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The book starts with Dr. Ueno’s journey and how it has changed the way he and his team practices today. He was healthy in his 20’s, but then became obese and unhealthy in his 30’s as he was growing his practice, starting a family and had multiple surgeries from sports injuries. His wake-up call was when his doctor put him on meds in is his 30’s as his blood tests showed that he was at risk for a realm of possible diseases. On top of that, he was having pain when working and was too exhausted to play with his kids when he got home from work. This is when Dr. Ueno decided to make sustainable changes in his lifestyle to make him healthier as he already went through the yo-yo fads of dieting when he was obese. The book goes into detail about the sustainable lifestyle changes that he made to lose over 60 pounds.

Around the same time, his oldest son was diagnosed with autism. Research is now showing that pregnant mothers with airway issues (like sleep apnea) have a higher risk of having babies born with autism. The Ueno Center was already focusing on airway for their patients, but this helped drive the practice to really educate our patients about how airway affects their lives and more importantly how it affects their children. Oral Fitness has an entire chapter devoted to airway as this affects a large percentage of our population.

In the book, Dr. Ueno explains the major oral systemic connections in detail which include heart disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, sleep and airway, pregnancy, and cancer. Each chapter starts off with a personal story that have come from a friend or colleague of Dr. Ueno, or Dr. Ueno himself. These stories help set the scene for the chapter to come. For example, the chapter on heart disease starts with a story of Dr. Ueno witnessing a man in his 40’s die of a heart attack on his plane ride home from a seminar on oral-systemic disease. It made him think… What could have been done to help this man? Could early screening by a dentist and proper referrals to medical doctors have prevented this?

The goal of this book is to inspire people to become healthier. Inflammation is at the root of almost every disease, and we need to reduce inflammation in our bodies by the foods we eat, the amount of quality sleep we get, and our daily habits. One of those habits is oral hygiene. Having a healthy mouth can lead to a healthier body. Health is the one thing in life that we all take for granted until we lose it.

We hope Oral Fitness inspires you and your loved ones to live healthier lives!

Also, all patients of the Ueno Center receive a free copy!