Would you get the same effect from taking oil capsules?

I'd love to give this a try but cannot abide the feel of anything oily in my mouth.

I was thinking of taking Natural Evening Primrose Oil capsules.

Thanks

The whole idea of oil pulling is to swish oil around your mouth for 15-20 minutes, apparently this process "pulls" toxins out of your body. Your then supposed to spit out the oil, because it has toxins in it. Taking an oil pill is no different then swallowing some oil. It will not replace oil pulling at all.

Though I am an ardent fan of oil pulling, I strongly disagree with the idea that it "pulls toxins" out of your body with such great immediacy. I have this idea that OP fans have misunderstood oleic acid's (and other fatty acids present in oil) role in the body - at least one of which is to transport wastes out of cells.

It seems exceedingly probable however that one absorbs fatty acids from the oils held in the mouth. Sublingual ("under the tongue") absorption of medicines has been used for many years in modern medicine and of course thousands of years in traditional meds. But to stay with current "sciencey" stuff, many more meds are being put in sublingual form in order to deliver them into the body more rapidly. Nitroglycerin, the old "heart attack" pill, cough and cold meds, and nicotine gum (& chewin tobacco) and Zicam (zinc) are obvious. A lot of research is going into delivery of opiates sublingually, one assumes to give faster pain relief. From the American Journal of Drug Delivery:
American Journal of Drug Delivery - Abstract: Volume 1(3) 2003 p 171-186 Intraoral Drug Delivery: A Comparative Review.
One of the good transporters of these meds sublingually is oleic acid. Olive Oil is quite high in it, for example. It's a good idea to use as clean (e.g. organic) of oils as possible since the fatty acids are bypassing the liver function.

So, to get to my point, if you can learn to tolerate it for even a few minutes at a time, you may receive fatty acids more rapidly with OP plus you get the benefit of oil killing much of the plaque in your mouth. If you just cannot get over the texture, taking good EFA supplements should produce much of the same benefit though anything ingested gets processed by digestive functions and I can't guess how much this might reduce the amounts delivered or not.

I personally do both OP and EFA supplements and have had great relief from many inflammatory conditions, including reduction in KP. If your diet is already high in EFAs (if you eat _plenty_ of walnuts, fish, pumpkin seeds, flax) it may not do much but I was surprised at how much I apparently needed EFAs. you might be also...
- bd

p.s. so you may not get the EXACT effect but should get some - maybe even much - effect if you need the EFAs so I would say taking a supplement would be a good place to start in your case. - bd

Give this a read if you would like to know more about EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids).

essential fatty acid: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

Pretty interesting observation about the sublingual absorption bp. I knew oil pulling had to have some sort of scientific basis. OP still isn't a bad idea, but it probably doesn't "pull" toxins out of the body. It provides your body with EFA that it may not be getting enough of, as well as cleansing your mouth, etc; EFA is necessary for many normal bodily functions; maybe one of them is normal skin exfoliation/turnover.

Thank you everyone. I tried this today and it made me sick.

Which supplement do you recomend? I was thinking of the Evening Primrose Oil because I can get it very easily.

- It's very common to experience a bit of light-headedness or nausea anytime within the first few days of OP. I had it about the third and fourth day myself but not since. (I imagine greater blood flow thru previously inflamed areas of my sinuses and ears caused mine...) You might wish to try OP again after you've put some omega-3 supplements in you. I take a flax/fish/safflower/borage oil combo plus a sea buckthorn or two. sea buckthorn has palmitic acid, a necessary fatty acid for skin that is rare in foodstuffs. I'm not 100 percent compliant - that is to say I don't always take as much everyday as recommended - but OP and EFAs have cleared up joint pain and helped me with sinus stuff besides skin issues. After doing a quick search regarding it, I'd say it looks like you'd be better off with some other supplement since EPO is mainly omega-6 which your body can synthesize and in north america we get too much of anyway (I can't speak foor other continents' data... ).
UC Berkeley Wellness Guide to Dietary Supplements: Evening Primrose Oil

Looks like a flax/fish is a better bet:
UC Berkeley Wellness Guide to Dietary Supplements: Flaxseed and Flaxseed Oil

Watch out for too much vitamin A and E in your daily intake. Google or Wikipedia all of these things (EFAs, vitamin A, vitamin E, flaxseed oil, etc...) and do a little research so you can best decide for yourself, your situation, your income, habits, etc... I am no professional but there's a lot of good info to be had and compared on the internet these days. - bd

To add my two cents worth:

Oil pulling is thought to pull toxins out of the mouth, decreasing the bacteria that may be absorbed by the body. Oral bacteria has been linked to heart disease and diabetes. To be able to decrease the quantity of bacteria in the mouth may be helping our over-all health.

I know that since I started oil pulling almost a year and a half ago, my teeth are whiter than they have ever been and there is no discernable plaque build-up. Plaque is caused by bacteria, therefore, I believe that bacteria has been removed from my mouth, and from my entire body, as oral bacteria is absorbed into the blood stream and carried to other parts of the body, like the heart.

I normally get my teeth cleaned once a year, but saw no reason to go this year and pay a lot of money, when I could see and feel very smooth, slick, white teeth and very pink, healthy looking gums. I probably will go eventually for a teeth cleaning, but in a way, I feel like we have been brainwashed into regular (and expensive) cleanings, when in fact, they may not be necessary for everyone. i believe this is due to less oral bacteria.

I also believe that omega oils are making their own contribution sublingually.

On Cure Zone's Oil Pulling Forum, many pullers have had their teeth cleaned, only to hear the hygenist exclaim how clean their teeth are and "whatever you are doing, don't stop". Many pullers on that forum no longer have teeth cleanings anymore.

My husband, a former chemist, says that some microbes are oil-soluble, and some are water-soluble, so he believes that oil pulling is removing the oil-soluble bacteria from the mouth.

An extra note: my compter has crashed, and I can only use a borrowed computer for a short period of time. I won't be able to respond, moderate or eliminate spam as frequently as before. I live in Mexico and we have just learned that new hard drives are not available here! So I have to wait until the end of January when my husband will go to the States and buy one to repair my computer.

kebod

I'm glad kebod threw her $.02 in since, yes, OP reduces the amounts of plaque in your mouth that could certainly be deemed as getting rid of toxins and a very health valuable thing since, as she mentioned, oral bacteria is linked as an indicator for some serious conditions.
here's another link about omega3s for anyone interested from university of maryland med's alternative med (which apparently includes nutrition ! how is good nutrition "alternative"?... sigh...) database:
Omega-3 fatty acids

"Symptoms of omega-3 fatty acid deficiency include extreme tiredness (fatigue), poor memory, dry skin, heart problems, mood swings or depression, and poor circulation."

- bd

Hi there,

I posted a funny experience in the thread 'Cured at last with Oil Pulling' and Kebod asked me to post it here, because my story tells you a bit more about toxins being drawn from the blood. Here we go, my original post:

Hi Kebod and other OP lovers,

I have to tell you something. Yesterdag I had an appointment with a doctor who does a blood test, called living blood analysis (don't know how to translate it properly, but I hope you know what I mean). Well, like every morning I OPed for 20 minutes around 07.00AM, I only drank some water because I had to stay sober (couldn't eat). My appointment was at 09.00AM. When the doctor was examining my blood, he saw something he couldn't believe: I almost had no toxins in my blood! He had never seen something like that! So, yep, Oil Pulling does draw the toxins out of the blood . I felt really good, just to know that OP really helps detoxing...

Best wishes to you all,
BG

So this may convince people here that it does help detoxing our blood.

Good luck to you all!

Some bio or med person correct me if I put any of this incorrectly, PLEASE, I've been having a hard time finding a concise layman's explanation: Oleic acids and other fatty acids make cell/tissue membranes more efficient at moving fluids in and out. Therefore, when it comes time for cells to expel wastes, having a healthy amount of fatty acids in your system means your system will do its job properly and be able to expel wastes and other by-products ("toxins") out of cells.
I guess using the verb "pull" bothers me versus "expel" cause it's our bodies that do the _expelling_ when they finally get the right EFAs they need not that oil _pulls_ but it's kind of a question of verbage and imagination - that is, how a person might picture this mechanism in their thoughts.
I just keep bringing this up for the people who may be borderline on the notion of OP but who might try it with a little more explanation in these terms. - bd