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Comment by nikolay | Hacker News Reader

Not just xylitol but also mastic gum, which, in addition to cavities prevention, kills H. pylori and strengthens your jaw muscles as it's a bit harder than regular chewing gum.

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I can attest to its effectiveness against H. pylori. I've suffered from canker sores most of my life. The two things that have helped were avoiding sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste, and chewing mastic gum at least once a week.

Anecdotal +1. I've switched to non-SLS toothpaste and seen a dramatic drop in my frequency and severity of apthous ulcers (and, unfortunately, I get them often enough and badly enough that I can state causality with some certainty).

I used to have a (powerful-to-the-point-of-personal-uneasiness) corticosteroid that I would put on them to dubious effect, but I haven't needed to resort to that at all since I switched away from SLS toothpastes.

BTW, the best treatment I've found for canker sores is Canker Cover. I switched baking soda toothpaste, but I'm not convinced it had a material effect.

Kanka is better imo

+1 for mastic, completely nontoxic and it's been used for thousands of years. My cavity problems have pretty much disappeared since discovering it several years ago.

Yup! Here's one study [0]!

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12747455/

Any brand you recommend?

For someone trying it for the first time, I would recommend the Falim chewing gum, available on Amazon, or the mint-flavored toothpaste at mastic.gr. If you feel comfortable trying pure mastic, the best quality that I've found are the large tears from Chios Mastiha Growers Association.

Thanks!

Any specific brands you trust?

I buy certified masic gum from Greece on Amazon [0] from one major importer of Greek products (Krinos).

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LQLIWM/

I really like mastic, but it cuts my tongue up.

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