Hand in hand – dental health and nutrition
The Functional Hygienist aka NCA graduate Caroline Smith was inspired to study on our MSc in Nutrition Science and Practice course in the next step of her dental hygiene career, here she tells us more…
My passion with Functional Nutrition started with a deep desire to better support my Dental Hygiene patients, in healing their inflammatory gum disease. I also wanted to find a way to reduce the risk of dental extraction in children, by understanding how targeted nutritional interventions, in conjunction with the practical side of biofilm disruption, could have a positive effect on healing dental tissues.
When we think of the gut, our mind is drawn to the stomach and the intestines, yet the cephalic oral stage of digestion initiates the digestive dominoes. Working from the top down is incredibly important and thus oral health should be part of the screening tools for Nutritional Therapists, if we are to support it in the best way.
Smelling food triggers the chemical preparation of the gastric juices, while food is mechanically broken down in the mouth by the orchestration of the dentition, muscles of mastication, tongue and lips. Therefore breathing, chewing and swallowing is just as important as the food we put in the system.
When searching for a course, it was very important that it was evidenced based and looked at wellness functional system biology based approach. It was also important for me to have in class lectures, as this type of learning complements how I retain information. I also wanted the security of pastoral support, which I definitely needed during the months during the pandemic. NCA ticked all of the boxes and being so close to Newcastle, meant I could easily travel by train on the teaching weekends. I have also made lifelong friends with the students I studied with and this has helped enormously when venturing into clinical practice.
In the future, as well as supporting my patients, I hope to create educational resources for practitioners to raise awareness of these vital oral issues. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in both the Dental and Functional Nutrition world and I’m thankful that NCA provided me with the educational course to fit my needs.
Forever grateful.