Now coming back to the study results, since the survey on vivid elderly persons was an excellent cross-disciplinary etiological study project, various data which probably could not be obtained only by Dental Faculty were collected from various fields. These valuable data were inputted into the computer. One of these data was composed of findings on food and nutrition. In this connection, a simple question came to my mind whether the correlation between teeth and health could be explained only by the keyword, consumption of food, as was anticipated from our common senses.A certain researcher responsible for food and nutrition sciences illustrated the two-dimensional distribution about ingested foods by the vivid elderly persons. This pattern is characteristic of the plain meal type, being indifferent from the food patterns shown by the general aged people. Namely, the vivid elderly persons (Figure 6)were revealed not to take anything special even though they had their own residual teeth. If the subject elderly person was a woman, she probably had her husband and vice versa; under these situations, the subject could not take any specifically hard food for himself/herself in complete disregard of the partner’s preference even if the subject elderly person had own teeth. As indicated by the old Chinese idea, “Ishoku Dogen” (The same principles underlie a normal diet and medical treatment.), it goes without saying that food is important because of controlling our lives. However, anticipating from the results obtained in the survey on vivid elderly persons, it would appear likely that some unknown factors rather than “Food” might be involved in the association between teeth and health. As was mentioned by Professor Tonegawa, a Novel prize winner, discovery of divergence and inconsistency between the existing common sense and actually observed data provides us with exciting pleasure. Once such a discrepancy is scientifically investigated, we sometimes come across unexpected facts which cannot be excavated by the common senses. This survey was primarily started to get the answer to the simple question “Whether the vivid elderly persons have own teeth or not”. Suppose that the results obtained show clear difference in consumption amount of nutritious food as the keyword to bridge the causal relation which is consistent with the conventional dental common senses, dental specialists including me would have completed our activities at the stage of analysis of the dental conditions in the vivid elderly persons as the minimal obligations of us. (References 53, 54, 61) However, the actual findings were quite different from the common senses.So, another question comes to our mind as to how teeth are associated with health. There might be unknown systemic effects of teeth, which cannot be explained by simple classical interpretation such as “Teeth are only a part of digestive tracts and good teeth can digest food well….” Teeth surely have unknown functions except for “Food ingestion”. Such an additional function was not reported at that occasion. I became curious about “Sexual charm” possessed by the vivid elderly persons I met during the examinations. Researchers including me are really greedy. When any darkness indicative of a question appears in front of us, we cannot help but clarify it by shedding a light on it. In the meantime, I entered into a deep jungle of unknown field step by step. “Why?” “What on earth connect teeth with systemic health except for eating food?”As explained before, this study project was interdisciplinary one with a global reputation, and therefore, we felt as if we had various tools to cultivate the truly unexplored jungle. I promptly investigated the vast amount of internal medicine and exercise physiological data base concerning individual vivid elderly person, which was already input in a computer to pursue the correlation between teeth and systemic functions. As the results, I noted the two characteristics. One of them was my recognition of the correlation between favorable chewing ability and secretion of saliva. Interestingly, however, there was no relationship between favorable chewing ability and the residual number of teeth (current number of teeth). At first, I could not help wondering “Why?”, and then, I doubted miscalculation for the analysis; however, repeated recalculation demonstrated the same results. Presence of teeth is indispensable for favorable chewing. Therefore, it is quite reasonable for us to consider as if residual situations of teeth might be consistent with favorable chewing ability. However, some cases suggest inconsistent findings. For example, suppose there are 10 teeth in the lower jaw and 10 teeth in upper jaw, 20 teeth as residual teeth in total in a certain elderly person. Six lower anterior teeth are located close to the orifice of the salivary gland and therefore, most of the subjects have them for relatively a long period. Accordingly, there are various combinations of the residual teeth, comprising the remaining 4 teeth in the lower jaw and 10 teeth in the upper jaw; in more details, some cases represent colossal disharmony between upper and lower jaw despite of teeth being remained; other cases have good dental occlusion without back teeth resulting in unsatisfactory chewing ability. From the viewpoint of teeth functions, namely “Whether this example subject can chew food or not”, quantitatively 20 teeth are available in total but the quality of their functions are complicated and different. In fact, this complexity implies the mystery of “Hazo” theory.Secondly, we must point out the correlation between teeth and the balance function of the body which can be assessed by the tests on both teeth functions and the persisting period of time under standing on one foot with both eyes closed. I wish to refer to this test in details in the Section 2, Chapter II. From the next Section, I would like to discuss the relationship between teeth and saliva. In the meantime, you need to cool off for the time being because specific and scientific subjects were dealt with in the previous Chapters. For that purpose, I wish to introduce the testimony of a 75-year old woman who attained vivid lives after healthy recovery of teeth.
After completion of Dr. Muratsu’s treatment on March 2, 2000, Dr. Muratsu congratulated me by saying “You held out to the end of the treatment.” I shouted “Wow, I did it!” I underwent treatment for about 1 year while I was not certain I could continue it because of my age. However, Dr. Muratsu and his staffs gave me hearty and thoughtful treatments for over 4 hours in a certain treatment whereby I was so much impressed with their eagerness. Now, I feel that time passed so quickly. Throughout treatments, I became well and I was very much surprised in alleviation of the previous symptoms, together with vivid feeling, active attitudes to daily works, warm feeling of my limbs in my bed and sound sleep at night.I really agree with Dr. Muratsu’s comment “Teeth are our organs.” Thank you very much. I wish to keep contact with Dr. Muratsu from now on to store my precious assets, my teeth. (A 75-year-old woman, Fukuoka city)
■Figure 6Two-dimensional distribution about consumed foods by the vivid elderly persons
The pattern irrespective of the gender is characteristic of the plain meal type, being indifferent from the food patterns shown by the general aged people. (Reference 27: K. Ito, et. al.)
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