Dear Healthy Friend,

Brush and floss daily and you'll have a beautiful set of pearly whites to flash at the world with every smile... But more importantly, you'll avoid raising your risk of serious diseases.

Jenny Thompson explains what new research has uncovered...

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

P.S. Chemotherapy, radiation, infection and disease can cause a severe decline in your white blood cell count… Dr Wright tells us what you can do to repair this damage.

Revealed: The link between gum disease and heart diease... and diabetes... and cancer!
Jenny Thompson
Publisher of  Health Sciences Institute

Periodontitis is a disease in which the gums and bone that support your teeth become infected… and inflamed.

And because cancer is strongly associated with infection and inflammation, researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, mounted a study to determine a possible relationship between chronic periodontitis and head and neck cancer.

The Roswell team enrolled more than 260 subjects with head and neck cancer and a group of 207 healthy control subjects.

They took panoramic x-rays to measure periodontal bone status in each subject. The comparison of the x-rays showed that head and neck cancer risk increased more than FOUR TIMES with each millimetre of bone loss.

Other research shows a link between periodontitis and a higher risk of heart disease and metabolic syndrome (a precursor of type II diabetes).

So, if your dentist says you have gum disease, it's time to call in the antioxidants – and you have a few different options.

Some studies show a link between inadequate vitamin C intake and the development of periodontal disease. The researchers show that vitamin C maintains healthy connective tissue.

Other studies show subjects with healthy gums have high levels of the antioxidant glutathione in the crevices under their teeth. And subjects with periodontal disease have lower glutathione levels.

A little direct sunlight every day might help you prevent periodontitis. Low levels of vitamin D also show a link to higher risk of periodontal disease.

So, keep your teeth and gums healthy by increasing your vitamin C intake, taking antioxidants like glutathione and getting a little bit of sunshine. Healthy gums and teeth could help you avoid deadly cancer, heart diseases or diabetes

Increase your white blood cell count with lithium

Q: My sister was diagnosed with cancer several months ago and the chemotherapy has destroyed her white blood cell count. I know how important it is for her to build it back up and was wondering if you have any information on natural ways to do that?

Dr. Wright: Keeping a normal white blood cell count is one of the very basic necessities for good health. Your body uses white blood cells to fight off viruses, bacteria and all sorts of potentially harmful foreign invaders. If your levels fall, you're much more prone to illness. Chemotherapy and radiation are probably the most well-known offenders causing low white cell counts, but levels can fall for any number of reasons. Researchers have found that lithium can increase white cell numbers again in people whose levels fell due to radiation and/or chemotherapy (and even if the person continues those treatments).

Lithium achieves these effects by stimulating the stem cells in bone marrow, which then turn into platelets and white blood cells. I've observed that low dose lithium (5-10mg twice daily) may also usually raise a low count to normal even if radiation and chemotherapy aren't the culprits.