The soft tissues in your mouth are an extension of your gastrointestinal tract. Your mouth is like the first tee in a golf game; like the coming attractions before the movie starts in the theater; like the entrance to Disney World. It’s where it all begins.
 
As a periodontist, I have been treating gum disease for 41 years. The traditional methods of treating gum disease have rarely included the concepts of healthy nutrition based on our evolutionary requirements. For my patients, I include the methods of assisting all the body’s cells to reach their peak nutritional performance along with my treatment of gum disease through patient-friendly techniques.
 
There is a relationship between the gums, the gut, and Paleo. Let me describe this correlation.
 
Your gastrointestinal tract is a tube about 25 feet long. The tissues lining the entire length of this tube from the mouth to the anus can and will respond in their own way to whatever occurs along this path.
 
Once you take the first bite of food, digestion begins. Assisting digestion are the teeth that chew the food, the muscles that move the food along, the enzymes and chemicals that are produced to breakdown the food, the friendly bacteria that further digest food particles and produce necessary biochemicals, and the absorption processes that allow the dissolved nutrients to migrate into the bloodstream to nourish every cell of the body. Whatever is left over from this digestion process is excreted.
 
If there were irritants to the gut from the foods we ate, damage to the lining of the gut and increase in unhealthy bacteria could occur. The result could be unhealthy particles of food and bacteria entering the bloodstream creating chronic inflammation. This inflammation and increase in unhealthy gut bacteria affect the entire body as well as the health of the gum tissues. Their pathways increase the potential for gum disease as well as increase unhealthy bacteria in the mouth. Unhealthy bacteria in the mouth and further insult from ingestion of unhealthy carbohydrates will cause gum disease.
 
Paleo is a lifestyle. A Paleo way of eating may go under various titles. It is sometimes called a primal diet, or an ancestral diet, or a caveman diet.  There are no specific foods that make up a Paleo diet. The common denominator is that all these diets DO NOT include processed foods or processed sugars or conventionally fed and farmed animal products or processed fats and oils. A Paleo diet avoids these unhealthy foods, which often lead to damage in the gut, increase in unhealthy gut bacteria, and eventually damage in the gum tissues.
 
To come full circle, a Paleo diet, which excludes all these bad foods, can maintain a healthy gut in addition to healing a damaged gut. A Paleo diet can help maintain gum health.
 
So the importance of Paleo is that its nutrient-dense foods will allow the gut to function properly. A healthy gut will allow nutrients to be absorbed properly and will maintain a healthy community of gut bacteria. All this assists the gum tissues in remaining healthy.