Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

How to perform dentistry faster, easier, higher in quality and lower in cost. Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dentistry-uncensored-with-howard-farran/id916907356

Blog By:
howard

Dr. Steven Lin is a board-registered dentist, writer, and TEDx speaker with work published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The British Dental Journal and About.com. Trained at the University of Sydney with a background in biomedical science, Dr. Lin’s focus has been on the oral-systemic connection and how nutrition causes both dental and systemic disease.  

With a mission to integrate preventive nutrition into oral healthcare, his AGD registered CE course has trained over 200 dental professionals in Australia, UK and US. 

Dr. Lin will publish his book, The Dental Diet, an exploration of ancestral, the human microbiome and epigenetics to model why oral health is the true way model dietary guidelines. 

His website www.drstevenlin.com and social media pages @drstevenlin have an audience of over 100,000 people worldwide. 

Howard Farran: And it's just a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Dr. Steven Lin. He's from Bondi, Australia, and that's a suburb of Sydney, right? 

Steven Lin: It's a suburb, yeah, the beach. 

Howard Farran: But you're on vacation in London? 

Steven Lin: I'm in London, yes. I'm doing a quick visit in London, then to Dublin, then yeah, back to the US. So, yeah. 

Howard Farran: Yeah, I follow you on Twitter @drstevenlin. D-R Steven L-I-N, and I saw that picture of Stonehenge that you posted. 

Steven Lin: Yeah, well, that's an amazing place, have you been to ... 

Howard Farran: I have been there, I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it had something to do with religion right? 

Steven Lin: It's some strange ... But the thing is, too, there's megaliths all over the UK. It's really strange, like there's a pyramid structure just down the road. Really strange, but it's quite an interesting day out. 

Howard Farran: You know I'm 100% Irish and I was lecturing in Ireland and I actually went to the first structure in Ireland, that's in a museum or whatever. I think it was ... was it 1000 B.C. that building we went to? That little ... no you're right, that was in Scotland. But anyway, what's interesting is the United Kingdom is Anglo Saxon and those people came from Germany. So those Germans went to Anglo Saxon, then they went up to Scotland, then they jumped off to Ireland.  

But yeah, I love history, just love it. So Dr. Steven Lin is a board registered dentist, writer, and TedX speaker, and published in the Sydney Morning Herald, the British Dental Journal, and About.com. Trained at the University of Sydney with a background in biomedical science. Dr. Lin's focus has been on the oral systemic connection and how nutrition causes both dental and systemic diseases, with a mission to integrate preventative nutrition into oral healthcare.  

His AGD registered CE course has trained over 200 dental professionals in Australia, UK, and US. Dr. Lin will publish his book, The Dental Diet, an exploration of ancestral, the human microbiome, and epigenetics to model why oral health is the true way to model dietary guidelines. His website drstevenlin.com, and social media pages like at Twitter: @drstevenlin, have an audience of over 100,000 people worldwide. And I hope you're just listening to this on iTunes and not watching on YouTube or DentalTown, because he's so damn handsome, he's got such good hair, I just look extra fat, short, and bald today. How are you doing Steve? 

Steven Lin: You're being too kind, you're being too kind to me, Howard. You're looking great by the way, it's good to see you. 

Howard Farran: Really? Well you need to see an ophthalmologist, you must have cataracts on both eyes. So, you know, there's still older dentists, you've been out of school eight years, how old are you? 

Steven Lin: I'm 33. 

Howard Farran: When I'm hanging out with dentists in their 50s and 60s, a lot of them are skeptical about this oral systemic link stuff. They call it correlation. They say, "I wake up in the morning, make a pot of coffee and the sun comes up, it's a correlation not a cause and effect." But you're buying into it, you think it's more than a correlation. Do you think it's causal between oral systemic and other diseases? 

Steven Lin: Yeah, I think for many decades now, we've had a good amount of research out there linking some of these conditions, periodontal disease to heart disease. Diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, there's pretty strong evidence out there and it's been quite well established in the profession that there is links between what we see in the mouth and what's happening in the rest of the body. 

But I think there's been kind of a long bridge there, you know? We're kinda seeing a disease, like periodontal disease in the mouth and then something endstage like heart disease. But there's really not much in between, so I think the problem has been that we've known the links there, but we haven't been able to pull the actual connections together. So, the steps between have been a little bit in the dark. So, actually understanding how we get to heart disease, for instance, with gums is a little bit of a stretch. 

But I think now we're starting to make those connections. And from what I've seen, a lot of the research, it's all connected to food and it all begins in the mouth.  

Howard Farran: You know what the most interesting research that I've been enamored with is that the United States has 10,000 orthodontists. And basically all these kids are put through this 10,000 Orthodontist machine and they're all getting braces and about 25% of them are having to have teeth extracted like by cuspids and all this stuff like that. But, I keep reading non-dental stuff from anthropologists saying, "Once you go back 3, 350 years, there's virtually no evidence of malocclusions going back all the way two million years ago." So, something has recently changed causing all this malocclusion. And you're born and raised in Australia and some of the most landmark studies ever on malocclusions came out of orthodontists studying Aborigines and etc. Do you agree that there's more malocclusions today than there was in the fertile crescent 15,000 years ago? 

Steven Lin: There's no argument about that. There absolutely was. That real question, I think that's something, that why malocclusion occurs is something that we as a profession have forgotten to ask, or we kind of danced around for a while. You know, I remember for a long time when I was practicing and parents would ask me, why is my kid going to need braces? Why isn't their jaw developing properly?  

And I didn't have the answers. And when you look thought the orthodontic textbooks, we don't really get to the root cause of malocclusion. But when you take it from an anthropological perspective, they laugh when you ask them about whether malocclusion and even tooth decay and gum disease existed anywhere before the Industrial Revolution. It is ... unequivocally pops up during the Industrial Revolution when we changed our food supply.  

And tooth decay pops up about 10-14,000 years, when we say the Agricultural Revolution is. For the two million years before that, there's nothing. And they look at thousands and thousands of skulls. So, they're looking at huge, wide jaws with wisdom teeth that were ... So, wisdom teeth is a same phenomenon. Why does no one's eights fit in their jaws anymore? And it's the same thing, it's a core problem of our jaws not developing the way that we're, as a species, designed to. 

Howard Farran: Well, you know, these pediatric dentists and general dentists and orthodontists, a kid's arch won't be developing, so they'll put in a rapid palatal expander to try to spread the arch. And then you read these anthropologists who aren't dentists that are saying that Homo sapien probably nursed for years. And when they're nursing, that was force on their face and they were fighting it and struggling. And if they fed it something, it wasn't a cooked, steamed vegetable. It was raw and they were chewing and all these forces.  

And now, when a child has just a little bit of difficulty nursing, because there might've been a little stress, or [inaudible 00:07:35] stress over area, they switch to a bottle. So, now they're just guzzling milk without any pressure. Then they start feeding it apple sauce out of a jar, and basically the kid doesn't get any more force, or pressure, or anything. Then next thing you know, his teeth don't fit.  

Steven Lin: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's something, we're reasonably ... This has been around for a while as well, like the physical function behind breastfeeding and how the jaw, it's a musculoskeletal joint, and the feedback. Just like when you go to the gym and you build a muscle that builds a stronger bone, the same thing happens in the jaw during development. And when a baby breastfeeds, they use the tongue to push the nipple to the palate, which is soft. It's soft, you could press it with your finger and it expands. 

And that's the forces that are expanding the maxilla. And then the tongue is designed, meant, and taught to sit in the roof of the mouth. And then so that's what expands the maxilla, but it also places the mandible where it should be as well. So you know, our teeth are just the result of all these forces, all our facial muscles. But mainly, very much the tongue and breathing forces occuring during feeding, but also the forces during feeding as well. 

Howard Farran: And I feel sorry for nursing mothers because the world is so insane. If you make a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger who has a man made M-16 machine gun and kills 100 people, it's rated PG and it's a family film. But if some girl whips out a mammary gland in front of mammals, they all run for the doors and want the movie closed. And I mean, girls feel a lot of negative pressure nursing in public. It's like, damn, we're all mammals. We give birth to live young and we nurse and it scares everyone, but a machine gun doesn't. That's all good. 

Steven Lin: Yeah, I think we've come a long way in terms of what we know about and how important breastfeeding really is. Some of the real interesting stuff is, you know, for instance, the mechanisms of how breast milk transfers the microbiome to the child's mouth and gut. So, there's actually lymphatic cells bringing gut bacteria from the mother's digestive system to her mammary gland and delivering it via breast milk to the child's oral and then gut microbiome.  

So, there's so much literature out there in terms of the benefits of breastfeeding, and it shows that these traditional societies, they were really onto something. They weren't doing it by accident. There's deep rooted health and developmental factors that are all linked to nutritional development in the mouth, but also throughout life. These principals occur throughout our life. 

Howard Farran: How long do you think a mother should nurse its young? 

Steven Lin: At least six months, longer if possible. I think, obviously in the modern day we have ... Life's different now. But, six months as a general guide for minimum, but some people go up to two years. And if that's possible, things like baby led weaning, which talks about a gradual step off. But really the key as well is to not go into these sippy-cups and pacifiers that are causing these oral habits that really aren't shaping the mouth and giving that tongue posture as it should be.  

Howard Farran: You know this gut microbiome is very, very interesting. I mean they say that when a human looks at the mirror, everything they're seeing, their body that they got from their mom and dad, is about a trillion cells. But from the mouth to the anus is about 10 trillion cells, and you see this gut microbiome affecting the oral health because you notice things like, if they got a lot of perio, they don't have decay. If they got a lot of decay ... So, you see the balance of the jungle is affecting, so you know the gut is affecting the mouth. Do you believe gut microbiome affects periodontal disease and decay? 

Steven Lin: Absolutely, and it's a bi-directional relationship. Going back to the breastfeeding thing, we know that when a child's born, as it comes out of the birth canal, its digestive system, it doesn't have the flora there that it will have later in its life. So, the way it gets these microbes is via its environment, breastfeeding, which is a primary source. But the first thing that happens is that those microbes colonize the mouth. And then, eventually they start to seed the gut, and in the first months of life they are actually the same. So, the oral and gut microbiome are the same. 

But then, what happens is they become distinct, yet related biological entities. And the gut microbiome, like you say, there is an explosion of scientific literature showing what the processes that these bacteria are controlling. And it's mind boggling, we're talking about digestive, immune system, metabolism, right through to the brain. And, when we look at things like the gums, which is an interface between bacteria, you know, your blood cells and the immune system. Your immune system, 80% of it starts in the gut. 

And so, what these microbes actually do is they talk via your digestive lining. So they send messages, and they're basically telling your immune system what to be tolerant of and what to be wary of. And so what we're doing here, we've completely changed that environment when we wipe bacteria out and we don't replace them with the bacteria that we're supposed to have. Our immune system doesn't get the right messages and it goes haywire. So, whenever we see bleeding gums, this is an immunol response that's not familiar with these microbes, so we're losing this relationship.  

And tooth decay, it's really ... Bacteria are there managing the calcium, the minerals going into our teeth. They use it to build their plaque. And so, what they do is they're monitoring what's happening in the oral environment. And so, when we send a sugar tsunami into the oral microbiome, they actually release calcium from their plaque,to make sure to help us out so we don't demineralize teeth. But then eventually if we keep doing it, there's no calcium left. It's depleted and they have to go into the teeth. So, we force the oral microbiome to go into this state of imbalance.  

Howard Farran: Were you born and raised in Sydney? 

Steven Lin: [inaudible 00:14:12] Just about an hour south. 

Howard Farran: But you were born in Australia? 

Steven Lin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Howard Farran: And they've been really, really pioneers in this. I mean, it was an Australian doctor ... Americans were treating ulcers all surgically and it was an Australian doctor who said, "That's a bacterial infection." It was Helico bacteria and started treating him with antibiotics and the Americans thought he was crazy for a decade. And then it happened again in Australia, where some doctor, but that was a woman doctor, and it was another women doctor in Australia who saw this kid very upset and sad and crying every time he pooped. He had gone through chemo and it was some Leukemia cancer and his anus was all raw and all this.  

And she told her mother to give her a bowel movement and started doing these fecal transplants, and repopulated his gut microbiome, and then his anus and everything all healed up. It just makes so much sense that if you've been on chemo for a year, think of all the bacteria that got destroyed. And then I'm even seeing more literature where they take rats or mice, which live a two year life, where as sapiens, about a 80 year life. And they give one antibiotics, and the other one not, and the antibiotics kill so much gut microbiome that it goes into obesity. And then at the one year mark, at one-year-old when they're half-lived, they start doing fecal transplants from the skinny to the fat one, and then he gains back. 

And here we have the United States, which is five percent of the population and takes half the prescription pills in America, and is plagued with obesity. Do you think antibiotics have messed up the gut microbiome? 

Steven Lin: I mean our environment in general, we try to be as anti-bacterial as possible. And you know, the dental offices were guilty of it obviously as well. And it really goes back to the Australian scientist that you said. In the 80s, we didn't think that one microbe lived within the body, we thought the stomach acid killed everything. And so that's why it took so long for those Australian scientists to convince everyone that H. Pylori is the cause of stomach ulcers.  

They were, Australians have this rogue, kind of unabashed way of proving things. So what they did is they drank the broth of H. Pylori, gave themselves stomach ulcers, and then cured themselves with antibacterials. And said, "Look, this is actually-" 

Howard Farran: Are you serious? 

Steven Lin: That's how they proved it, no one believed them until they gave themselves stomach ulcers by drinking a broth of H. Pylori. And they did it multiple times, and then had to reproduce it in a study as well. So, this is kind of how we get stuck in this little bit of a scientific dogma, and then all of a sudden, that was a whole world opened. And that was in the 80s, we're talking 30 years ago. But then, really within that period, 2008 was where this all opened it up. 

So, that's less than ten years ago, and this is when they did the human microbiome project, and that's when we actually sequenced how many bacteria actually live within, and other microbes as well, how many that live in the body. We're talking ten times your own cells or thereabouts. But the real number, I think is amazing, is 100 times your own genetic material. So, for every piece of your genetic material, there's a 100 times the bacterial genetic material throughout your body. 

That just puts into perspective how potentially influential our environment is. So, if we've got this, it's like a universe inside of us that we know barely anything about. It's got this control over our genetic material, we really have to think about how to live in harmony rather than trying to kill these things. 

Howard Farran: So, walk these kids through, they might not have remembered Weston A. Price. Refresh their minds about Weston Price. 

Steven Lin: Yeah, Weston A. Price was something that I stumbled across actually outside of my dental ... I'd never heard of him, and I think that generally, he's not very well acknowledged in our profession for the work that he did, it was quite unconventional. So Weston A. Price was a dentist from Cleveland in the 1930s, and he had this theory that the modern diet was causing all these chronic sickness he was seeing in his clinic in Ohio. 

And so what he did, is he planned this worldwide study. He went to all of the different continents around the world. So you know, nearly 12 civilizations and looked at when the modern diet intercepts the traditional diet. And so he looked at the dental decay, he looked at the faces, took 9000 photos of these people when they ate the traditional diet and then what happened once we give them modern food. And he showed in every single case, in one generation, as soon as we bring in the modern diet, that both tooth decay springs up to the modern rates that we see today, but also malocclusions. So before that, and this is going back, he would look at the skull records as well. So the anthropological history of each place, he would show that malocclusion and that wisdom teeth and the skulls in the area would all grow 32 perfect teeth and not have these orthodontic problems that we do today. And it was all related to food. 

He put it down to this fat soluble vitamin system. And so, what he did is he measured the amount of vitamin D, vitamin A, and this mysterious third substance, what he called activator X. And so, what he did is he looked at all the food, he showed that these societies were having up to 20 times as much as these fat soluble vitamins as what we do in modern food. We basically strip it out. But he couldn't identify activator X and so that was a 60 year mystery. And his book was lost on nutritional and physical depression, went missing up until about 2000 when the foundation reprinted it. And it's all online and they started to rehash his work. 

But, it wasn't until 2007 when activator X was actually identified by Chris Masterjohn as vitamin K2. And now subsequently, we can start to piece together what Price was saying, is that there's this fat soluble vitamin activator system that actually places calcium in the body. So, without adequate vitamin D, we don't absorb calcium. Without vitamin A, we don't activate the cells that turn over bone. But K2 is really crucial because it activates the proteins that carries calcium into the bones and teeth. And the crucial thing about that is that there's a study in 2011 that shows that people that ... So, when you supplement women who have osteoporosis with vitamin D and calcium, they don't increase bone density, but they actually have increased, have more heart attacks. 

And that kind of came out of the blue and they couldn't ethically do the studies anymore. But the reason is that giving vitamin D and calcium floods the system with these minerals. Without the K2, the body can't put these minerals where they need to go. And so, what happens is the vessels calcify and you end up having strokes and heart attacks. And there's one thing that we dentists see in the mouth that is such a great indicator of Price's legacy. It's that when you see that really caked on dental plaque, that calculus. You know, that patient that comes in and it's caked on.  

There's some patients that they will clean and they'll clean and they'll clean, and they'll come back and it still builds up. Whereas some patients won't touch anything and they won't get that calcification. But that's a lack of that K2 that's activating the proteins that carry calcium into the bones and teeth. So, that's one sign that we see that is straightaway that we're not eating enough of these vitamins. It's really one of the most misunderstood nutritional systems that we really haven't got this back into mainstream medicine where we're starting recommending these vitamins. 

Howard Farran: And you know what's interesting is he started the National Dental Association, which is basically research, which was folded into the American Dental Association in 1914. So, that's funny because he started the National Dental Association, which became the ADA's research section, but a lot of people also credit him as the first holistic dentist. And I think that term is so polarizing because when dentists in America, conservative dentists, hear holistic, they think: "Quack, quack, quack, quack." 

But then when you talk to them, they're extremely holistic. Like, if the doctor told them they had high blood pressure, they wouldn't want to go take a pharmacy pill. They'd want to change their diet and exercise. You look at all their thoughts and actions, they're completely holistic, but you say holistic to a dentist, and they cringe. And yet I know, from a marketing point of view, that dentists on their websites who say they're holistic or try to do things all natural, or biological, or diet and nutrition. It's very excellent marketing. I mean, people drive an hour to go to an all natural dentist. So ... 

Steven Lin: No, I completely agree. That term, holistic, really has ... It doesn't exactly have a definition, does it? Like you say, we're all oral health practitioners and we all understand that connection and how important dental health is. So, there's no distinction I think between, it's just ... I think we need to really define how we're approaching this oral systemic connection and really get to the bottom of how we're preventing it, and also talking about nutrition and food habits. 

Howard Farran: You've also talked about Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition. Why did you like that book? 

Steven Lin: Yeah, well, so that's another interesting one. This was a study done on cats and not humans. But, Francis Pottenger was a physiologist, he was doing studies on adrenal glands. And what he showed was that ... He had a bunch of cats or I think he studied, we're talking about hundreds of cats. So, he was using different amounts of food because he had to feed all of these things. And so, certain types of food, he found that cats would respond better to the medicines they were testing. And so, that subsequently led him to go and test the effect of diet on cats. 

So, over a ten year period, he tested 900 cats on different types of diets. So, the natural diet for cats because they have a carnivorous digestive system were raw meats and dairy products. But then he would test cats with cooked and processed dairy, so like basically the modern human diet that we feed ourselves. And what he showed was that there was a profound effect on the study group that was eating these foods.  

So the cats that ate the natural diet, they lived for nine generations. No change in health, no gray coats, no changes at all. But the study group in the first generation, they began to have skeletal deformations. So, the first thing that showed up was that they had crooked teeth, they had inflamed gums, and they also started to have skin infections. Then in the next generation along, things got a lot worse. Their bones actually started to thin out. The density of their bones thinned down to 10% of that first generation.  

And then, so what happens then is that their behavior started to change. They started to lose their agility. And then by the third generation, their manes were completely infested, some of the cats were born with ten fractures in their limbs. They had one percent of the calcium in their bones compared to the first generation.  

And then, the most concerning thing was that by the fourth generation, they completely died out. They could not reproduce at all. And so, what he did is he then took those third generation cats, he fed them that diet again. And it took four generations to heal, to get back to where they were in that original study group of cats. So, that really speaks to the epigenetic and the environmental influence of food. And so to me, the first changes he saw in that population was dental and skeletal problems. 

And, when I see those results where the cats have one percent of their skeletal bone density ... Now, when you look at kids' jaws today, our bodies simply aren't putting calcium where they're supposed to be. You know, I remember I had this patient and he grew up on a farm and he had a head like a bowling ball. And he had an eight that needed to come out, it was fully erupted. He had eaten sugar later in life [inaudible 00:28:10] and he preferred to get it out.  

But I remember walking into the dental [inaudible 00:28:13], and thinking, "Oh great, this is going to be a nightmare." But, when I went to get my instruments on the tooth, the luxator wouldn't even fit back to his eight. His jaw was so long and I had to cut a flap and remove a [inaudible 00:28:34] of bone. And the amount of bone I had to remove, I was just thinking the whole time, "There is so much bone here. I never see this amount of bone in kids today." 

Our jaws just aren't developing and we have eights that are just crammed up against the sevens. And even sevens that are impacted now because our bodies aren't building this calcium like they did for millions and millions of years. And so to me, Pottenger's Cats really speaks to that, in that when our body isn't building bone, that's when things are fundamentally going wrong.

Howard Farran: You were talking about that study with cats. I read one paper that when they started sequencing streptococcus mutans from humans, that the closest relative to it was actually a streptococcus mutans from cats and they thought it might've jumped species 15,000 years ago in the fertile crescent. Do you believe that?

Steven Lin: Yeah. I mean look, that's potentially true. But the important thing about the oral microbiome is strep mutans lives in the healthy states, there right? But the real issue is losing that balance. It's like H. Pylori. H. Pylori lives in health in the digestive system. The problem is when it tips out of balance, we lose those markers that keep things as they should. So, there's many species in the oral microbiome that, for instance, inhibit strep mutans. And so, like the bacillus, they release acids and they stop them from growing.

The problem is when we throw our modern diet in there, we lose that diversity and the ecological system loses its adaption mechanism. So, then we tip everything out of balance. So, I think that one species that focus really is a bit limited because we don't think about what's happening. There's 600 species, we only know half of them. They have intra-species, inter-species interactions. Strep mutans is the end result of long term dysbiosis. 

Howard Farran: And you know Rella Christensen, she told me on this show, that they're discovering a new species of bacteria in the mouth every quarter. So, it's averaging four discoveries a year of a completely new species in the mouth.

Steven Lin: We only know half. there's an estimated 600, there's probably more, probably seven. We know half. And that's bacteria ... we don't know anything about, for instance, very little about fungi, about archaea. They think that, for instance, irritable bowel disease is a problem with archaea, which is a very unknown species of microbes that deal with nitrate transfer in soil.

But, the human body also has these species as well. So we don't know anything about it and the microbiome is part of our physiological system, and yet we're just ... I think species, is obviously we need to keep going with that, but we gotta think about the whole thing.

Howard Farran: Well you know, in the beginning of the show, you were talking about how when mothers are nursing their young, they're transferring their gut biome, their oral bacteria, all that kind of stuff like that. But when you're talking about the balance of the mouth, I mean, you go into dental offices and they're treating grandma every three months for periodontal disease for the last ten years. And they've never seen grandpa. 

He hasn't had his teeth cleaned in ten years, but they kiss each other, they share utensils, they're cross-contaminating each other. Do you think periodontal disease and streptococcus mutans, do you think when you got a really clean mouth, and you're kissing your lover and they have a completely filthy mouth, do you think that's affecting your oral bacteria, gut microbiome?

Steven Lin: There's definitely transfer, but nearly all of the literature that's looking into the microbiome shows that diversity is health. So, we show that kids that grow up with pets or kids that grow up with exposure to soil. There's soil based cosmetic products now that allow us to get exposed to the microbes that spread on the skin microbiome, and then you intermix with the oral and gut microbiome.

But they even think that we have this microbial cloud and there's studies that show this as well. So, everyone's got their own individual cloud around and it's a microbial cloud. And there's the respiratory microbiome, there's things like the vagina microbiome, which is transferred to the kid's oral microbiome. So, there's this entire system here that is constantly in communication, it's communication with our immune system but eventually our genes. They're playing with our genes the entire time.

So, everything we do is a factor. But, in terms of, for instance, I think a good example is that we tell moms not to kiss kids in case we transfer these strepto mutans bugs, but that really fails to see that the mom is the main vehicle of bacteria. So, what we should be saying is that mom's microbiome should be as healthy as possible and then we should be encouraging her to transfer this as best as possible.

Howard Farran: Yeah, that vagina microbiome is probably one of the most important things they've discovered in the last ten years because when the AIDs epidemic broke out, when the World Health Organization went to countries like Africa, all the countries that focused on the pregnant mother who's HIV positive, and giving them the drugs to deliver a non-infected baby, they have incredibly low rates of HIV. But, the only country in Africa where the president of their country, South Africa, said, "You're not coming in. You're not doing that. It's voodoo, it's harming our image," and all that stuff. And now, they're sitting there with a 25% HIV population and that was all an understanding that the vagina microbiome, you can't deliver a kid in a HIV positive mother without cross contamination. And it's so sad when you go to South Africa, not only is it one in four unemployment, it's one in four HIV positive. And there's not another country on Earth that's even 3%.

And that was one of the biggest human rights mess-ups, atrocities. I mean, I'm sure the guy was sincere. I mean, people just believe what they believe. I mean, my oldest sister is a Catholic nun and if you listen to what she believes. You know, people just believe what they believe. But, man, I'll tell you what, this gut microbe is getting very serious.

I've read so many of your blogs and so many of your articles. I've been stalking you for years and years and years. You seem to be really obsessed with the fat soluble vitamins, the A, D, E, and K. Why do those interest you do much?

Steven Lin: Yeah, so I mean, this is kind of like the core of what Price was talking about. They're really some of the most misunderstood nutrient systems in the body. Vitamin D, you probably remember the ... It had a real uptick in the understanding and what we knew and didn't know. We know it forms from the sun. But, the amount of literature there now to show what vitamin D does in the body is profound. It's astounding to me that we don't have vitamin D testing in every dental office for every patient before they even sit down. It should be the absolute baseline because what it tells us about the body is fundamental to calcium, to the immune system, the microbiome, right down to metabolism, everything. Vitamin D acts on every cell in the body, right down to 2 to 3000 genes, so that means there's 2 to 3000 genes in the body sitting there with a vitamin D receptor. If you're deficient, which 75% of people are, then your genes are in distress. 

And so, I think we've just completely misunderstood this system. And in the dental chair, we see the first signs of vitamin D deficiency and there's literature between the links between tooth decay and periodontal disease. You test any of your patients for that that show up with a cavity or with periodontal pockets, I guarantee you they've got low vitamin D. And once you start to rebalance your system, the body starts to go, "Oh, hang on. This is how things should be." Their digestion fixes, their immune system settles down and everything begins to work as it should. 

And so, I think we, the dental profession really needs to be the sounding board for this 'cause this is our vitamin system. This is the teeth and bones. This is what we do. And I really think it is the ... Price's theory was that lack of these vitamins is why kids don't develop, why they don't develop jaws like we do. And so, the reason why we have so much malocclusion is because of deficiencies in this vitamin system.

Howard Farran: So, you wrote a book, Mom's Guide to Straighter, Stronger, Whiter Teeth for Your Kids and the Whole Family. Tell us about that book, that journey. 'Cause I know, I've written books before, writing a book's like having a baby. I mean, it's a nine month process and you don't go a day without feeling it moving and kicking. Tell us about your journey of that book.

Steven Lin: Yeah, so that's an e-book on my website. That's free to download for everyone. So, for practitioners and patients, it's a quick introduction into how nutrition affects both oral health and whole body health. I think there's so much nutrition information out there. I really think that oral health is a way to simplify it. It's a way to kind of get through all the bad information out there that we've unfortunately kind of come through and really kind of reshape ... What is it exactly that our body needs? And when you eat for a health mouth, you can't eat for a healthy mouth and not have a healthy body. So, we have the exact model on how to eat for a healthy body. 

And so, that's a quick four step guide. I find that when patients come into the practice, they're not expecting a complete dietary overhaul. We have to kind of gray things. So, for people who are interested, but perhaps a little bit, I'm not ready for a full dietary change, a quick four step process really does help them get into that. And you know, they feel better. In one to two weeks, they feel better. I've had patients lose weight. But it's really a lead in to ... So my book, The Dental Diet, which is coming out in January next year here in the US, UK, and Australia, that's the full 40 day program and it's really kind of going right through this whole oral systemic connection and how we model the whole health by fixing oral disease.

Howard Farran: Most of the people listening to you right now, about 85%, they're driving, they're commuting, and they're not supposed to take notes while they're listening to this podcast, unless they're drinking. If they're drinking and driving, then they can take notes. But, will you ... Dental Town has 51 categories, leaching, bonding, veneers. Will you post the link to that book under nutrition?

Steven Lin: Yeah. I've got a load of blogs, the microbiome. Why don't we start a nutrition section on Dental Town so that we can start talking.

Howard Farran: We do. We got a nutrition section and we mostly talk about which filtered vodkas are better probiotics than the others. But no, it's ... Yeah, I think it's under ... here, let me find it. But, I want you to start a thread and do that because she's driving to work, she can't take notes and she wants to go back and find this. Where do I have that? Where is nutrition under? Oh, it's under the forum health topics and then under health topics, there's AIDS, chewing tobacco sensation, general health, holistic, medical emergencies, mercury toxicity, nutrition, oncology, the oral system health, organizational and behavioral psychology, prostate, smoking sensations, stress management, substance abuse, total hormone replacement, water [inaudible 00:41:29]. Would you rather put it under nutrition ... Yeah, do you want to put it under nutrition or oral systemic link?

Steven Lin: Yeah, nutrition works, yeah.

Howard Farran: Okay. Yeah. Why don't you start a thread on that because they're driving, they can't take notes. And then also, when my guests come on, I retweet their last tweet so if they're on Twitter, they can find that. His Twitter is @drstevenlin. D-R, Steven, S-T-E-V-E-N L-I-N. I love it. Interior designer for mouths, TEDx speaker, author of The Dental Diet, January 18th. Nutrition, dental, and ancestral medicine.

When you're talking about all this gut microbiome, a lot of times the patients say, "Do you recommend these probiotics?" They see a lot of commercials on television for probiotic yogurts. If you go to any of the major pharmacies in the United States, they actually sell probiotic vitamins, some probiotic drinks. Are you a fan of probiotics?

Steven Lin: Yeah. There's some good literature on it. In certain situations, especially when you're seeing gut disfunction, there is certainly space for probiotics and quality probiotics is important. So, it's really important to know the brands that we trust and that you're a source with live cultures. But really, the best probiotics is food. When you talk about fermented sauerkraut or kombucha, it's got a slab of bacteria and it sits in there for two weeks. And in Arizona, this thing would ferment in a week. And that would be sour and it's full of these trillions of microbes. Now, what we call probiotics, we've got about probably 10 to 20 species that we isolate and we put into bottles. But really, the key is having these natural exposure to [inaudible 00:43:28] So, I really try ... We really should-

Howard Farran: Well, Steve, I gotta cut you off because 80% of our listeners are in the United States and Americans don't want to do any of that. They just want to take a pill. So, what prescription pill are you recommending to give us the most probiotic bang for our buck? And will insurance pay for it? They want to take a pill and they want someone else to pay for it.

Steven Lin: No, a probiotic's great. Corganic is a great source of, they've got a great also extra virgin cod liver oil and emu oil, which are great for fat soluble vitamins. I order them in the US, they're excellent. They've also got a great probiotic as well and magnesium supplement, which is pretty much, they're really the core supplements that I recommends to patients. And they're the real ones that fix your fat soluble vitamin system too.

Howard Farran: This is Dentistry Uncensored, we only like to talk about the stuff that's polarizing and on Dental Town, there's some buzzwords that are very polarizing. So, I want to ask you about these hot buttons. GMO. Some people say it's totally healthy and it just increases production of agriculture. Some people think it's the devil. What's your stand on GMO? Genetically ... what is it? Genetically modified ... what's the O stand for Ryan? Genetically modified organisms.

Steven Lin: There it is, yeah. The thing about is there is ... We know the environmental and the influential effect of food on the epigenetic effect. So, when we alter things and when we interfere with nature, I think, generally, we go the wrong way. And so, every time that we've interfered with the food supply, since the Industrial Revolution, we've seen ill health effects. So, I mean, I think there's a movement back towards understanding that we need to let nature do its thing. And yeah, of course, GMOs have benefits for increased yield of food, but we really need to be careful of what the end result is to our own genetic legacy because this stuff has an effect we don't know yet. And that's the thing, do we want to be playing lottery with your genes? I personally don't.

Howard Farran: Another one is organic foods. Is it marketing or real? I mean like, when you go to the grocery store, they have all natural. I'm always cynical of the word "all natural." Hell, hepatitis and HIV are natural. Black holes and tornadoes and hurricanes. You know, I don't know how anyone ever fell in love with natural. I mean, the entire Milky Way is gonna be sucked into a black hole and that'll be real natural. But, what do you think about organic foods? I do notice the obvious. When I go to the grocery store, the organic grown bananas are half the size of the non-organic. I mean, you can ... I mean, it's obvious that there's something going on.

Steven Lin: There's certainly a difference. Yeah, and there's a pick and choose. Some of the stuff conventionally grown is fine. But I mean, I think, so for instance, the produce ... So for instance, whether it's raised on grain or grass fed, we know there's a difference between grass fed dairy, for instance, or [inaudible 00:46:54] or dairy from a grain fed animal. So, you don't get the same, so for instance, fat soluble vitamins from those. And that's why there's such an increase in grass fed beef now because we know the nutrient system states and what it should be in nature 'cause the cows are designed to eat grass. 

So, there's a difference. So, I don't think we need to go full ... And a lot of it is marketing unfortunately, but we do need to know where our food comes from. And it's important that we do have some kind of control over this because for the most part, when we interfere in this stuff, things seem to go wrong. So, yeah.

Howard Farran: More controversy. There's been some articles in the New York Times, which is a very prestigious newspaper. I know you're thinking about moving to New York, right?

Steven Lin: Yeah, yeah. I'm heading back there at the end of May.

Howard Farran: And you're visiting or you're moving?

Steven Lin: No, I'm looking [inaudible 00:47:57]. So, the book comes out in January, yeah, so looks like I'm gonna be there though until ... But I'll be around, visit Arizona.

Howard Farran: Is it because you're gonna be doing book tours or ... ?

Steven Lin: Yeah, so we're doing some talking stuff and building up to the launch basically, yeah. So, it's-

Howard Farran: You have a face for TV. I have a face for podcasting on iTunes. So, you'll be the perfect mix of Hollywood and information. And I really think you're incredibly, incredibly on the forefront and very [inaudible 00:48:30]. I'm a big fan of your stuff. So, I want you to weigh in on two New York Times articles in the last year or so. One was that there was a study that showed that Americans who took a multivitamin every single day actually lived about a year less than the people who didn't take a multivitamin. Did you see that study? Are you aware of that newspaper article?

Steven Lin: I mean, look, so there was a great book called Deep Nutrition by a doctor called Cate Shanahan and she really summed up how complex food is. And it's just this real ... During the 20th century, we really thought we had it nailed. We had antibiotics, we have medication, surgeries. Nature, we don't need it anymore. But, when you throw one vitamin into your body, there's probably 10 isomers of that certain vitamin. So, the message that we make up in a test tub is potentially completely different to what happens when it comes with bacteria and a full nutrient system. And we don't know this stuff and I think it's important to kind of really be a little bit humble in terms of what we do and don't know because otherwise, when we're intervening in this stuff, things go wrong. So I mean, that's a great example. Those multivitamins don't have a lot of good evidence behind them. And so, we really do need to think about the wider picture. 

That's why a lot of nutritional studies are limited. We try and break things down to one nutrient and one cause and effect. And it's not an effective way to measure what food does in the body because how can you control for trillions of bacteria? How can you control for all these other nutrients? There's gotta be a wider perspective on this.

Howard Farran: So, two more hot button questions. The same newspaper also published an article that there was zero research behind floss and that it was ... no research. What were your thoughts on that? Do you think floss is an integral part of preventing decay or do you think it's a much wider microbiome issue and floss really is not the issue?

Steven Lin: Well, I mean, the FDA, they were going back through and cleaning the closets and they looked at the research and they showed that we don't have that strength of scientific causality there between floss and preventing dental diseases. But, we dentists, we know that flossing helps, right. But, I think we again gotta take it from the perspective that even brushing as well is that we're removing the oral microbiome and the plaque and the biofilm. But, if we've got a dysfunctional environment there in the first place, you can scrape it off all you like, things are gonna still go wrong. 

And so, I really think of oral hygiene as being intervention rather than pure prevention. And prevention really is getting back to those processes that are causing the disease in the first place because toothbrushes weren't around 100 years ago. And dental diseases didn't pop up because we weren't brushing our teeth. You see the patients as well, they don't brush and their teeth are fine. There's much more going on in the body than just oral hygiene. But you know, that's our tools of trade. But, I think it's important to kind of take that wider perspective.

Howard Farran: You know, marketing is everything. Advertising is everything. These Americans ... There's so much noise in advertising. And whenever you talk about nutrition, Americans slip into this mode about what diet. I mean, they [inaudible 00:52:18] say, "Well ..." So, I know they're driving to work thinking, "Well, Steven, so are you recommending the South Beach diet? The Weight Watchers diet? The Mediterranean diet? The Zone diet? The Atkins diet? The Paleo diet?" You're not giving us the name of your diet. What is the name of your diet?

Steven Lin: Well, the diet's called the Dental Diet, but it's ... I'm really hoping that it's gonna clarify a lot of ... Because of these diets that we've talked about, we're trying to intervene with in stage processes in the body. So for instance, what's most diets aimed at? Weight loss. But weight gain in the body is the end process of, we've talked about, the bacterial interactions and digestion, the immune system. You know like, emotional factors. When we're treating an endpoint in the system, there's so many variables on the way. But when you get in front of it and eat for oral health, so you balance your own microbiome. You balance the nutrients that place bone into teeth, place calcium into teeth and bone, and you get those epigenetic messages that are forming, and getting your breathing right as well. That's how you eat for health.

So, I really think this goes back to what Weston A. Price was saying, is that the mouth is key to the body and that we can shape nutrition and oral health through what we know as being the mouth-body connection.

Howard Farran: So, summarize that all up and just tell me what your favorite frozen TV dinner is.

Steven Lin: Frozen TV dinner?

Howard Farran: I notice on your book, The Dental Diet, on your website, drstevenlin.com, the picture is ... that's an avocado, correct?

Steven Lin: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Howard Farran: And so, you like that. Again, you're back to fat, you like the fat vitamins in avocado, that it's probably one of the best fats to eat.

Steven Lin: Well, we're talking about full fat foods, so butter, avocado, organ meats are full of these things. Things like fermented food for the microbiome, you have a nice cut of, say, I try to eat liver once a week. And that's really getting away from that low fat, high carbohydrate, your low nutrient dense foods. So, if we eat these and it's really about cooking with these fats as well. So, you know, cooking with lard and coconut oil and natural fats that we've used for many millennia, and that's what our body's designed to absorb all these nutrients. Without those support nutrients, we don't absorb them. All our blood cholesterol, that's what carries our fat soluble vitamins around. And so, when we don't eat the right fats to be packaged up, our body doesn't transport them around properly and that's when things go wrong.

Howard Farran: You know, when you go around the sun 54 times, you start to see patterns. I mean, you really recognize patterns. And I've seen this rodeo before with nutrition on smoking where at the end of World War II, half of Americans smoked. Now, it's under a fifth. It's down to like 18%, some of the research saying 15%. So, the fast food ... when smoking started to go down and everybody started putting warning labels in Australia and United States and Canada, the tobacco all went to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And now, you're seeing the same thing with fast food. All the new stores for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardee's and all these restaurants, they're all going to the Middle East and Africa. They're just exploding over there.

So, obviously, and what was so hilarious is that McDonald's under this storm of pressure. I mean, there's so many moms who would not take their kids to eat at McDonald's. And so, after they evaluated this, 'cause they have same store declining sales in America. That's why they're going to Kuwait and the Middle East and all that stuff. You know what their answer was? Instead of ending breakfast at 10:30 am, now they're doing all day breakfast. That was their answer. It was like, so these people who think that government is evil and free enterprise is always the best and if we would just rid of all the government, let free enterprise go. I mean, you have to be insane. I mean, it's like crazy.

But, you have an amazing mind. So, can I ask an unrelated topic because I do, I love your amazing mind and you write books for the parents and all this stuff. A lot of the parents are coming in and they're anti amalgam. Do you think that amalgam is a safe, effective restoration in children because the mercury is bond to silvers and copper and tin? Or do you think it is a health concern and should not be placed in children's teeth? If that's not the most controversial question I can ask you, I don't what is.

Steven Lin: I've seen a lot of these patients that went through the 60s and 70s with, they got mouths full of amalgam and they seem to be in ... They're not keeling over there in the chair. So, I think that we've gotta be careful with what we put in terms of how we intervene. I think there probably is a ... If people are showing symptoms of amalgam intolerance or anything to do with allergy or anything like that, I think it would be advisable to remove. But, I don't generally go down the road of saying that it should be automatically removed. You know, I've seen plenty of ... And it's a great restorative material, it really is. But, they really are going the way of the dodo now, specifically because of how ... Obviously, the aesthetic view. 

But, I think these kind of things, these are all top ... I really try and focus on what's going on underneath. Things like, fluoride's and intervention and amalgam's an intervention, dental composite's an intervention. But, if we get to the root cause of the problem, all of this stuff, it becomes much less of problem to start with

Howard Farran: Yeah, like orthodontists, they're an intervention.

Steven Lin: Look, we're always gonna need orthodontists, right. But let's start thinking about why crooked teeth are happening in the-

Howard Farran: Yeah, if I was an orthodontist, I would start giving presentations because you get all these pregnant mothers that would show up. It would be an amazing lecture, great word of mouth referral. I mean, I think it would be amazing. If an orthodontist in Phoenix started giving lectures on how to prevent your baby from growing up with needing braces all naturally, that would just explode.

Steven Lin: Yeah. And its moving, we're seeing the growth of the myofunctional orthodontic community and this idea of early intervention. We're changing as a ... And things like the sleep [inaudible 00:59:40], this stuff is exploding, you know, 5 to 10 years. So like, we're changing rapidly. The next few years is gonna be a really exciting time, I think, for our industry.

Howard Farran: Oh, you know, it's kinda funny because from 1900, healthcare was 1% of the GDP. And by 2000, it was 14% of the American GDP. And now, last year, it weighed in at 17% and passed three trillion dollars. And health is a luxury item. You know, when you have tons of money, you're willing to give it all away to live one more year. And what's funny about the last century is from 1900 to 2000, there were two world wars, a great depression, and it was still an amazing century. And I think this next century is gonna be 10x of the last century. I mean, it is moving so fast.

Steven Lin: Absolutely. And you know, it's great for the healthcare 'cause it's been such ... I've caught the end of this conversation with the healthcare system here in America. And you know, the costs are astronomical and it really is kind of this, we're really catching things right at the end that when diseases do cost however many thousands of dollars to fix, I really think as a broader society, we need to get back and ... How do we solve these problems before they become chronic periodontal disease and wisdom teeth extractions? There's way to catch this before it costs us our houses.

Howard Farran: Well, when you move the United States, I'll give you some heads up on the United States. No one ever calls Europe the EU. They specifically refer to Germany or Greece or Portugal or Italy or Denmark. And when people say the United States, it's an insane term. You might as well say North America because you can't compare Alaska to San Francisco, Manhattan to Miami, Phoenix to Kansas. It's really exactly just like Europe, the United States. In fact, even the Federal Reserve refers to nine different economic zones. I mean like, when you talk about the economy of a state, well, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, it's really driven by oil and gas. That's totally different than the San Fran economy, which is basically shipping lane between China and Hong Kong. 

I mean, so it's a big country and the healthcare thing and the gun control thing is just something that you just can't touch. I mean, you try to take away their guns or tell them that the government is in charge of healthcare and at least half the country's gonna shoot you. So, it just is what it is. I mean, my boys ... How many guns does your grandma have? How many does she have? I mean, his grandma's got 20 guns. Does she have an automatic? She has an automatic. Oh, she's got ... I mean, if you came on her ranch ... How big's her ranch? Square mile? So, her farm's 2000 acres. If you drove up her driveway and she didn't know who you were, she'd put a hundred bullets through your windshield. I mean, that's America. It's one badass, crazy ass country. I mean, it is the most ... it is the craziest country.

So, who is your book aimed at, The Dental Diet? Is this a B to C book for the consumer? Is this a B to B dentist to dentist professional book? Who are you aiming this book at?

Steven Lin: It's written B to C. So, it's being published by Hay House, but there's 250 scientific references. So, I really hope that I can be kind of a guiding book for dental professionals. You know, I teach, my C course is two days, but we've got a ways for dentists to start implementing this into their dental practice as well. And so, I really want this to be ... You know, it's a bible basically for how we start to use these principles with science and literature and bring it into our practice and start spreading the word to our patients about this stuff.

Howard Farran: So, bible ... Did you know bible is just the Latin word meaning book? Just like doctor, [inaudible 01:04:04] is the Latin word meaning teacher. And dentist is the Latin word meaning god.

Steven Lin: There it is.

Howard Farran: Okay, I added the last part, but I still think it's true. But hey, I'm a big fan of yours. I want to get behind your book. It comes out in January.

Steven Lin: January, yeah.

Howard Farran: And how sure are you that they'll meet their deadline and get it out?

Steven Lin: We're good. So, we handed the manuscript in last week and it's accepted, so it's ... Yeah, we're on track.

Howard Farran: Okay, well, you should ... I'm howard@dentaltown.com, the editor is Tom. Can you reach him, tom@dentaltown.com or do you gotta go [inaudible 01:04:47]. Yeah, so the editor since 2000 has been Tom Giacobbi. So, email me, howard@dentaltown.com and tom@dentaltown.com and you ought to do a launch where, in January, you have an article on your book, a book review coming out for Dental Town, which the magazine goes to 125,000 dentists in the United States. It goes out email all over the world. And then, Ortho Town, you might put it in Ortho Town. That goes to all 10,000 orthodontists. And then, I'd also recommend doing an online CE course and call it the book, The Dental Diet, and do an online CE course. And then, I'll try to be your marketing agency. I'll try and help you promote the book.

Steven Lin: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it a lot. You know ...

Howard Farran: But it's competing with my new book, which also comes out in January. It's called The Dentist Vodka and it's for a special vodka for pediatric dentists who have to drink all day in between patients while the kids are screaming. So, I hope your book doesn't drown out my book.

Steven Lin: I want to get a copy of your book, to be honest.

Howard Farran: Well, hey, if you're ever in Phoenix, man, look us up. And I want to tell you that you're moving to New York City?

Steven Lin: Yeah, yeah. But I've got a lot of conferences down on the west coast and stuff.

Howard Farran: Oh my God, New York City is the cool ... I always cringe about international dentists coming to America 'cause almost every time I'm lecturing overseas, any dentist that comes up to me says, "I've been to the United States." And I always say, "Really? Really? Where did you go?" And they said, "I went to the Greater New York Dental Meeting in New York City." I said, "Oh, well, did you ever leave Manhattan?" And they say, "No." And I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, "Okay, you really didn't see the United ..." 'Cause that is such an amazing city. It's a one of a kind. There's nothing like it in North America other than Manhattan. I mean, it's just truly, just so cool.

And my favorite statistic in the world is that if all seven and a half billion earthlings lived at the same density as Manhattan, we'd all fit on New Zealand.

Steven Lin: Yeah, isn't that amazing? It is a ... like, energy there, but also the ... And there's some really cool dentists doing some pretty progressive stuff there too. So, I've really enjoyed that as well. So, I feel that that kind of environment is breeding progression, potentially in our field as well.

Howard Farran: And some of those medical dental building in New York City, I mean, some of them 100 dentists in one building. I mean, it's just amazing the density. I don't know how many dentists are in Manhattan, but I would guess it's probably 6 to 8000. And, so are you gonna go try to get on the Dr. Oz Show?

Steven Lin: I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, Dental Town's the first step, right? That's the main stop, right?

Howard Farran: Well, the coolest thing about Dental Town is every famous person goes to the dentist and so, you can find a connection to anyone. But anyway, at NYU, when I was lecturing to the dental students ... Email me and I'll do a search in my contacts, but a couple of the dental students have hung out with him several times. So, maybe when you're in New York, you should go ... Who was that guy in ... Who was that good looking dentist, long hair, hangs out with Dr. Oz? But anyways, I'll find that for you, 'cause then if you could go put the book in his hand and then he'll go put it in Dr. Oz's hand. That's a big [inaudible 01:08:31] marketing. 

But, hey, Steven, seriously buddy, thank you for coming on the show and talking to all my homies today and thank you for all that you've done for dentistry. I just think you're ... You know, dentistry has a thousand points of light and you're one of them, buddy.

Steven Lin: It's a pleasure. And yeah, same to you. You're one big point of light in our ... You're really doing great things for our profession. I appreciate it.

Howard Farran: When you say I'm big, are you talking about my belly or my girth?

Steven Lin: Your audience.

Howard Farran: My audience, okay. I'm pretty sure, Ryan, that was a passive aggressive dig at my big fat belly. But hey, buddy, welcome to America. And by the way, I'll be in Sydney, in Australia the week of August 28th for seven days. If you're down there, I'd love to meet up.

Steven Lin: Yeah, [inaudible 01:09:17] my buddies, yeah.

Howard Farran: Okay, buddy. Have a rocking hot day in London. And don't, when you go to Stonehenge, don't knock those pillars over because if you knock one down, I have a feeling they're all gonna fall down.

Steven Lin: Oh, yeah. They hold the Earth up. It all falls over, yeah.