Artificial Intelligence, Acne Creams, and Oral Microbiome

[00:00:00] Leah: ever since I started having hot flashes, I'm a big fan of having that dessert before a meal. Well, or not, you know, like having it with lunch or something earlier in the day.

So I don't like wake up

with night sweats.

[00:00:15] Tina: yeah. So you're saying if you have

a sugar too late in the night.

[00:00:18] Leah: Oh, it's, it's not just me. It is a very common cause of, of night sweats and of waking up in the middle of the night. So yeah, keep that sugar as an afternoon delight,

as they say.

[00:00:31] Tina: there you go. Afternoon delight.

I'm Dr Tina Kaczor and as Leah likes to say I'm the science-y one

[00:00:39] Leah: and I'm Dr Leah Sherman and on the cancer inside

[00:00:42] Tina: And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care

[00:00:47] Leah: But we're not your doctors

[00:00:49] Tina: This is for education entertainment and informational purposes only

do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own

[00:01:04] Leah: Welcome to the cancer pod Tina,

[00:01:23] Tina: Leia,

[00:01:23] Leah: I think we're about to be replaced.

[00:01:26] Tina: what do you mean?

[00:01:27] Leah: I saw this article in Cure Today about somebody who entered in some other medical information to AI to CHAT GBT, and CHAT GBT came up with their integrative treatment plan.

[00:01:40] Tina: Get out.

[00:01:41] Leah: No, I'm serious. I sent, I forwarded you the article. I don't think you've had a chance to look at it yet. Um, it asks, okay, so the person says, I asked chat GPT to build me a treatment plan for integrative and Western oncology based on me and my diagnoses.

It built me a side

by side chart showing me different

options.

[00:01:58] Tina: Whoa. Was it any good? Did you get to see the chart?

[00:02:02] Leah: Yeah, no, it's right here. Like it's, it has the chart and it has the integrative oncology treatments, the Western medical treatments. And then this person has, two. Synchronous cancers and yeah, it doesn't show the full thing, but it has Western

medical treatments as you know, one column.

[00:02:18] Tina: Does it tell, does it tell the person where they got the information from? I mean, is chat GPT just using the entire web or is it going to a reliable source?

[00:02:26] Leah: I don't know. I don't know. Uh, cause it doesn't show the full chart or there's no little asterisk or number next to anything. When I've looked things up in chat GPT, and I've asked for references, like I've asked for it to write something and I've asked for references.

And then I go back and look at the references. They don't actually exist. Like it makes up references. And then I called ChatGPT out on it and it said, Oh no, we're just providing ideas.

[00:02:53] Tina: So yeah, well, you know, I've been using a lot of AI for research, right? All sorts of perplexity, illicit. I've got like a bunch of them. Gemini. by Google, is now telling you where it got the information. So that's impressive. It's actually giving you, like, we sourced this from, and it'll give you a citation.

[00:03:12] Leah: Oh, I see that when you do like, I hate when I do a Google search and then the AI comes up first, but it does. There's like a little link next to it. And if you click the link, sometimes their little summary is not

exactly what the link says. And

that's so dangerous.

[00:03:27] Tina: that's exactly what I was going to say about

this whole treatment plan. I was like, well, how is someone who isn't a medical oncologist or a naturopathic oncologist or whatever, who's not familiar with the material, how is that going to be checked to make sure that it's accurate? So, for example, like, what did they say for this person to eat and what was their diagnosis?

Yeah.

[00:03:47] Leah: So, okay, so they have a pancreatic NET, neuroendocrine tumor, and it has their Western medical treatments. And then for their integrative oncology treatments, it says ketogenic diet, herbal support with turmeric and ashwagandha, acupuncture for symptom relief. For their renal cell carcinoma, it says mind body practices, reishi mushroom and green tea extract.

So it's pretty

like.

[00:04:13] Tina: Okay. I'm just going to weigh in right away. Ketogenic dietIt's a high fat diet, ketogenic, no matter how else you eat, you know, if you eat a vegan ketogenic or a meat heavy ketogenic, either way, it's going to be 70 percent or more of your calories from fat.

And if your pancreas is involved in your diagnosis or your cancer or any other condition, your pancreas could be compromised. The function of the pancreas is to secrete which is the enzyme that breaks down fats. So, you'd have to be under the care of somebody, a nutritionist, dietitian, who is extremely familiar with what you would actually be able to tolerate without putting a burden on your pancreas, your gallbladder, your liver,

[00:04:56] Leah: and from what I recall, patients with

neuroendocrine tumors tend to have

diarrhea.

[00:05:03] Tina: depending, yes, what the neuroendocrine tumor is secreting. So the most common secretion is serotonin and serotonin will lead to diarrhea,

[00:05:10] Leah: And so doing a high fat diet in someone who is experiencing a lot

of diarrhea just kind of seems like, eh,

maybe not the best idea.

[00:05:19] Tina: right? So there's a lot of nuances that go into medicine and medical decision making that I don't know. I mean, eventually I'm sure AI could do it if it was fed the right source material, right? So AI is only as good as its source feeds. And so is it. Getting its sources from the NCCN guidelines for the medical oncology part, for the actual treatment part.

If so, then that's a good source feed. So, chat GPT is probably just not right, the right AI to use. It's too broad in its source feeds. Um, but I do think AI is a phenomenal tool for us. I mean, I have been able to do research on topics with citations looking through just MEDLINE so fast and so much more information and just cut to the chase.

You know, what might take me a week before I could do it in an afternoon easily.

[00:06:12] Leah: I

I mean I use it for outlines,

Like if I need to write a blog

for a certain podcast, I'll use it to just kind of give me like a framework, and then I go in and edit it and make it sound like a human wrote it. And then if I have any sort of references, I make sure that they are actual references, and they're not like these fake ones.

But I just think it's, I don't know. Okay, so let me go on. Yeah, I think that mind body practices meditation yoga. I mean, I think that's like pretty, it's great, but it's pretty vague. It's not really specific to renal cell carcinoma. It's kind of good for everybody. Um, so, uh, the person has liver metastasis.

And so the recommendation is milk thistle for liver support. and plant based diet. So it's interesting because it's not taking all of these diagnoses and creating a plan. It's doing one for each one. So a plant based diet and a ketogenic diet

may be,

[00:07:07] Tina: challenging to get everything you need to get in a day.

[00:07:11] Leah: Okay, so for pain and fatigue management, acupuncture for pain, essential oils, lavender and peppermint are recommended, and then

reiki for fatigue.

So it's kind

of vague.

[00:07:21] Tina: That's its whole program for integrative medicine.

[00:07:23] Leah: This is what I'm getting so far. And it's like I said, not the whole thing's listed, uh, immune support. We see adaptogens and nutritional support, and it lists three vitamins. vitamins D, C, and E. There isn't any sort of link icon or anything after this. So I don't know where it's

getting its information,

[00:07:41] Tina: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:42] Leah: I don't, I don't know.

And I think this person was probably, I'm guessing, doing it more for fun. than anything else. But I'd like to think there aren't people out there getting actual medical advice

from ChatGBT

or AI.

[00:07:57] Tina: No. And again, I mean, I think chat GPT is too broad and too inclusive of all opinions out there that it's being fed. It could be fed nonsense, for all we know, but if you can source feed in an AI is just say only use the following websites and then use cancer. net as the ASCO patient facing, site or, you know, various, like what SIO, the Society of Integrative Oncology has some really nice papers on integrating safely.

So I guess controlling the source feeds and then double checking the answers would be the only way to use it.

[00:08:36] Leah: With a human. Yeah, but, but not double checking yourself. Double checking with a human who

knows what they're talking about.

[00:08:43] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. Which is basically what I do when I do research, right? Like, I look up papers, I'll do a bunch of papers, I'll write them all down, and then I'll go back to the actual citations. I won't, I will never read a line and assume the citation that they leave there is correct. I go back to the actual original paper and say, is that what that paper actually said?

You'd be surprised how often it doesn't say what they just interpreted it as saying.

[00:09:05] Leah: I know, but not everybody's as

thorough as you are, Tina. I

[00:09:08] Tina: No, but that's, I

[00:09:08] Leah: like that's, but that's, and that's a big problem is people will take it for face value. They'll be like, well, this is what was compiled. Um, I don't know, that's the, I just thought that

was really, um, kind of interesting.

[00:09:19] Tina: Yeah. I think the use of AI to get us to the primary source is really useful. Instead of me finding a review paper, finding the papers within the review papers that I'm interested in going to those papers and then going all the way, you know, I'm, I'm always swimming upstream to the source of the material.

[00:09:36] Leah: that, that was my methodology, was finding, finding a review paper, and then going to the other papers within. I was like, oh, they did all the, they did all the legwork. I'm good with that. I'm, at this moment in time, on this date, in this year, I am fine doing that. I'm not comfortable with . With AI, what I also thought was interesting is this person voluntarily uploaded their, um, their imaging results

[00:10:03] Tina: Hmm. Yeah,

[00:10:06] Leah: GPT for like them to translate it to human

to human, you know, to

more lay speak.

[00:10:16] Tina: to the mere

mortals.

[00:10:18] Leah: Which I think is interesting,

but at the same time, like,

I don't know.

[00:10:23] Tina: Well I think that does bring up a whole other facet to this, and that is, I think we should be fairly protective of our, of our information, our own personal biological information, whether it's 23andMe. You know, everyone's uploading their genetics there or whole genome sequencing that's going on right now.

[00:10:40] Leah: Um, you know me, I've been a little bit leery of the whole thing for a long time. I used a pseudonym. I used a whole other name when I did 23andMe. Oh, yeah, see, and I thought like, eh,

whatever. I mean, I did

mine,

[00:10:52] Tina: Yeah, a little paranoia isn't a horrible thing, I suppose, when it comes to this stuff, because what was happening and what did happen back in time is people with BRCA. mutations or deletions that led to a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer, they were being denied life insurance. So life insurance companies basically said, that's a blacklist.

If that, if that is your, risk, if your risk of breast and ovarian cancer is that high, we're not going to give you a policy. And it was legal to do so. So I think that always stuck in my,

[00:11:21] Leah: But did that change? You said it was legal.

Has that changed?

[00:11:25] Tina: I don't know, I haven't updated my knowledge on the

topic.

[00:11:28] Leah: Oh, we should check with, um, ChatGPT and see what they say. No, because I, so I started teaching a course on medical documentation. And one of the things I just had my first class, and one of the things I pointed out is, there was an article that led me to this topic where you just don't upload patient information.

Maybe somebody needs to know how to chart, how to write an assessment. Don't upload your patient information to AI to write your assessment

for you.

[00:11:57] Tina: Oh, yeah.

[00:11:58] Leah: and do not put any sort of patient information on there. I mean, it's just, I don't know. I just, I'm not, I'm not

trusting it entirely.

[00:12:08] Tina: Well, and there's a big difference between open source and closed sources of AI too. So chat GPT is an open source and they say so, like anything you upload to that is now publicly available.

[00:12:19] Leah: Anything you search for in Google is now being added

Yeah. It's not true of all AIs. Some of them. I think Adobe has AI suite that, um, is. Reportedly private, I don't know.

I don't, yeah, I, I just, you, you can ask, chat, GPT. Can you give me? an outline for a soap format for a soap note, and that's fine, but don't have it, fill it in with your

patient information.

[00:12:45] Tina: And if you do want to look at the literature, I think my favorite tool currently is ELICIT. E L I C I T. It does a nice job of pulling up from the medical literature what you're looking for. So you can ask it questions and then it gives you summaries and data and you have columns that you can expand on and continue to ask.

[00:13:04] Leah: well, we should ask it to come up with an

integrative treatment plan.

[00:13:07] Tina: Well, it's not generative like that. It's more of an assistant.

[00:13:11] Leah: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Once again, you know, we're going to soon be out of jobs because everyone's going to be, it's the next step from Dr.

Google.

[00:13:19] Tina: Yeah, here's the thing. Yeah. It's going to be hard to teach the art of medicine to machines. Not impossible. And with enough data, they probably could figure it out. But there is a lot of decision making that goes on when you see any doctor, it doesn't matter who it is, that's not completely in black and white on some algorithm.

It's some. Decision making based on experience and the individual in front of them, so I don't feel threatened by AI I think AI is a great tool, but I've had this conversation with a lot of people I feel like we're just all gonna be more productive and more creative and it's gonna free up our brains to do better things be more efficient

[00:13:55] Leah: I just think in the wrong hands of somebody who's like, I'm just going to ask it for an integrative treatment plan and then having someone follow it because it's not taking the whole human into account. It's just what you put into it. So if you're like, well, I'm a patient with, you know, kidney cancer, but I mean, it's not looking at your labs.

It's not looking at, how you're doing overall, any other medications that you're taking. It's not looking at, any of that. Unless you put it in, but then are you going to know what to put in? Like, and then you're putting all your personal information in

there

and then what?

[00:14:29] Tina: yeah. That's why it's a, it's a learning curve going on right now. I think we're all learning.

[00:14:35] Leah: Well, what did you learn in the

news, Tina?

[00:14:46] Tina: Um, I had a couple articles of interest to me. Um, you know, one that I was surprised about because I was like, I thought we put this whole topic to rest a while ago was, some acne creams are found to contain a known carcinogen.

That was the headline. on October 8th. what they contain is benzene, which is a very well known carcinogen. There's no doubt that benzene is carcinogenic.

[00:15:14] Leah: Well, benzoyl peroxide is like what you think of

for those acne creams that we used to

use back in the day.

[00:15:20] Tina: well, they're still being used. Um, there was a new one approved in 2022 with, I don't remember it was a five or 10 percent benzoyl peroxide. And so benzoyl peroxide in and of itself is okay. It's when it gets used. Heated that it breaks down into benzene. And so what this study did that they just did a an article on the study went to stores and pulled these acne products off the shelf and One third of them had benzene levels that are higher than what the FDA deems safe

[00:15:53] Leah: So how hot does something have to be? Because you're, where do you store it? Like, are you

storing it in your bathroom? Like, how hot and

steamy does your bathroom get?

[00:16:02] Tina: That's what made this interesting to me. They pulled them off the shelf

fresh and a third of them had too much benzene.

[00:16:07] Leah: But we don't know, like, what the truck was. Like, how hot the

truck was that

transported it, you know?

[00:16:14] Tina: Exactly. yeah. And then after that, so if one third is already heated to a point of creating too much benzene, where does it go from there? Like, what are you, are we doing with it? Like you put it in your car, your car heats up, you're going to have more benzene formation. The temperature they heated up just to see, you know, elevated temperature to 50 degrees Celsius, which super rough math in my head is about 130. degrees Fahrenheit, so higher than body heat, but that said, UV radiation and warmth from the sun definitely causes the benzene formation on the skin and And if you have a sunscreen under it, and then you put this acne cream on, or the other way around, the absorption goes up by about 60%.

[00:16:52] Leah: Oh, because of course you're going to put sunscreen on your face.

[00:16:56] Tina: Right. Especially the newly approved one that they just came out with where they say they say, well, avoid the sun. And if you can't use sunscreen, well, unfortunately that just speeds up your absorption of the benzene. The reason this is surprising to me, I'll tell you why, because this whole, this whole Benzene causing cancers.

We know this since, I mean, benzene's been around since, I don't know, the late 1800s. I mean, it's not a compound that's mysterious to us. We didn't just discover it. 1930s, we knew zero should be the limit. Even the petroleum industry looked at it and said, really, zero is the only safe amount of benzene

So it's so well established that it's not refuted by anybody, not even the chemical industry. Right. Right. Um, Back in the day, I want to say early 2000s, sodium benzoate was in beverages,

[00:17:40] Leah: Oh, that

was the like

in Mountain Dew.

[00:17:43] Tina: all sorts of them. Yes. And especially if the beverage contained any vitamin C, it led to benzene levels that were higher than what was considered safe in our drinking water. Now, if really should be what we're going for. I don't know why. I think the FDA has like, I think it was 0. 8 parts per million that they think is okay.

Whatever. Zero is probably what we're shooting for. In any case, they didn't make it against the law. They just made it a voluntary Industrywide base knowledge to not create drinks using sodium benzoate, potassium benzoate, and any form of vitamin C. And if you did that, you were less likely to form benzene in the can and consume the benzene.

And, and the, the big hoopla was because this was a lot of drinks that were geared towards children. So these were fruit juices, for example, in the benzoate, in the case of the drinks or the benzoyl peroxide in the case of the acne cream. It's an antimicrobial. So that's why they're putting it in there in the first place, and there's a lot of other ways to do that.

But I guess this kind of surprised me, this whole, acne cream with benzene, because I thought it was put to bed, you know, like, let's not create products that lead to benzene in our bodies.

[00:18:55] Leah: Um, I want to, I want to chip in because of course, like, I don't know, uh, Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion. So I typed it in. It's 122 degrees, which is still hotter than the human body. But that is. I mean, it's gotten to 120 in Phoenix. You know, like that.

Isn't unheard of. You leave your bag in the car with your acne cream and it's the summer and the car gets hot.

I mean, your car can get to 130 as well, but

122 degrees.

[00:19:27] Tina: cars get up to 150 easy all the time.

[00:19:30] Leah: Yeah, but I just, I, I wanted to kind of clarify that because 130 might seem like, oh, that's so hot, but 122,

you

[00:19:38] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. The rough, the rough equation I was using, it works better for a temperate climates is uh, when you see something in Celsius, you double it and add 30. It's, it's usually ballpark.

[00:19:48] Leah: Oh, I wasn't

like questioning your math.

[00:19:50] Tina: No, no. I'm just telling people.

[00:19:51] Leah: I was just, I wanted, I wanted to know for myself because I'm like, how does she do this in her head? I don't, yeah, I, I, I use, I use the chat GPT for that. No, I don't. I use Google, but um, but I just, I, I really, I think like 122 in my mind is more like, oh, I can see that more

than 130. I don't know why. It's just the way that my

brain thinks.

[00:20:14] Tina: And you know, here's the thing. Benzene is So. toxic. So. The reason this is interesting is because one, the FDA just approved this acne cream with a good amount of benzoyl peroxide in the last couple of years. So the authors of this paper that did the actual research said this, this instability of benzoyl peroxide, the instability of it at high temperatures that leads to the carcinogenic substance inside is analogous.

to that Zantac. Remember years ago, Zantac was taken off the

market because it can contain, um, NDMA, which is a known carcinogen, and the FDA basically said we need to pull that off the shelf because Zantac was also something that became carcinogenic after heat exposure. So it's completely analogous to that.

And so the authors are mentioning that because what might happen over time is, Oh, did we say that was safe? We're going to take that off the market now. So heads up.

[00:21:11] Leah: Yeah, and I, I just quickly searched to see, I searched for benzene and acne products. And I found just a summary of the article that said 38 out of 111 prescription or over the counter products

contain benzene levels above the US Food and Drug Administration limit of two parts per million. And so 38

products, it's not just

like one or two brands.

[00:21:35] Tina: No, no, that's what I'm saying. It's a third of the products

on the shelf. Yeah. And it is over the counter. I mean, the one that it's as a new drug and new prescription is higher levels, but over the counter amounts of benzoyl peroxide. Definitely. It's just one of those things. Look at the label. Is it on there? Then maybe look for something that doesn't contain that.

[00:21:53] Leah: And they also are recommending, um, just from glancing at the article, cold storage. And so it said one acne product, the newer prescription triple combination therapy already has a cold

shipping process in place. They just need to continue that

at home.

[00:22:06] Tina: Yeah. So how do you do cold storage on

your face? I mean, you're going to go out into the sun. You're going to, going to,

[00:22:11] Leah: Well, no, I mean, and, and I don't, for some reason, back when I used to use acne products, I thought you weren't supposed to

use it during the day. I thought it was something you put

on at night.

[00:22:20] Tina: it said that most of these are recommended to be used twice a day,

[00:22:24] Leah: Oh, really?

[00:22:25] Tina: once to twice a day.

[00:22:26] Leah: I mean, it used to be like that. you know, white kind of color, so it's not like something, you know, when you would kind of try to blend it over your pimple, you'd have like that white cast, like you're using zinc or something. So it wasn't really

something that people liked to use

[00:22:39] Tina: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of reasons for acne to happen and it's not what our topic of discussion, but um, high sugar in the diet definitely makes it worse as does hormonal imbalances. And so couple of things,

[00:22:52] Leah: And I found, um, people who have low Omega threes in their diet as well, like increasing more Omega three foods also seems to help. But yeah, um, be

kind to your gut bugs

and they'll be kind to your skin.

[00:23:05] Tina: Yeah, it's a real issue for some folks, I mean, I do feel for them if this is all that has been working, but be mindful, cold storage. They have those little tiny refrigerators now. Have you seen those? They're always like on Facebook and stuff. They're like itty bitty things.

[00:23:19] Leah: in your bathroom, just have your, you know, you could, you can have your, your non sodium benzoate soda in there next to your non benzene containing

acne cream in your bathroom

waiting for you.

[00:23:32] Tina: I think they are calling them makeup refrigerators or

something like that.

[00:23:35] Leah: Really? You're going to make

me Google this makeup.

It's for your makeup.

[00:23:41] Tina: Yeah. They're little tiny things. They're like smaller than a

backpack.

[00:23:44] Leah: Okay. What's your other story, Tina?

[00:23:47] Tina: Oh, my other story.

[00:23:48] Leah: As I Google makeup

refrigerator.

[00:23:52] Tina: My other story was

something that caught my eye and it was, An article on bacteria in the mouth, triggering head and neck cancer. this had to do with the microbiome of the mouth and keeping it healthy. it was a pretty large study. It was, uh, 160, 000 Americans from across the country. And they were looking at various, lifestyle factors for head and neck cancer.

And what they found was. there was what they called compelling evidence that oral bacteria are a risk factor for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma development. Um, Their whole take home point in my mind, the take home point is to make sure that your oral care is very good and that you're not eating lots of sugar, that you're brushing your teeth, that you're taking care of your mouth.

That's probably the best we can do. They didn't mention HPV that I know of. I couldn't get the full article. I just have the summaries and the PR releases. They didn't mention HPV and now When I think of a biome, I think of bacteria, archaea, and viruses, right? Like, they're all living together, like the ecosystem in a forest.

You have all these different types, um, of organisms. So I don't know if this creates a permissive environment for HPV, which we know HPV is definitely related to head and neck cancers, HPV, human papillomavirus is clearly related and that wasn't talked about. They just talked about the bacterial species and how 13 oral bacteria were found to be associated with the development of these cancers. So I just thought that was interesting.

[00:25:31] Leah: oh no, for sure. And it, you know, like as we're learning more about the microbiome in general, like it kind of makes sense. What I'm really curious about is what is the effect of using mouthwashes? You know, using like a mouthwash, like how is that adversely affecting your oral

microbiome?

[00:25:50] Tina: That is a good question.

[00:25:51] Leah: You know, and obviously we're not dentists, so we're not gonna really, know the answer to that, but The other thing is a tidbit and I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before but somewhere I should find out where Somewhere I read that it's not a good idea to brush your teeth right after you eat

like to wait like 15 minutes I think those 15 minutes or so because of I don't know if it was like the pH Levels in your mouth or something, but you could actually do more harm to the enamel if you brush your teeth right away So

I'll try to look that up and I will see if I can find it

But that was something that I thought was really interesting

[00:26:31] Tina: I've never heard that.

[00:26:32] Leah: Because I'm not one to like immediately.

I might immediately

like floss my teeth, but I'm not gonna

immediately brush my teeth

[00:26:38] Tina: Like keep your toothbrush and toothpaste in a holster. And as soon as you're done, whip them out.

[00:26:44] Leah: Well, I mean I remember kids at school, especially the kids with braces They would go to school with their you

know,

[00:26:49] Tina: Sure. If you have braces

[00:26:52] Leah: yeah, but you could

swish maybe just with water. I don't

know I never had braces

[00:26:55] Tina: or just don't smile for 20 minutes.

[00:26:57] Leah: Just don't smile

for 20 minutes.

[00:27:00] Tina: Okay. So I'm going to tell you something that's totally, um, conjecture, but I kind of wonder when it comes to teeth health. One of the reasons that we eat berries and anything that has the color of nature, whatever color we're talking about, especially the reds and the blues um, I kind of wonder if one of their jobs in our mouths is to make sure we don't get the walled off biofilms of the bad bacteria.

So a biofilm is basically a covering of sorts that protects colonies or communities of bacteria and those communities can sometimes be pathogenic or cause cavities that kind of thing My thought is, because we know these plants contain proanthocyanidins and bioflavonoids that break down biofilms, I wonder if one of the benefits that we don't talk about enough is creating a better biome in our mouth because we chew these foods. That's totally speculative. But that's one of the things I think about when I'm brushing my teeth and I, I know that there's pieces of blueberry in my teeth. I'm like, well, it could be worse.

[00:28:01] Leah: I'm feeding my microbiome. Okay. So I found, I found it. I had a look there like Colgate and Sensodyne had it on their site too. But, um, Columbia University Irving Medical Center says that it is recommended to hold off on brushing, after consuming anything acidic, whether it's fruit, soda, juice, or sour candy, because it weakens the enamel of the tooth.

And so they're recommending waiting about 30 minutes. Whereas the toothpaste sites recommended 60 minutes

[00:28:29] Tina: Wait, wait, wait, wait. So your mouth is acidic. They're saying, don't go brushing your teeth.

[00:28:34] Leah: right after having something that is more acidic. Whoa. You would think that it'd be the opposite, that you should go brush your teeth. Like, what if your toothpaste has some bicarb in it? Like it's. Arm and hammer.

I don't know. I'm not,

you know, talk, talk to Colgate

[00:28:48] Tina: right. We got to get a dentist on here. This is,

[00:28:49] Leah: Yeah, no. It says to use soft bristles and to wait. Oh, it says, I always recommend rinsing with or drinking water, which starts the remineralization process of the

enamel. So.

[00:29:01] Tina: All right. I have a

question.

[00:29:03] Leah: What's the acidity level

of your mouth?

[00:29:06] Tina: It should be, it should be just slightly acidic, if at all. 6. 5 to 7 point something.

[00:29:11] Leah: Okay, so if you drink a soda, what's it, what's the acidity of a

soda?

[00:29:16] Tina: Almost everything we drink is acidic. Very few things are not acidic. Soda, soda pop is down there. Like if it's a Pepsi, it's way down there, you know. That's why you can, that's why we can clean a battery, all that corrosion with Coca Cola, because it's so acidic. It's got the phosphoric acid in it. So I'm gonna guess, and you can tell me if I'm right.

Ready? pH is gonna be between, It's gonna be three, give or take. Three to four. For, for, wait, soda pops, it's gonna be lower. And for juices, four, give or take. Four or five.

[00:29:45] Leah: Coca Cola regular has the lowest pH of 2. 5 compared

to other carbonated

or fruit beverages.

[00:29:53] Tina: Which is why you can't clean your battery

with Sprite. That phosphoric acid, by the way, and this acidic nature of all of the soda pops with phosphoric acids in them, is the reason that they're horrible for our bone health. Because when you drink phosphoric acid, Your body has to buffer that phosphorus with something, and it prefers to do it with calcium and your storage of calcium is your bone.

And so you'll, you'll find the calcium. You'll just pull it right out of your bone if you need to, and then you'll buffer that phosphoric acid you just drank. Definitely makes the drink less appealing, right? How about juices?

[00:30:25] Leah: Oh, she says, I don't know, I just, so the golden number for pH

in your mouth should be 5. 6 or

above.

[00:30:31] Tina: Oh, 5. 6 is too

acidic. That's crazy acidic for saliva.

[00:30:36] Leah: So saliva has a pH normal range of 6. 2 to 7. 6, with 6. 7 being the average.

I'm just grabbing this from quick

searches.

[00:30:44] Tina: Okay, well, no, I'll agree with that. I'll agree with those numbers.

[00:30:47] Leah: Okay.

[00:30:48] Tina: So, when I was a resident, and I would do weekly lectures to patients and their families, we handed out pH paper on a regular basis. to the patients and their caregivers. And you know, sometimes it was 10 people, sometimes it was 30 people, but kind of did this cause I was a resident and it'd be an interesting experiment.

And we would check saliva, have people drink a little bit of water first, swish it around, sit there for a little bit, check their saliva. And I am here to tell you that people with cancer definitely had lower pH in their mouth. active cancer. Not shocking because cancer itself creates acid. It creates an acidic environment and your body has to shed that and it sheds it through your saliva.

It sheds it through your urine. So yeah, the pH changes according to your physiology. It's not just about your mouth, it's about your whole body.

[00:31:32] Leah: Well, there's this interesting, article from Loma Linda University. That about the key to maintaining proper pH balance in your mouth, so I will post a link to that, too. Because that's the one where I got the 5. 6 is ideal and it talks about how the changes after you eat the Mineralization of the enamel all

that stuff.

So I will include these links. I

will keep them on my phone

[00:31:54] Tina: I have a question for our listeners. Does anyone know? I have heard. I didn't see this. I haven't experienced it and I have visited Italy, but I have heard that it is tradition to end the meal with a bit of cheese, hard cheese. And if that's true, I always thought, well, maybe that is helpful for their teeth because they're doing a calcium source.

[00:32:14] Leah: I think there are a number of European countries where the dessert isn't sweet where it's it's cheese, but

[00:32:20] Tina: That's interesting.

[00:32:21] Leah: I don't know, I don't know what the reason behind that is, but yeah, no, I mean, and I think, you know, if you are able to tolerate cheese, I think

having it at the beginning, middle and end of a meal is

a good thing.

Because it's good. But yeah, because I do remember people, you know, posting things about like being surprised that at the end of a meal, they didn't get a dessert. They got a

cheese plate or something. I

[00:32:46] Tina: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like a little

cheese plate. Yeah.

[00:32:49] Leah: yeah, I think

it is

common in certain European countries.

[00:32:51] Tina: Anyways, maybe there are listeners who, you know, only 80 percent of our listeners are in North America. 20 percent are from Europe, Australia, et cetera. So

[00:32:58] Leah: They can, they can send us a

message and let us know.

[00:33:01] Tina: I figure people know more than I do

about it. Yeah.

[00:33:03] Leah: I think what they should do is go to our website and click that little microphone icon and leave us a message and you know, talk to us about what kind of cheeses do you have for

dessert. Talk to me about

cheese.

[00:33:16] Tina: Or what's the customary

thing to do after a meal in certain countries? I mean, I think having dessert that is sweet is not a good idea, but that is what we are accustomed to here.

[00:33:26] Leah: I know, but ever since I started having, hot flashes I'm a big fan of having that dessert before a meal. Well, or not, you know, like having it with lunch or something earlier in the day.

So I don't like wake up

with night sweats.

[00:33:42] Tina: yeah. So you're saying if you have

a sugar too late in the night.

[00:33:45] Leah: Oh, it's, it's not just me. It is a very common cause of, of night sweats and of waking up in the middle of the night. So yeah, keep that sugar as an afternoon delight,

as they say.

[00:33:58] Tina: there you go. Afternoon delight.

[00:34:03] Leah: Anything else besides people going to our, our, our website and hitting that record button and leaving, leave us a message. I'm really surprised we

haven't gotten any voice messages.

[00:34:12] Tina: We did get one from Moses, but we haven't replayed it. Sorry, Moses.

[00:34:16] Leah: So

[00:34:17] Tina: We got to just get coordinated to put it within our recording here. I

[00:34:21] Leah: maybe if we edit this, we

will. If

we edit this. Oh,

we're editing this. was going to say,

[00:34:27] Tina: if here,

[00:34:29] Leah: When we edit this, we will add in Moses and his message.

[00:34:34] Tina: I'll tee it up. Ready? Here's Moses.

[00:34:46] Leah: That was awesome.

Thanks, Moses.

[00:34:49] Tina: Yes. Thanks for taking the time. But yeah, I would love to hear from more folks who are listening, because I can see the staff. I can't see who you are. I can see where people are. I can see how long they listen. Um, and we do have quite a few listeners around the world, like I mentioned, so I'm, I'm excited to engage more, which we need to talk about.

We're going to be launching our engagement soon.

[00:35:08] Leah: Not that we're engaged.

[00:35:09] Tina: Oh, Jesus. What do you mean our engagement?

Oh, our, our listener engagement tools. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:16] Leah: Oh, like the membership?

[00:35:17] Tina: Yeah,

[00:35:18] Leah: Okay. Tina, I'm

[00:35:21] Tina: Yeah, I love your layup, but not like that.

[00:35:25] Leah: I have to bring it to my husband. So, um, yeah, and if you've made it this far, today's episode, please head on over to buy me a coffee,

and,

[00:35:37] Tina: We'll buy you a coffee if you made it this far.

[00:35:39] Leah: this is, this is not advertising supported, as you can tell. This is supported by us. This is total grassroots, and, Anything that we get from buy me a coffee goes towards keeping this a finely tuned machine that it

is.

[00:35:56] Tina: That's right. That's right. We are in season four. So

[00:36:00] Leah: That's crazy. Yeah,

that's, that's

wild.

[00:36:03] Tina: yeah, but I will, I'm happy to say we were finally getting some love from Apple. We're finally in the standings when you put in the word cancer in your search and you'll, you'll see us there in the, in the top 20, which is saying something. And there's over 3 million podcasts out there.

Available. So, keep listening.

[00:36:19] Leah: Yay team! Go team!

[00:36:24] Tina:

[00:36:24] Leah: So on that note, I'm Dr. Leia

Sherman

[00:36:26] Tina: And I'm Dr. Tina Kaczor.

[00:36:28] Leah: and this is the Cancer Pod.

[00:36:29] Tina: Until next time.

[00:36:30] Leah: Thanks for listening to The Cancer Pod. Remember to subscribe, review, and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates. And as always, this is not medical advice. These are our opinions. Talk to your doctor before changing anything related to your treatment plan. The Cancer Pod is hosted by me, Dr.

Leah Sherman, and by Dr. Tina Kazer. Music is by Kevin MacLeod. See you next time.