(DOUG JESSOP, ABC4 NEWS – SALT LAKE CITY, UT) Knowledge is Power. It’s a phrase that has been instilled in my psyche from a young age. In this episode of Jessop’s Journal, I’m honored to have Dr. Mark Cannon, DDS, MS come all the way from Chicago to visit with me.
Dr. Cannon has been a faculty member of Northwestern University Dental School. He has kept up his teaching and is now a Professor of the Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Otolaryngology- Division of Dentistry and is the Research Coordinator for the Pediatric Dental Program at the Ann and Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
As a preminent professor, researcher and pediatric dentist, Dr. Cannon has dedicated his life’s work to “find out what we don’t know and what we have misunderstood.” I wasn’t sure if I should call my guest Doctor, Professor, or “hey you”. He told me to just to call him Mark.
Mark admitted that by the time that things were in textbooks that they are dated. He tells his students, “what I teach you today will be wrong tomorrow.” That’s the reason I wanted to visit with Mark. What is the most current research that he’s been doing?
Mark’s passion product research is the impact of what he calls “Vitamin X” on the human body. In this case, the “X” stand for a natural sugar called “Xylitol.”
I first heard about Xylitol when reading about a village in Finland that was isolated during World War II. The people used bark from birch trees as a sweetener. After the war it was found that there was a very low rate of cavities in the people. Come to find out that the xylitol from the birch tree inhibits the bad bacteria that causes cavities and gum disease.
Mark told me that xylitol also occurs naturally in strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and this was news to me…cauliflower.
It was interesting to hear Mark talk passionately about his patients, many of whom are dealing with autism, cerebral palsy, and even cancer. He told me it was very gratifiying to help children with a lot of problems and in pain to get relief.
In this extended interview, we talked a lot about research that he and others are doing with the impact of xylitol as a ‘prebiotic’ on a host of medical issues with a focus on Autism.
Dr. Mark Cannon went on to tell me about his research with 30 children that were autistic, mostly non-verbal. They tracked their progress for 120 days after introducing xylitol as a prebiotic along with a probiotic. They then had a control group of 30 healthy children in both the U.S. and Columbia. They got so much information that they ended up getting help using artificial intelligence and supercomputers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The results showed that certain bacteria were definitely different in those with autism.
I’m not going to write everything we talked about since I want you to watch the interview. But I will say, if you know someone that has or loves someone with autism, you are going to want to share this interview with them.
There has been a lot of news about your gut health. Mark told me that what drives your gut health is your oral health. We talked about what he calls “Oral Gateway Microbiome”
Quoting Dr. Mark L. Cannon, “Recent research shows that xylitol prevents the attachment of the SARS COV2 to cells. I can tell you the research that I’ve done at Northwestern at our biocryo lab, we had cells sent to us from Utah, from Utah State University, that were infected with the SARS COV2 virus.
We did the imaging. We have all these phenomenal high magnification imaging showing that the virus did not penetrate the cell wall. On the outside of the cell wall there is a protein. Attached to that protein is a sugar protein. The sugar that holds it there is D-xylose. D-xylose is a cousin, they could be like brothers, to xylitol. When you put xylitol in the system, SARS COV2 virus tries to occupy that space that D-xylose is. They use the same attachment mechanism. You block it with xylitol. It’s a decoy target.
That’s why you see many a nasal spray coming out doing the same thing that this one does, preventing the spread of the infection by just applying vitamin X up the nose.”
I strongly feel that “stories have power”. Chances are that if you are going through something, that someone else probably has as well. The shared experiences we humans have can help each other. That my friend makes the point that stories “help us understand each other.”
You don’t have to agree with everyone, but in my opinion, if people would take more time getting to knowing more about others and where they are coming from, we just might find out that we have more similarities than differences.
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Jessop’s Journal is something special when it comes to broadcast news. I have the honor of being able to do longer in-depth interviews that you don’t normally see with people from all walks of life.A big shout out goes to my collaborator, Ed Wilets, who does a great job as my videographer/editor for all my stories. I invite you to watch each episode of Jessop’s Journal at www.ABC4.com/Journal and share these stories with your friends and neighbors. Your feedback is always welcome at DJessop@abc4.com
Other episodes of Jessop’s Journal can be seen at www.ABC4.com/Journal and are made possible by the generous underwriting support of Rustico, Tailor Cooperative, JW Custom Hats, Ogden’s Own Distillery and Xlear.
You can also see my positive business profiles called “Utah Success Stories” every Sunday in the ABC4 News at 10 p.m. or online at www.ABC4.com/Success . If you are Utah business owner and would like more details on being featured drop me an email.
Stories have power. They help us understand each other. With another entry into Jessop ‘s Journal; with Dr. Mark L. Cannon, DDS, MS; I’m Doug Jessop, ABC4 News.
