having a leaky gum.
So, the bacteria in our mouth and we want a balance of bacteria in our mouth, but the ones that can cause dental decay or things like strep or toxins from a mercury fillings or sodium lauryl sulfate from the sudsy chemicals that we’re using to clean our teeth every day, all of that can enter into the bloodstream, which of course affects brain health, gut health, and once that is being released into the bloodstream, then we know there’s different inflammatory responses, like the release of cytokines or C-reactive proteins. So, that takes us back to where we really need to have a calm oral environment, not have the bleeding gums and take care of the mouth.

Dr. Gundry (06:02):
So many people through commercials have been convinced that you got to kill 99.9% of all germs in the mouth, and I think you would be the first to say, and I would second you that, that’s probably the last thing you actually want to do.

Nadine Artemis (06:26):
Completely. I think that really comes out of a different time, really around the 1940s. I think on a lot of levels, there was this scorched earth policy with bacteria, this germ warfare theory, and it’s just like, “Eradicate all bacteria.” But we’re in a totally different time now. We really understand about the whole microbiome and what we now know is that we’re really just these human hosts that are hosts to a whole bunch of bacteria, and bacteria are so essential to us functioning. It helps our endocrine system, our immune system, our digestive system. So now we know that there’s good bacteria that we need to function. So, there’s always going to be a balance in our mouths in particular.
So, it’s a really interesting thing when we think about like strep, which is a bacteria that causes cavities and it is in most people’s mouths, but looking at why is it causing cavities for some or a different immune response. What we now know is that when it’s missing its bacterial buddies, these more ancestral bacteria, having a wide diversity of bacteria is actually what keeps the more pathogenic bacteria in check. So, that’s why we can’t eradicate all the bacteria, but we want to have a balance and we want to step back and allow the good bacteria to do its job.

Dr. Gundry (08:00):
Okay. That sounds great. How the heck do we let the good bacteria do their job to keep the bad bacteria in check?

Nadine Artemis (08:09):
That’s a great question. Yeah.

Dr. Gundry (08:09):
All right, take us through it. How does-

Nadine Artemis (08:15):
Well, first of all, what we are doing generally is not keeping that balance. So, from some of the dental procedures, like root canals or mercury fillings, or just the stuff where … if we walked down that dental aisle and we see all these choices of toothpaste and mouthwash is really, the majority of those are going to be throwing the bacteria off, maybe it’s high in alcohol or triclosan and that’s going to mutate the good microbes. So, I like to think of something called stop, seal and seed. So first we want to kind of stop some of those practices. Then we want to seal, we want to heal and seal like healing and sealing the guts, looking at the way that you recommend your diet, for example, that’s going to affect the mouth.
Then we want to seal and heal the gums by not having bleeding gums every time we’re flossing or brushing. Then it’s about receding, which can be done through diet or through swishing with probiotics and that kind of thing. So we go back to that, like stopping would be not using toothpaste with triclosan, for example, also not brushing with chlorinated water, because that’s going to throw the microbiome off as well. Then really looking at your toothpaste and what you’re using daily, because it’s probably got some kind of gum irritant in there. So you want to stop those kinds of practices.
Then to seal, you want to be switching. So the simplest thing to do right now is to not use generally speaking those commercial products which really come with so many things that are going to mess with the mouth microbiome and just use, if everybody did that and then just switch to baking soda, that would be radical and amazing because then we’d get that little bit of alkalinity for the mouth, which is going to help the bacteria. It’s going to help activate the saliva to do its job, and it’s going to be great for scrubbing, it helps with whiteness. So like bacteria, I mean, sorry. So, baking soda, sea salt, these are all simple ingredients that we have in our homes. Those are a thousand times better than using a commercial toothpaste.

Dr. Gundry (10:37):
The baking soda trick is well known.

Nadine Artemis (10:45):
Well known.

Dr. Gundry (10:46):
So, come on, I want a commercial toothpaste. I just like to squeeze it out of a tube. Are there any that are safe? I know I have my opinions that I’ve talked about, but let’s hear it from an expert.

Nadine Artemis (11:01):
Well, I say there’s a … we have to go ingredient by ingredient, but even if you go to health food store, for example, and buy from that arena, you still got things which seem harmless, but glycerin, for example, that’s going to coat the teeth in a way that doesn’t get rinsed just from rinsing and it’s going to coat it. Then the saliva is not going to be able to do its job to get to those teeth and to give it the minerals it needs. Also in the health food store, there’s still even a lot of toothpastes that are more natural and they have sodium lauryl sulfate in them as well. I do make a whole line of dental care products, which of course, I think are good, where we’ve got dental serums and stuff.
The other thing we add to our dental care are, what I like to think of as, botanical biotics, which are using different botanical extract and essential oils, which is so fascinating now that we’re in the modern times, is we have science to back up why humanity has been using a wide variety of ingredients for thousands of years. So, ingredients like tea tree or cardamom, frankincense, mastic, cinnamon clove, cardamom, all of these herbs and plants have really historically been used for oral care forever. Now what we know with modern science is that these ingredients are actually quorum sensing inhibitors. That’s just a fancy term, it’s called QSI. What that means is that these ingredients, these plants are able to stop the quorum sensing of pathogens.
When pathogens are quorum sensing, that means they’re gaining traction and numbers and starting to communicate and express their genes and gain strength and numbers and what these essential oils and plants can do is just break up that pathogenic party, and they’re able to clean up the mouth, eradicate the pathogens, but not disturb the beneficial bacteria. So when you combine that with like baking soda or something, then you’re really [crosstalk 00:13:16]

Dr. Gundry (13:16):
Yeah. Let me stop you on quorum sensing because-

Nadine Artemis (13:19):
Sure,

Dr. Gundry (13:20):
A lot of my viewers and listeners are going, “Quorum sensing? What the heck is quorum sensing?” Quorum sensing, I like to say back in the good old days, you could have a rave party where you’d text a 100 people and say, “We’re going to meet at such and such and have a DJ.” You would quorum sense how many people were going to be there, and when you had enough people you’d have a great party. What you’re trying to tell me is that these little one-cell organisms actually can sense when they have enough other organisms to have a party in your mouth. Is that what you’re trying to convince us?

Nadine Artemis (14:02):
That’s what I’m trying to say. Exactly. I love your analogy.

Dr. Gundry (14:06):
You’re absolutely right. Us, smart humans just can’t imagine that these little single-cell organisms could talk to each other and sense their presence. So, when this quorum gets together, is that what is forming biofilms?

Nadine Artemis (14:27):
Exactly.

Dr. Gundry (14:28):
Okay. So, help our listeners. What the heck is a biofilm? Is that some biography that’s on film or what is it?

Nadine Artemis (14:36):
Well, that’s when things get more organized and more … it’s like a plaque, very … it’s like gone beyond just a normal plaque on your tooth. It’s just more organized, more thick, and then they’re protecting a whole little colony of bacteria in there. These biofilms can then also go into other parts of the body and they can end up in lungs or the brain, or like all different parts depending on your constitution. But the main thing is that these biofilms, we want to be able to bust them up. So often, medicine is looking at antibiotics and stuff to do the job, but because of various things, including the overuse of antibiotics, they’re less effective now at busting up those biofilms, and some of them just weren’t able to do it anyway.
So the cool thing about using the botanicals is that they’re able to break through the biofilms in a way that antibiotics can’t, and also at the same time, we’re not getting the same side effects that could occur with antibiotic use.

Dr. Gundry (15:41):
Yeah. All right. So, when I go to my wonderful dentists and dental hygienists, and I’ve got some plaque and tartar, is that a biofilm that they’re scraping away or the product of a biofilm, what’s going on?

Nadine Artemis (15:59):
There is different stages, it’s generally product of the biofilm, and then there’s different like tartar, calculus is the older versions of more built up, more calcified. So, if you haven’t had a proper cleaning in a while, that’s always a good place to start, but I really recommend that people … I have the eight steps and it’s on our website and different things, but anybody can do those eight steps with just simply baking soda. Because even though I make all these wonderful things, I always like to bring it down to a very practical level, and anybody on a budget can really rock that, just using baking soda, you can use a bit of sea salt, you can mix it together with a bit of coconut oil, add in some peppermint oil.
So there’s a lot we can do on our own, but you really want to clear away that plaque, because that also could be affecting the whiteness of your teeth, for example, sometimes especially if you’re eating antioxidant pigment rich foods, often what’s getting stained is our plaque, it’s not necessarily the enamel. So, sometimes you need that really cleared away and start fresh. But if you follow the eight steps before your appointment, your gums and teeth will be in a much better shape. Then hopefully you’ll have a more successful and less expensive visit because you really want to get the mouth in order if it’s been neglected for a while, it’s good to do those steps.
What’s also … just because people often ask about whiteness, what’s really neat about that is obviously what’s generally commercially available is weakening the enamel, and then you get in a bit of a Catch-22, because as the enamel weakens, it will get yellower and then you’ll need more bleaching appointments, and you’ve got a cycle started. Whiteness of the teeth actually comes from within, enamel like a transparent glass, and so it’s really the health of the tooth reflecting outwards. So it’s really about having a healthy, inner pulp chamber, eating a diet that’s really healthy, rich in fat-soluble vitamins of K2 and D3.
When you’re eating that way, then the teeth will be whiter. Of course, unless you have this superficial layer of plaque, that’s getting discolored with pigment rich foods. So that’s just a good tip to know about whiteness, and baking soda really does the job. Then once or twice a month, you can use 3% diluted hydrogen peroxide with baking soda to get things a little bit whiter.

Dr. Gundry (18:37):
All right. Now, wait a minute. Everybody’s listening saying, I got to have fluoride in my toothpaste because everybody knows I can’t have good enamel and prevent cavities without fluoride. What say you?

Nadine Artemis (18:52):
I say that there’s so many side effects from fluoride that I don’t think you want to be using fluoride, what it does. If you look at different fluoride research from it lowering IQ from a Harvard study, it shows that it did lower the IQ of children. Generally, what it does is it makes skin brittle and bones soft because there’s a core mechanism where it’s working with or effecting the enzyme systems of our body. So it does the opposite of what we want, and the research and the photos I’ve seen from overuse of fluoride is really not so great. I do have a little segment about that in my book, but the side effects are crazy from fluoride.

Dr. Gundry (19:42):
But it’s in our water supply. So it must be good for me.

Nadine Artemis (19:48):
That’s a good … Yeah, there’s a lot of those arguments, there’s a lot of research to do, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s an ideal thing for our bones. I do recommend if people are able to drink filtered water and actually remove the fluoride and chlorine, because it does affect, from our thyroid, it affects our thyroid, it affects our microbiome. It’s just not a chemical we want in our bodies.

Dr. Gundry (20:17):
Good point. So, as you’re well aware, everybody is thinking about our immune system. So, what is dental health have to do with our immune system?

Nadine Artemis (20:30):
Yeah, that’s a very important question these days. So it’s our first line of defense. If we keep a great oral microbiome, that’s also going to help our gut microbiome. We also know that really the health of our guts is also our first line of defense for our immune system. So, whatever’s not healthy, we’re swallowing that and putting into the bloodstream. So, that’s where we want to definitely seal those leaky guts. We don’t want to be ingesting chemicals every day, just in the name of brushing our teeth, because all of that is going into the immune system and just lowering it each time.
So, we want to break free of the things that are affecting our microbiome, because a healthy microbiome is a healthy immune system, and that’s why we want to stop those other practices so that we’re having good digestion, that we’re swallowing, that we’re not putting toxins into our bloodstream.

Dr. Gundry (21:26):
So, where does flossing fall into this? Are you a flosser?

Nadine Artemis (21:33):
I do. It’s just reminded me, like it’s so interesting with the internet and information these days, because you can literally find both sides of the argument on everything. So we’re in the same position. There are dentists out there that don’t recommend flossing and there are ones that do. Personally, I think it’s a great thing to do, and the cardiologist, Dr. Sinatra, even says that flossing could add seven years to your life because of the removal of the dental plaques that you could be swallowing into your body. So, I recommend flossing actually twice for the first bit. That’s part of the eight steps. Once you do it the second time round, you’re going to know why you’re doing it twice, because there’s still stuff to remove.
I also recommend, so I make these dental serums and again, people could make those at home by using an effective oil like peppermint or tea tree, which is antiviral as well. You can just put that along the floss and then you start flossing with that antibacterial antiviral botanical biotic in there, and then that’s getting in between the teeth and clearing out that plaque. We recommend the dental serums and stuff, because we’ve made them with lots of plants. So, people have experienced bleeding gums stopping in 24 to 48 hours for some people, if they’ve already got other good protocols in place. So, things can really turn around fast because the epithelium in the mouth, so that’s the skin inside the mouth, is only one-cell thick.
So, one level it’s an Achilles heel because it’s so vulnerable and it’s easy for things to enter the bloodstream, and on another side of the coin, it’s also what can allow our mouths to heal so quickly because it is only one-cell thick. So, once we get on the right track, things can really turn around in the mouth quite quickly. It really is important to know what’s going on in your mouth, not be afraid to go back there because it really could be the start of something that’s pulling your health down or an auto-immune issue could also just have something to do with your mouth. So, it’s definitely something you want to attend to and be aware of and not just like keep brushing and hoping for the best.

Dr. Gundry (24:05):
Yeah. I’m glad you brought that up. Back in, I think 2008, I presented a paper at the American Heart Association. That’s published and in circulation taking a large number of my patients and putting them on a protocol. We looked at their C-reactive protein, hs-CRP, which is a good baseline marker of inflammation. We actually made them floss every other day for six months. Now, why did we choose every other day? Because quite frankly, I hate to floss, my wife flosses twice a day, she’s a wonderful nut. I hated it, but I found that I could bring myself to floss every other day. So I designed the study around me.
We found that people who flossed every other day took their elevated CRP and made it normal for basically the first time that we had seen and the people who flossed more than every other day, every day, or even twice a day lowered their CRP further. And why that’s important is, I absolutely agree with you that the mouth is one of the really unrecognized sources of, believe it or not, coronary artery disease. There are a number of us who feel that one of the causes of coronary artery disease is bacteria from the mouth, actually building biofilms on the coronary arteries. There’s a very fascinating argument that the only other place that we calcify things is the plaque in our mouth, the tartar in our mouth, and the only other place we calcify is these places in our coronary arteries.
The argument is those are actually calcified biofilms from bacteria, and we can actually culture and see bacteria in plaque. So, for goodness sake, if you love your heart, floss, please.

Nadine Artemis (26:13):
That’s amazing. So even if we reduce our C-reactive proteins, that’s such a boost to the immune system.

Dr. Gundry (26:21):
Correct.

Nadine Artemis (26:22):
So, I’m fascinated that every other day, such a small gesture, making a difference to the C-reactive proteins is incredible.

Dr. Gundry (26:32):
Yeah. Again, I designed it as I do a lot of my experiments on myself. It’s a pain in the neck, I felt, but I could do it every other day. I still can’t do it twice a day. I just can’t. But for instance, my dentist does not believe in flossing, and his dental hygienist thinks he’s just crazy and they argue constantly. All right.

Nadine Artemis (27:04):
That’s funny.

Dr. Gundry (27:06):
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Do you make a point of … So you must have a water filtration system in your home, or how do you accomplish getting fluoride and chlorine out of your water?

Nadine Artemis (30:27):
That’s a great question. Well, I used to, when I lived in the city, we would do that but we actually all have well water now, so we’re good. It takes care of things and there’s actually a spring on our land too. So, we harvest that to drink and then we just [inaudible 00:30:44] So we’re very, very lucky. But yeah, I do recommend a filter because it’s just going to benefit everything, including your skin’s microbiome, which is another huge area. We have the gut microbiome, the mouth’s microbiome, the skin’s microbiome, and there’s other little microbiomes, but the skin is a huge one. That daily chlorine, fluoride assault, topically is also messing with the microbiome and the skin’s part of our innate immune system as well.

Dr. Gundry (31:15):
So, you probably not a big fan of antibacterial soaps either?

Nadine Artemis (31:21):
No, I’m not, and that’s another ingredient of triclosan, which I guess it’s been banned now, which is great.

Dr. Gundry (31:30):
Yeah, it’s been banned finally.

Nadine Artemis (31:30):
Yes, but it’s not banned from toothpaste yet.

Dr. Gundry (31:32):
No.

Nadine Artemis (31:34):
And it’s actually like triclosan’s assault on a few levels, but it actually really affects aquatic systems, which you know, which we are a lot of water in us as well. But I’m glad it was banned because also it was actually making hands more susceptible to microbes because it was messing with the microbiome on the skin. So again, we want the microbiome on our skin to be a balance of good bacteria to also participate in our immunity.

Dr. Gundry (32:10):
Yeah, it’s very true, and I’ve written about that. The microbiome of our skin will literally defend us to the death and there’s been beautiful experiments showing that in intact skin microbiome. I mean, we’ll go after virulent staph and I mean, we’ll kill it, we’ll fight to the death, but we wipe out this good microbiome with these anti-bacterial cleansers that are supposedly so good for us. Again, I think that’s one of the reasons that simple hand washing with plain oil soap and water right now is still the best defense against this virus that’s plaguing the world.

Nadine Artemis (33:00):
Yeah. It’s so simple. Like the soap molecule will literally, through these little amphiphiles, will literally break the coding of the virus. The coding is not that thick and it will get washed down the drain. So, yeah and again obviously I would … I love the more natural soap but it doesn’t matter if it’s oil bar soap, a goat soap or whatever you’re going to pick up at the supermarket, like soap works, and it’s very simple. So we have to keep up our washing.

Dr. Gundry (33:33):
That’s right. Now, you’ve mentioned several times now, essential oils, and I know you’re a big fan of essential oils. So, what are those, other than putting it on your floss, how can people use these?

Nadine Artemis (33:50):
Yes. I love essential oils. It’s a world that I discovered in my teens and they’ve just been such an important part of the palette of the botanical formulating that I do. They’re the distillates of plants. They have to be distilled from plants with aromatic molecules, and they’re literally distilled, which separates the vapor from the plant matter, which goes into a cooling condensing coil. So, it goes from the plant matter to vapor and then back to these oil droplets, and they’re called an essential oil but they contain no fat. They’re actually volatile, evaporative in nature, and they are amazing because they have these beautiful smells and there’s such a beautiful ethereal luxury to them all, and at the same time, they’re potent medicine, and to varying degrees, they are all anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral, antibacterial to different degrees.
So they’re just such an amazing botanical tool that we have available to us. Like in under 2% tea tree was effective at fighting off H1N1, for example. So there’s all kinds of things that they can do, and we’ve been using them for thousands of years, so they have a good track record. So I think of them as essential to have at home apothecary, with your baking soda, apple cider vinegar, sea salt. Those ingredients can be turned into so many things, right, and coconut oil, all those things. So it’s good also at this time to stock up that part of your pantry, where you can be helping, at least, even with secondary symptoms of a cold or that kind of things, or keeping clean, like you could get 120 proof alcohol at a 5, 10% tea tree or 5% will do.
Then you’ve got a hand sanitizer that you can just make at home. So they’re just so useful and quite beautiful to work with. So, my book also has a whole chapter on recipes that you can work with them and stuff.

Dr. Gundry (36:05):
Oh, great. So what you’re saying is you’re running a distillery and that’s why you live out in the country and that’s where you’re getting your 120 proof alcohol. Is that what you’re actually saying here?

Nadine Artemis (36:16):
We don’t distill the moonshine out in the country. I’ve been working with different distillers for over 25 years and they’re all over the planet and we need each country, from Madagascar to France, to Chile, like everywhere, because it depends on what’s growing in that region. I think we offer over 150 individual essential oils from frankincense to yuzu, from angelica to ylang ylang, they’re all there.

Dr. Gundry (36:51):
Same to you. Everybody’s going through stress and anxiety and certainly one of the traditional uses of some essential oils has been stress reduction, sleep promotion. Can you help our listeners and viewers with that?

Nadine Artemis (37:13):
Yes, there’s so useful in that way as well. So you can diffuse them. It’s really easy to find aroma therapy diffusers these days. So you can have that going in your environment and you could do something like bergamot, which was studied too, literally it’s antianxiety. Like it will just calm everything down, and with that, then you can throw in something like frankincense or eucalyptus. Then you’re taking care of some airborne bacteria at the same time, or if you’ve got cold and the stuffies at night, or your child does, you put that in the diffuser, turn it on, and it works. There’s like less coughing, more breathing, all of those things, because that’s really important right now too. It’s just like we want to up our hygiene and in ways where we’re also thinking about our bodies and our home in the same.
So we can clean with essential oils, you can clean your tub with baking soda and tea tree, you can brush your teeth with it. We want to create these environments that really help us and our microbiome to thrive.

Dr. Gundry (38:19):
When people hear the word tea tree, is that where tea comes from or is that totally different?

Nadine Artemis (38:25):
It is different. This is a bush that grows in Australia that has been used for a long time. Yeah, very different than tea, green tea and all that. Also, another great use for essential oils this time is to put them in your mask. We’ve been making these for years, because when I travel, for example, my main goal is to not inhale the air or to touch anything in the airplane. So, I’ve been ready for a while, but we make these organic … we use organic hemp on one side, but then I’ll just take essential oil, drop it inside the mask. Then I’m also inhaling good inflammation and good … it’s keeping me healthy, it’s keeping me calm. So that’s a great way to use the oils as well.
Children really, really like them. You can waft some bergamot under their nose, keep people calm. You can make Play-Doh right now with it. Play-Doh in essential oils, because a lot of people are trying to think of activities while in quarantine.

Dr. Gundry (39:28):
You haven’t mentioned lavender.

Nadine Artemis (39:31):
Oh yes. Yes, yes. I mean there’s so many to mention, it’s kind of funny sometimes, but yeah. I mean lavender, a classic. You can use that for oral care as well. It’s great for scars, because also we don’t want to have leaky skin, especially right now. Right? So there’s an open wound or anything, it’s so great to use something like lavender or frankincense. You can use that topically undiluted as long … and again, when we’re talking about essential oils, you want real and pure because then you’ll know what the plant will do.
There are ones that aren’t real or they’re adulterated in some way. So we’re always talking about the real thing, but those oils can really seal the skin, they can clean up a wound. Then you’ve got the skin closing again. If you want to get rid of a scar, you just keep applying that a little bit each day. So they’re just so helpful. It’s a really like a good family first aid kit to have a few of them.

Dr. Gundry (40:28):
All right, brought out an important point. How do you tell when something’s real or adulterated? Give us some quick guide.

Nadine Artemis (40:36):
Yes. Well, I do say smell, although you can’t always, because we’re doing a lot of online shopping, but if you smell, it doesn’t even matter what you know, you will begin to discern the quality. So, there’s that sense of smell, and then you want to know like, does the company have lab tests? Are they showing that they are authentic through lab tests? Do they have a Latin name? Do you know what country they came from? Do you know how it was distilled and what is the contents of the bottle? So, all of that should be available from where you’re buying.

Dr. Gundry (41:08):
Okay. Before we let you go, you mentioned that recipe for hand sanitizers. Can you give it to us one more time because now people are going to grab a piece of paper and a pen.

Nadine Artemis (41:21):
Yes. So, I like to use real distilled alcohol because the synthetic alcohol … again, if that’s all you have, that’s fine, but distilled alcohol is a lot better for the skin and the microbiome as well. So, 120 proof alcohol to make sure it’s strong enough, and then somewhere between 5 to 7% essential oils. With that, I would think of ones that are very cleansing. You could just do simply tea tree, but if you want to make … or tea tree and lavender and just work with that 5 to 7% to get a good smell that you want and then you’re ready to go. Another good tip is, I take an old spray bottle and I’ll even put like a soap in there, like liquid shampoo, add water, and then you also can have a traveling liquid soap to go, so you’re able to wash your hands whenever you need to.

Dr. Gundry (42:13):
I know I hate carrying my bar of olive oil soap around me.

Nadine Artemis (42:15):
Get in the way. Yeah.

Dr. Gundry (42:20):
Well, Nadine, this has been great, and thank you so much for coming on the podcast. So, where can people find out about you and your work?

Nadine Artemis (42:34):
I’m at livinglibations.com. That’s our website, and regular social media channels, Instagram’s my favorite. That’s where you can see headquarters and land and stuff, and then of course I’ve got my books which are on Amazon and all that as well.

Dr. Gundry (42:45):
All right. So, what’s next for you? Is this current crisis energize you to look into other things that you can help people with?

Nadine Artemis (42:59):
Well, I feel like … interesting like we really are, already what we do is so for these times, we already made hand sanitizers and we make soap and face masks, already part of our regular thing. Then we have this beautiful aromatic arsenal of ingredients. So, we’re really just focused on obviously keeping good care of our team and really just delivering what people need right now, talking to people like you and helping people think about good quarantine hygiene and just taking it from there.

Dr. Gundry (43:35):
Very good. Okay, so it’s time for our audience question.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
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Dr. Gundry (44:17):
Larry on YouTube asks, “Is having 15 minutes of sunlight exposure to your arms and legs daily still a good baseline for the best production of vitamin D?” Off camera, Nadine and I were talking about this. So, I’m going to give you the first shot at this question.

Nadine Artemis (44:36):
Okay. Well, I think right now for everybody, it’s really a good time to remember to engage with the elements, fresh air, get your feet on the ground and good water, and for sure we want to be taking in the sun, because when the sun’s rays interact with our skin, there’s all these wonderful chemical reactions that are essential to our body. The sun messages information and all that, that we get from the contact of sun on skin is different than taking a fat soluble vitamin D supplement. I’m so glad that we have those, but we also are creating other internal things like anti-microbial peptides.
When we get that skin in the sun and we start filling up the 1000s of vitamin D receptors all over our body. When our vitamin D receptors aren’t brimming with vitamin D, then bacterial ligands come in and take down the whole immune system. So we want to be brimming with vitamin D. So saying that, I think it’s not sunny every day, generally speaking. So I think if you can get more exposure, do it. Remember to rotate the body, you really want to expose as much skin as possible. Then I also recommend there’s an app called Dminder, because it also depends on your skin tone, your geographical location, time of year, all of those things. So, there’s an app that calculates all that and says, “Hey, today you need to be out for 20 minutes.” Or that kind of thing.

Dr. Gundry (46:16):
Now, the other thing we have to tell everybody that depending on where you live, it may not be legal right now for you to be outside, and you can’t say that Nadine and I have told you to be outside to get sun with that proviso. That’s why actually even my good friend, Joseph Mercola, who works in his Speedo on a beach for an hour and a half a day, can only get his vitamin D level up to about 70 nanograms per deciliter. I personally have urged all of my patients to get their levels up above a 100. I run mine greater than 120 for the last 18 years to prove I’m not dead, and so far so good.
So, I don’t think right now you can possibly get the level of vitamin D that you need to be antiviral from just sunlight, but I completely agree with you, that the benefits of sunlight not only make vitamin D. But you’re right, sunlight, we’re actually capable of being like a plant and actually produce energy from sunlight photons. It’s kind of California touchy feely thing, but there’s a reason why everyone in the world seeks out sunlight. We’re just beginning to touch that we actually get energy from the sun exactly like a plant does. We’re not as good as a plant, but we do manufacture energy from sunlight. Yeah, get out in the sun if you can, okay?

Nadine Artemis (48:06):
For that, if you’re trapped inside and maybe you have a window with direct sunlight, open that up, move things off the kitchen counter if that’s where that ray is coming in and just feel that real life coming in. It’s good.

Dr. Gundry (48:20):
Yeah, and that’s really good point because you got to open the window.

Nadine Artemis (48:24):
Yes.

Dr. Gundry (48:24):
Sunlight has to be direct, if it’s coming through glass, yeah, it’s nice and warm, but it’s not the same, it’s not the same.

Nadine Artemis (48:32):
Yeah, whether we’re using sunscreen or a window, it blocks the UVB and we need the UVA and the UVB together to create that D.

Dr. Gundry (48:43):
Yeah, correct. All right. Well, thanks again, stay safe up there. It sounds like you are in 200 acres of safety, so good for you.

Nadine Artemis (48:53):
Thank you.

Dr. Gundry (48:55):
Thanks for all your great information today.

Nadine Artemis (48:57):
Thank you.

Dr. Gundry (48:59):
Take care. Disclaimer, on the Dr. Gundry Podcast, we provide a venue for discussion, and the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/drgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.