dentisit Eduardo AnyituaAs a benchmark in international scientific research and biomedical innovation, it has recently been Stanford Universityas the most respected and influential expert in the Spanish national profession.
This famous doctor from the BTI Institute of Biotechnology, Alava, the alma mater of the Institute of Biotechnology, a multinational company specialized in biomedicine, whose activities focus on regenerative medicine, is also in good habits Strong advocates, therefore, detail how we can become aware of how we can improve our living habits. healthy.
What led you to get into the field of regenerative medicine and advanced therapies?
-Inspiration always comes from asking questions. I am a curious person, and since I first started practicing maxillofacial surgery, I have been amazed at why some patients recover so much better than others after receiving a simple treatment like tooth extraction. Specifically, patients who smoke have particularly poor recovery outcomes. Therefore, we asked ourselves what are the biological mechanisms that lead to good regeneration in some people and poor regeneration in others.
What is the greatest potential of regenerative medicine in healthcare?
-The steps we are currently taking to use autologous proteins are the biggest advances in regenerative therapies in the past two decades. Its simplicity means we can get the drug from the patient’s own blood, we can prepare it into therapeutic doses and apply it to many areas of medicine such as dermatology, orthopedics, sports medicine, cosmetology… It has been used in ophthalmology and reproductive medicine.
Treatments and innovative solutions are vital to health, but how important is prevention?
——Prevention is not important; We have to realize that when we are born, we have a car and it is our body. This car used to travel 400,000 kilometers, which means its lifespan is about 50-60 years. Today, it has been extended to 1 million kilometers. Currently, female life expectancy is over 86 years and male life expectancy is over 82 years. Most importantly, we must not only take care of life, but extend it every day with health, creativity, self-sufficiency, and autonomy. We must develop healthy habits right from school, learning correct breathing, healthy exercise, diet, rest and sleep. Some good habits should become subjects taught in schools. I hope there starts to be a healthy living theme there. I have participated in activities to teach children to brush their teeth and take good care of their mouths. We must instill these habits in children and teenagers.
“Some good habits should be a subject taught in schools. “I would love to start a topic there about healthy living”
You mentioned needing to learn to breathe. What are the dangers of breathing through your mouth?
-The nose, the nasal organ, plays a vital role in our lives. We must realize that our noses filter the air on the one hand and humidify and condition the air on the other hand. We also have a sense of smell. But importantly, control of nasal breathing is a powerful rheostat of the brain, allowing us to regulate brain activity and control our thoughts and emotions. Let’s realize that we all have a horse in our head that will run away sometimes but we have to hold the reins; this is done through breathing and breathing techniques.
“Control of nasal breathing is a powerful rheostat of the brain, allowing us to regulate brain activity and control our thoughts and emotions”
You can control this nasal breathing when you’re awake and aware of its importance, but how do you apply it at night?
-Everything can be trained in this life, including breathing through the nose. We must remember that if we breathe through our mouth during the day, we will continue to do so at night. If you smoke or vape during the day and force breathing through your mouth, at night your brain will continue to breathe through your mouth. So we have to send clear signals to our brains, because ultimately they are automatic and they reoccur at night, so we have to train them during the day in the right direction, in the direction of physiology, which tells us that breathing has to be Nasal.
You mentioned learning to sleep properly. How much sleep should a person get based on age?
-Now we know that we should sleep on average 7-8 hours, but, for example, children must sleep more. Night is the time when brain activity is most active, so it’s an important time. For a student, it is not worth accumulating a large amount of information during the day; this information must be processed overnight. Therefore, a day’s intellectual work requires a full night’s sleep and the management of all information. Depending on the state of our intellectual activity, we need more rest. Children must be taught to rest; you also learn to sleep, and there are skills to this. Today, children and teenagers are completely influenced by new technologies.
Why poor dental health can have serious physical consequences?
-The mouth plays a vital role in how we eat, in order to eat properly we need to have teeth and molars to chew. At the same time, we need to have sufficient tongue function that allows us to produce this bolus, mix it with saliva and microbiota, and enable adequate digestion. What happens is that the mouth is more susceptible to infection and it is the first line of infection (followed by the lungs). We think there may be cavities or infections in the mouth, and people self-treat and take antibiotics, but they don’t know these infections are serious. If an infection develops within the mouth, it may subsequently infect any other distant tissue. Therefore, it is crucial to have a healthy mouth, free of infection, and with adequate chewing and swallowing functions.
“Depending on our mental activity, we need more rest”
There is an even more unknown element, vitamin D, that plays a key role in our health. Why is it so relevant to the health of children and adults?
-We’ve been looking at vitamin D for years, doing comparative studies to see what better standards we have for patients who are not healing well. We observed that patients with poor healing and epithelialization had very low vitamin D levels. In fact, we did a study and found that we are generally deficient in vitamin D. At the same time, we learned that the optimal level of vitamin D is not 30 (until recently, this was the lowest level), but can be between 50 and 70. To reach such levels in Northern Europe (in Spain, starting from Madrid) we should be exposed to the sun for at least 10 to 15 minutes a day, otherwise we will not be able to reach these levels. Therefore, we need to take supplements that are readily available and affordable today. Vitamin D plays an important role in bone metabolism and as an immune modulator, it is a powerful modulator of our immunity and defenses.
In fact, when a baby is born, doctors prescribe a few drops of vitamin D every day for the first year of life… you shouldn’t just stick to it for the first year, right?
-This is a parameter that we should all analyze with a blood test to know our levels and if we are supplementing we should do it under medical control which will indicate the correct dosage to take. Dosage is definitely a personal thing and depends on our exposure to light and our absorption. Because of the differences, two people in the same household may need different doses. Take a daily dose of vitamin D.
Eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly, don’t smoke…what other mantras are essential to prevent disease and promote healthy living?
-We have already discussed the importance of breathing, rest, physical activity…but food plays a fundamental role. First, we know that our diet must be balanced, without excess fat or sugar, and distributed appropriately throughout the day. A diet based on fruits, vegetables and legumes. On the other hand, we should control blood sugar levels. Many people think that a balanced breakfast can be a glass of orange juice and two slices of toast with jam, but this triggers spikes in our blood sugar, so it’s important that our blood sugar doesn’t spike up or down and stay stable. Today, we know what the blood sugar level is through different tests used by people with diabetes. We all have a pancreas that produces insulin, but diabetes begins when it loses the ability to secrete enough insulin. Therefore, it is important to control these blood sugar spikes by eating a more balanced diet.
Can genetic diseases be prevented by practicing these healthy habits?
-indeed. We are born with genes; genetics plays a vital role, but there is also epigenetics, which are changes in the expression of our genes depending on our habits, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, breathing patterns… So, just because our dad had lung cancer or chronic bronchitis, doesn’t mean we’ll get it too. This means that if we know what bad habits are causing the problem, then all we have to do is be more proactive in avoiding those bad habits since we have a greater tendency to do so. This also applies to bronchitis, liver disease, diabetes or many other conditions. Today, we breed diseases through bad habits.
“We are creating disease all the time because of bad habits. “In the highly developed world, obesity is a real epidemic, an indicator of metabolic imbalance that will have serious consequences. ”
For example, obesity is a real epidemic in the highly developed world and we think of it as normal, when in fact severe overweight is an indicator of disease, an indicator of metabolic imbalance, and there is no doubt that it will cause damage. So what we have to do is correct all of these metabolic changes. What is clear is that medicine has made tremendous advances that we must properly take advantage of. It’s there for us to use.