Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic

I read this book in one sitting. Impossible to put down. Every parent should be armed with this knowledge before moving forward with braces for their child.

When I first saw the attractive cover of JAWS I was intrigued. So I browsed the book’s content and decided to buy it. I’m glad I did. The book is basically about the abnormal development of our jaws because of our eating and breathing habits and the long-lasting effects of such abnormalities on human health. I had no idea that the proper development of the jaws is fundamental to breathing and sleeping properly. If jaws developed abnormally, it can cause sleeping disorders which in turn can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and even cancer among other maladies. Being a professional devoted to solving environmental problems, I recognize this as a health problem, but as one caused by the greatest environmental change human beings have faced, going from hunting and gathering to practicing agriculture and industrialization. The most important message of this extensively illustrated book is that these problems can be solved by understanding and correcting their causes, which are clearly explained in the JAWS. The book should be read by anybody who has children, because its recommendations can have long lasting positive effects on the well – being of our loved ones. JAWS scientific documentation is impressive, but not intrusive. It reads like a novel.

Not a gripping page turner, but wicked informative.

When we breathe about 20,000. 30,000 times per day and do it inefficiently, we harm our bodies. Breathing patterns can change even the pH of the body and also how our faces look. Cave men had no cavities. Their dental arches were wide enough to allow wisdom teeth to be present. They chewed natural foods and developed facial muscles accordingly. They breathed through their noses. When we processed our food to soften it and added certain elements, when we breathed through our mouths, we altered our faces, and not in a positive way. Simple changes to breathing patterns over time can change all of that, requiring less dental/orthodontial intervention, reducing cavities, and returning our flattened faces to their lovely forward posture. Nearly every child born during the last 100 years has had some intervention that hadn’t been necessary before. We need to return to practices that created functional and healthy bodies.

I learned about it from a Joe Rogan podcast. Its been so informative

I love books that question conventional wisdom. Many 'truths' we hold to be self-evident are questioned under a new light and with factual case studies. For example: Crooked teeth are genetic. Sleep apnea and snoring cannot be prevented. Braces and tooth extractions are the best way to fix crooked teeth. In Jaws, Dr Kahn and Professor Elrich offer us a new appreciation for a crucial part of our physiology, the jaw. I commend them for offering a a refreshing new theory, and also practical advice. It's a book that challenges us to try to put into practice new habits. Eating crunchy foods, chew gum (yes, my kids liked this one!) and breathe with your mouth shut, teeth together.

This book offered a plausible explanation for crooked teeth, a good narrative, and pictures and motivation for adopting a straight posture. I am not an orthodontist or dentist, but the concepts made sense to me. The book has informed my understanding of what constitutes "good posture" to include the neck and jaw, and changed the way I think about my own posture. I wish the book and the authors proved the effectiveness of the approach within the orthodontia community, and offered more coverage of the criticisms to orthotropics/forwardontics. For example, I would have liked to know more about how many patients pursue forwardontics, how their compliance is measured, and the distribution of results for non-compliant and compliant patients. I believe the book's message mostly because of my intuition; the book's main evidence is historical account coupled with anecdotal descriptions of jaw shape, and a cruel study on rhesus monkeys. The book asserts its mechanisms and their importance strongly enough that I'm surprised at the lack of studies on the proposed treatments. I liked this book and thought it was a good introduction to a plausible idea. I hope that someone takes the flag to prove that these treatments work on the general population.

A bit repetitive, but so important. Our faces are deformed because of poor oral posture. If you want the tl;dr of what to do (not medical advice!), here it is: -breathe through your nose as much as possible, including when exercising -chew hard foods or gum (I like mastic gum) to strengthen your jaw -sleep with medical tape over your mouth to force yourself to breathe through your nose while asleep -the default state of your mouth should be: lips together, top teeth gently resting on bottom teeth (don't clench), and tongue at the roof of your mouth -all of these interventions are more effective the earlier in life one does them, so start today (and start your kids on them, too!) If you want to learn more, check out Orthotropics on YouTube (not affiliated, just think this topic is important).

In the 1830s, before the American Civil War, a Philadelphia attorney and a talented artist, named George Catlin, made a series of trips to American West, visiting tribes and villages of Native Americans. Caitlin became fascinated by them and decided to document their culture and their ways of life. In his travels, he noticed, among other things, the difference in facial structure of the Native Americans compared to the people of European background. Specifically, he was struck with “their beautiful sets of teeth, of all ages, which are scrupulously kept together, by the lower jaws being attached to the other bones of the head.” Caitlin noticed that Native Americans kept their lips closed nearly all the time, they breathed through the nose, and that they were more healthier that the newcomers in the continent. They called the whites not only “palefaces” but also “black mouths” because their mouths were open and their lower jaws were hanging down. Caitlin, as many Europeans, was a mouth breather but after noticing the Native Americans he changed his pattern of respiration and taught himself to nose breath. Wanting to convince others to the benefits of nose breath, Caitlin wrote a short book, The Breath of Life (1861), which later retitled as Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life. In this he “condemned the mouth breathing and assigned an array of ills to it, including ‘derangement’ of the teeth. George Caitlin and his book have been forgotten, but, as later research show he was onto something. And then, Sandra met Paul. Sandra Khan is a pioneering orthodontist focused on a practise called orthotropics or forwardontics. Paul R. Ehrlich is a renowned evolutionist and a pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation. Over dinner Sandra recounted to Paul her personal journey in her profession and the result was this excellent and valuable book, Jaws: The story of a hidden epidemic. The purpose of the book is to introduce the readers to the vast problem of oral-facial health. Kahn’s and Ehrlich’s basic premise is that that modern humans are developing smaller jaws, and as a result, our teeth are coming in more crowded or crooked. Moreover, it has impacts on our breathing pathway, which is becoming more crowded than ever. The tongue, too big for the restricted jaw, it falls back and restricts the passageway between the nose and the lungs, “causing a rhythmic rumbling sound,” also known as snoring. The problem is the “poor oral posture”, argue Kahn and Ehrlich, which is exacerbated by the fact that we spend most of our lives indoors where concentrated allergens help stuff up our nasal passages and further constricting our vital breathing pathway. Smaller jaws, constricted air pathway, and sleep disrupted by snoring, a cause of sleep apnea, are “linked to serious lifelong health problems” including “ADHD, depression, cancer, and heart disease.” We can prevent this problem, argue Kahn and Ehrlich. Parents should encourage their children to wean to tough foods that require chewing, like humans did in the days of hunter-gatherers. Also to keep their mouths closed when they’re not eating or talking. Proper oral posture with the lips closed, the tongue on the palate and the teeth lightly touching Reading Jaws, I couldn’t stop thinking the brief lessons I once had on Hatha yoga. In Hatha yoga breath-control exercises, known as pranayamas, can help quiet the mind and reduce anxiety and stress. Nasal breathing is an extremely important part of the Hatha yoga. During this process, you slow down and control your breath. You inhale and exhale through your nose. So, with each breath remember, noses are made for breathing!

Great book and great quality

Livro muito bom!

Everyone should read this. It would've saved me a fortune in dentist bills, and much pain had I read something like this earlier. Better late than never though!

It seems that the book was destroyed from the lower part and yet, it was sent as new. Terrible quality