I have a few slightly unorthodox takes about health. Sometimes people want to know about them even though my actual health should probably not inspire much confidence. So here they are.
I think it’s good to use a vibrating toothbrush. I use one of the cheapest Sonicare brushes (the 4100). It cost $30 and has lasted me a couple years so far. The first time I went to the dentist for a cleaning after I started using it, the hygienist seemed to immediately know that I used one.
The world of toothpastes is confusing; my current routine is probably overkill. I alternate between two routines: In the morning, I brush with Livfresh activated edathamil toothpaste. Activated edathamil is (allegedly, supported by at least some research) substantially better at getting rid of bacteria than other toothpastes. In the evening, I brush first with a stannous-fluoride-based toothpaste, and second with a nano-hydroxyapatite-based toothpaste.
The reason to have two separate routines is that the edathamil-based toothpaste allegedly works by “stealing” calcium ions from plaque to weaken it, while the hydroxyapatite toothpaste works by “donating” calcium ions (that combine with the fluoride ions to produce the fluorapatite that strengthens your teeth). If you use both at once, it seems likely that they’ll sort of fight each other over the calcium ions, limiting the effectiveness of all three toothpastes.
I think it’s also probably good to floss; I found it too annoying to do so until I started using the Reach Ultraclean (formerly Listerine Ultraclean) flossing tool, which lets you floss very quickly and without getting your hands covered in spit and tooth gunk.
I feel confused about polyester. My sense is that there’s nontrivial evidence that polyester induces some kind of endocrine disruption (most obviously affecting male fertility), and yet it’s probably the most common fiber used in modern clothing (not to mention soda bottles). For this reason, I try to avoid wearing polyester (especially underwear), and have recently been opting for Cottonique’s undyed 100% cotton boxers - the ones that use drawstrings like your great grandparents’ undergarments, since they eschew even the spandex used in almost all underwear elastic bands.
Beyond that, I also prefer clothes and bedding that are OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certified, to avoid at least some potentially harmful substances that are sometimes found in low-quality textiles. I don’t know how important this is really, it just seems like a positive and relatively cheap intervention for someone who’s otherwise unconstrained by the strictures of fashion.
I’ve had occasional struggles with gut health. I’ve tried many of the typical recommendations (e.g. eating fermented foods, taking probiotics with varying degrees of support in the scientific literature, restricting my diet in various ways). But one month I seemed to be having issues especially with my stomach and small intestine: I’d been nauseous and vomiting with weird-smelling burps for weeks, and nothing seemed to work. I generated the hypothesis that I might have an H. pylori infection, and reasoned that I could either go to a doctor and argue with them about whether they should prescribe me some kind of antibiotic for this, or I could just drink a few glasses of whiskey on an empty stomach and see how it went.
I don’t drink much, so one effect was that I got very drunk. But the second effect was that my GI problems almost immediately and lastingly vanished. I’m not sure if my hypothesis about H. pylori was correct, but I’ve used exactly the same protocol (3 shots of whiskey on an empty stomach) to resolve similar syndromes twice more in the intervening years. I have also tried it one time without seeing a quick resolution, for a total win/loss ratio of 3:1.
Please take the title of this blog post to heart. I really do have no medical expertise, and you should basically not trust my beliefs here. I’m writing about these things because sometimes people ask me about them, and I want to have written them down somewhere.