Congratulations Dr. Nirvana Leix:
The AAOSH Oral Systemic Health Champion of 2016!
“I strongly believe it’s important to know your numbers. I do want to be on this earth with my family as long as I can and be healthy while here.”
-Nirvana Leix DDS
For the second year in a row, the American Academy for Oral Systemic held our medical testing competition at the 6th Annual Scientific Session in Orlando last September.
Unfortunately, we had a small problem that delayed the release of our final results. Some of our attendees had to have kits sent to their homes to retest because the lab rejected their blood samples. We solved the problem and we don’t expect that challenge to ever hold us back again. However it did take quite a while for us to send out the tests, collect all the new samples, and finally get all the results back from everyone involved. So please accept our sincere apologies and we thank you for your patience. This testing is worth it!
We made available five medical screening tests to assess oral and systemic health. For those who took all five tests, we set up a scoring system to award our best screening attendee the title of AAOSH Oral Systemic Health Champion. We don’t just want to teach oral systemic health, we want to be oral systemic health. We want to walk the talk and discover who are the health mentors among us to follow.
AAOSH is proud to announce that Nirvana Leix battled her way out of a three-way tie for first place with Scott Logan and Mike Long—all with final scores of 91. It was a very tight finish, but Nirvana came through and broke the tie with an A1C of 5.2 and arteries that screened 10 years younger than her age. Her prize package consists of free admission to the 7th Annual Scientific Session, which will be held in Salt Lake City September 15-17,2017. She will also receive her airfare and hotel accommodations completely free, courtesy of Xlear.
Nirvana describes herself as “plant strong” with a diet that consists of many vegetables, a rainbow of produce and legumes, and very little meat. She is a fan of the Forks Over Knives book and documentary and follows its authors.
At our 2015 AAOSH meeting in Dallas, Nirvana met and embraced the protocols of Ellie Phillips, our 2015 Oral Systemic Health Champion. Nirvana is a big fan of Spry xylitol mouth and nasal sprays from Xlear, and she always carries Zellie’s xylitol mints (from Ellie’s company) when she’s on the go. (Can we once again give a big shout out here for xylitol?)
Here’s How We Scored the Contest:
100 possible points (avgerage contestant score was 68, last year was 70)
OralDNA—Saliva Pathogen Test
(20 points possible)
Lose 5 points for every pathogen over threshold. Double penalty for high risk pathogens, Triple for Aa.
A1c—Blood Sugar Control/Systemic Inflammation Test
(20 points possible)
5.6 and below gets the full 20 points. Lose 3 points for every .1 over that 5.6. Anyone with a 6.3 and above will lose all of their points as 6.3 is knocking on the diabetic door (greater than 6.4 is in the diabetic range).
CRP—Systemic Inflammation
(20 points possible)
Full 20 points for 0 - .9. Lose 1 point for every 0.1 over .9. A CRP of 2.9 or greater receives zero points (3.0 is high risk for heart disease and stroke).
CIMT—Artery Inflammation
(35 points possible)
Lose 1 point for every year your measured artery age is over your chronological age. Soft plaques present lose all 35 points.
Biophotonic Scanner—Antioxidant Level
(5 points possible)
0 Points under 40,000
1 Point for 40,000 range
2 Points for 50,000 range
3 Points for 60,000 range
4 Points for 70,000 range
5 Points for 80,000+
Summing Up the 2016 Testing Results
We performed 300 medical tests at our meeting and here is a breakdown of the results.
Carotid Intima Media Thickness Ultrasounds (CIMT)
65 total tests taken composed of:
23 males
- Average chronological age: 55.6
- Average vascular age: 50.4 (5.2 under actual age)
42 females
- Average chronological age: 50.6
- Average vascular age: 55.7 (5.1 over actual age)
Results:
- 49% had plaque in their arteries
- 7% had significant arterial blockage (>21%)
- 1 person screened 47% blockage! (serious concern!)
- the bottom 10% had an avg. artery age 24.5 years older than their chronological age (inflammation red flags!)
OralDNA
We took 68 OralDNA salivary pathogen tests. 72% of those tested had at least one or more of the screened periodontal pathogens at a level that was over the tissue-damaging threshold level. Nine of those tested had high levels (over threshold) of one or more the high risk periodontal pathogens and that are considered by Bale and Doneen to be a contributing cause of cardiovascular disease, the leading killer of men and women globally. Sound the alarm here!
A1c
We took 61 A1c blood tests to screen for blood sugar control and inflammation. Our screening identified 3 diabetics (5% of those tested) and 18 people with prediabetes (29% of those tested).
Over one third of our attendees who tested screened diabetic or pre-diabetic. Doesn’t it seem obvious that we should be testing all of our patients as well?
C-Reactive Protein
We took 61 CRP blood tests to screen for systemic inflammation. Our screening identified 16 people (26%) who screened high risk for a cardiovascular event like heart attack or stroke. One person’s CRP was 20—seven times what is considered high-risk for heart attack or stroke.
BioPhotonic Antioxidant Scan
We used the biophotonic laser scanner on 43 people to read a carotenoid level that is representative of a person’s antioxidant uptake. When it comes to antioxidants in the body, the general consensus is the more you have, the better it is for your health. The average score was 41,000 with a high score of 88,000 and a low score of 12,000.
Oral-Systemic Health Testing: What's Next?
Our increased level of oral systemic medical testing and our AAOSH health champion contest have been significant advances for our organization. AAOSH offers the opportunity to educate and save lives! We want to screen and save our members’ lives first so that they can go out into the world with a higher level of knowledge and passion and save the lives of others with this oral systemic screening.
Our champion, Nirvana Leix, has given us significant detail about her healthy lifestyle and we will share this in our next AAOSH Connect along with some tips from our other top finishers.
But what about those attendees who didn’t score well—or what if they had screenings that demanded immediate follow-up? Did they do anything about their results? You may be very surprised by my findings. I’ll report all of the good and the bad in Part 2 of my wrap up of our 2016 AAOSH Oral Systemic Health Champion contest and you’ll find that in next month’s AAOSH Connect.