“If you can [breath through your nose] but tend not to, you may be an accidental mouth breather,” writes Malia Wollan in a New York Times Magazine article from last month. “Scientists link habitual mouth breathing to a host of medical issues, including sleep problems, learning disorders, tooth decay, bad breath and jaw deformities in children.”

As long time readers of Diabetic Dharma know, you can also add high blood sugars and amputated toes to the consequences of being an “accidental mouth breather.” Since 2016 we’ve been sharing our research and experiments about show keeping our lips sealed (night and day) can prevent and reverse the turmoil resulting from T1D.

The NYT article even shares a potent study supporting the 19th century adage that “mouth breathers” are stupid: “Japanese researchers obstructed the nostrils of young rats, forcing them to breathe through their mouths, and two weeks later found that the rodents needed twice as long to navigate a maze and had developed fewer brain cells than their unobstructed counterparts.”

Remember: You can’t always control your blood sugar, but you certainly can control you mouth.

Thinking outside the T1D Matrix,
–John C. A. Manley

P.S. For two of the best books on nasal breathing check out The Oxygen Advantage and The Power of Your Breath.