I used to be in Los Angeles closing week visiting one in every of my daughters, and he or she took me to Erewhon. (Fortunately, for the report.)
In the event you’ve by no means been, Erewhon is the grocer the place a smoothie prices $22 and the automobile parking space seems like a Tesla dealership. When in Rome, proper?
So, in fact, I finally end up within the toothpaste aisle, and what I noticed used to be beautiful thrilling. Nano-hydroxyapatite used to be in every single place. Logo after emblem, all that includes nHAP—the calcium mineral that makes up 97% of your teeth.
Ten years in the past, you couldn’t in finding these things out of doors of Japan. Now it dominates the toothpaste aisle on the maximum talked-about grocery retailer in LA. That’s actual growth!
For years, I informed sufferers who requested me about toothpaste that the whole lot available on the market used to be a compromise. Boka used to be the most suitable option to be had for some time—and I used to suggest them. They were given nHAP into other people’s arms when no person else used to be doing it.
A lady subsequent to me within the aisle picked up a tube of Boka and stated, “Have you learnt the rest about those?”
I informed her I may know a factor or two.
We were given to speaking. She’d heard about nHAP from a podcast. She used to be opting for a toothpaste in response to the only aspect she’d heard of, however neglecting to believe the whole lot else at the label.
I picked up the tube of Boka she used to be keeping and flipped it round…
Quite a lot of crucial oils: peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, anise, plus cardamom oil, and menthol. Seven substances with broad-spectrum antimicrobial task, doing the similar factor: killing micro organism.
Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, which is a deceptive one. The entrance of the tube advertises “SLS Loose” however what they did used to be switch SLS for a surfactant cousin. Other chemical title, identical class of aspect, identical foaming-and-stripping impact at the cells the micro organism to your mouth rely on. It’s a softer model, however it’s nonetheless a surfactant! “SLS Loose” has change into a advertising word. It’s now not the similar as surfactant-free.
She stated, “Aren’t crucial oils herbal?”
Herbal, possibly. Microbiome-destructive, surely.
Right here’s the article about “herbal.” A small bottle of tea tree oil is the concentrated extract of kilos of leaves. No person is placing that a lot tea tree into their mouth by way of chewing leaves in actual existence. Pay attention any plant compound sufficient and it stops behaving like a plant and will behave like a drug.
I began flipping each and every tube on that shelf. All of the identical tale…
Crucial oils in each and every unmarried one. Some had 4. One had 9, together with tea tree oil, one of the crucial potent broad-spectrum antimicrobials in nature. Those are small corporations doing excellent paintings getting nHAP into other people’s arms. However they’re loading their formulation with substances that don’t discriminate within the micro organism that they kill and suppress.
Right here’s what I feel is if truth be told taking place. Toothpaste is regulated as a beauty within the U.S. (despite the fact that it in point of fact shouldn’t be). So those manufacturers are borrowing from the skin care playbook. Chamomile. Lavender. Unique botanicals. “Increased” substances that sign sophistication and justify top class pricing.
It’s beauty mimicry. And it really works, as a result of we’ve been skilled to learn toothpaste labels the best way we learn skin care labels. However having chamomile to your toothpaste isn’t the improve the label needs you to suppose it’s.
Right here’s what I informed her…
There’s no remineralization with out the oral microbiome.
Your enamel can’t heal with out the micro organism to your mouth.
Injury the microbiome, and remineralization slows and even stops.
The “excellent guys” aka the commensal, or really useful, micro organism to your mouth—species like S. sanguinis, S. salivarius, S. oralis—are a part of a microbial neighborhood that produces nitric oxide, which helps cardiovascular well being. They keep in touch together with your intestine and your mind via what researchers now name the oral-gut-brain axis. They maintain dangerous breath in take a look at. They stabilize your saliva chemistry so calcium and phosphate can redeposit onto weakened teeth.
When your toothpaste wipes them out, you’re now not simply risking your enamel. You’re knocking out micro organism that stay all your physique wholesome.
It’s like watering a lawn whilst pouring salt at the soil.
A 2021 find out about printed in Antibiotics examined crucial oils — together with thyme and oregano — in opposition to each cavity-causing species like Streptococcus mutans and really useful commensals like Streptococcus sanguinis. The crucial oils killed each. The researchers put it it appears that evidently: those results on commensal micro organism “can carry issues,” as a result of removing them manner “an imbalance can happen resulting in an infection or oral illness, turning our resolution into an issue.”
I don’t blame those corporations. Crucial oils style excellent and provides toothpaste that tingly blank feeling. For a very long time, we didn’t perceive the oral microbiome properly sufficient to grasp this used to be an issue. However now we do.
At this level, my new buddy within the toothpaste aisle requested some other query: “OK, so I want nHAP with out the crucial oils. However isn’t 10% the focus to search for? Isn’t extra higher?”
Nice query. And the solution stunned her.
That 10% quantity lines again to a unmarried 2009 find out about out of China. The “nano” debris they examined had been 500 to two,000 nanometers, which, by way of nowadays’s requirements, aren’t nano in any respect.
They’re micro-particles. Ten to 40 occasions higher than what nano if truth be told manner now.
After all you wanted 10% of that. You wish to have numerous gravel to fill a hairline crack. However engineer a fine-grain sand that matches the crack precisely, and you wish to have some distance much less.
However efficacy isn’t the most effective query value asking a few toothpaste. And that is the place we dentists generally tend to get narrow-minded…
We generally tend center of attention on what’s taking place to teeth construction. Does this rebuild teeth? Does it whiten enamel?
However a toothpaste aspect doesn’t keep for your enamel. It touches your gums. It will get absorbed during the skinny tissue of your mouth. It finally ends up swallowed by accident. It results in your intestine. The suitable query isn’t simply “does it paintings on my enamel?” It’s additionally “is it protected for my complete physique?”
That’s the place the SCCS is available in…
The Clinical Committee on Shopper Protection is the Eu Union’s unbiased clinical panel for comparing substances in non-public care merchandise. They require producers to post their knowledge. They run their very own opinions. They have a look at cell-level results, irritation, absorption, what occurs when a particle crosses into the bloodstream, what occurs when one thing accumulates in organs. Then they post a proper opinion, and the EU makes use of that opinion to make a decision what’s criminal to promote. If most effective the FDA had been so thorough, however I digress!
In June of 2025, the SCCS printed their most up-to-date opinion on nano-hydroxyapatite. They usually had been explicit. Rod-shaped debris. Uncoated. Unmodified. Positive side ratios. No longer needle-shaped, which they explicitly flagged as doubtlessly destructive. Debris assembly the ones actual specifications, and most effective the ones specifications, they regarded as protected.
Right here’s the road from their opinion: “Any uptake of hydroxyapatite (nano) by way of buccal mucosa is regarded as negligible, and the epithelial cells with internalised debris shall be shed out over the years.”
In simple English: those explicit debris don’t gather to your physique. Cells that occur to pick out one up get shed naturally, the best way cells to your mouth already do.
That may be a large deal. And it most effective applies to the particular type of nano-HAP the SCCS evaluated.
The nano-HAP we use in Fygg is named nanoXIM, made by way of a Portuguese corporate known as Fluidinova. The debris are about 30 nanometers lengthy and 15 nanometers large. Rod-shaped. Uncoated. Precisely what the SCCS licensed for whole-body protection.
The analysis we invested in…
Complete disclosure: I’m a co-founder of Fygg. You realize that. One of the most issues I insisted on from the start used to be that we if truth be told spend money on unbiased analysis…to not turn out we’re proper, however to determine if we’re. Any emblem that asks to your accept as true with must be prepared to place their system below a microscope in public.
So Fygg invested in a peer-reviewed find out about at Dr. Bennett Amaechi’s lab at UT Well being San Antonio—one of the vital most sensible remineralization researchers on the earth. We requested a selected query: how does our system evaluate in opposition to each and every different main nano-HAP toothpaste, and in opposition to fluoride toothpastes, in head-to-head remineralization?
Each product within the find out about produced important remineralization—in keeping with the wider literature appearing that each nHAP and fluoride can rebuild teeth.
And in opposition to prescription-strength fluoride (ClinPro 5000) and same old fluoride (Crest), Fygg carried out comparably.
A well-formulated nHAP toothpaste can fit what fluoride does.
Right here’s what’s telling concerning the unfold. Fygg and Boka each use nanoXIM—the similar SCCS-grade nano-hydroxyapatite. And but Fygg considerably outperformed Boka. Two formulation the use of the similar lively aspect shouldn’t produce nearly-double effects. One thing else within the formulation separated them.
The formulation full of crucial oils, surfactants, and botanicals carried out worse. The system that left all of that out—the only designed to nourish the oral microbiome—carried out practically two times as properly. An in vitro find out about can’t let us know precisely why. However whether or not the ones substances are interfering with the chemistry within the dish, or destructive the microbiome in an actual mouth, or each, the outcome is identical. They get in the best way.
What I informed her to search for…
She used to be proper to be in that aisle. However sooner than she grabbed a tube, I gave her 3 issues to test:
1. Depend the crucial oils and the botanicals. Tea tree, eucalyptus, thyme, wintergreen, peppermint, spearmint, anise—broad-spectrum antimicrobials. They kill the nice micro organism along side the dangerous. Fruit and flower extracts—chamomile, aloe, mango—are beauty mimicry and possible oral microbiome disruptors.
2. Search for SCCS-grade nanoXIM—now not simply any “nHAP.” The grade and particle spec topic greater than the proportion. A label that simply says “nHAP” tells you not anything about what model is within the tube, or whether or not any person has ever evaluated it for whole-body protection.
3. Learn previous “SLS Loose.” Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate is a cousin of SLS. Cocamidopropyl Betaine is some other. They’re all surfactants, and so they all do the similar paintings to the cells to your mouth. “SLS Loose” isn’t the similar as surfactant-free.
For this reason I co-founded Fygg, a system that treats the oral microbiome as a spouse in remineralization, now not collateral harm. After which we invested within the analysis to ensure it if truth be told does what we designed it to do.
I am hoping this used to be useful. Hit answer when you have any questions or tips for what you’d like me to write down about subsequent.
Stay studying the ones labels,
Mark
P.S. In the event you’ve already made the transfer to nHAP, excellent for you. You’re forward of 95% of other people. Now turn that tube round and browse the remainder of the label. That’s the place the actual distinction is hiding.
Additional Studying & Citations
Aires, A., Barreto, A.S., & Semedo-Lemsaddek, T. (2021). “Antimicrobial Results of Crucial Oils on Oral Microbiota Biofilms: The Toothbrush In Vitro Fashion.” Antibiotics, 10(1), 21.
Amaechi, B.T., Tan, A.I., Noureldin, A.A.Ok., Kanthaiah, Ok., Holladay, E., Obiefuna, A.C., & Vijayaraghavan, M. (2025). “In vitro analysis of the facility of nanohydroxyapatite toothpastes to reinforce remineralization of teeth caries lesion.” Magazine of Dentistry, 161, 106006.
