Oil pulling is a practice that is typically adopted by people who prefer holistic, or natural healing approaches. Natural can encompass quite a lot of approaches to health, ranging from swearing off artificially-created chemicals altogether to relying primarily on food as a form of medicine.

Oil pulling is used by all types of “natural-living” people. Scientific evidence has supported the notion of oil pulling being a beneficial practice, primarily because it can remove bacteria and unwanted toxins from your mouth. Although this is certainly useful for oral health, is it that beneficial for the entire body?

Oil Pulling and the Body

As of yet, there is no definitive research to support or contradict the notion that oil pulling is useful for a wide range of illnesses. Knowing that oil pulling removes bacteria, however, is important. Increasing numbers of researchers are finding that an overgrowth of bacteria in the mouth can lead to (or suggest the presence of) infection or illness elsewhere in the body.

If you remove built-up bacteria or other sources of toxins orally, you prevent those toxins from permeating other areas of your body, including your bloodstream. Oil pulling does not directly impact any part of your body aside from your mouth, but can indirectly benefit by removing additional bacteria and the threat of bacteria-induced illness.

Oil Pulling and Diabetes

Disease and inflammation are particularly worrisome for diabetics. Because of the effect diabetes has on the body, recovering from illness can take longer (f it happens at all). Furthermore, infection and illness can worsen diabetes symptoms, which start a chain reaction of increased diabetes symptoms and increased risk of complications.

For this reason, oil pulling has the potential to assist in diabetes treatment—indirectly. Oil pulling is not a cure-all that can erase high blood sugar, eliminate high blood pressure, and restart your body’s insulin production, but it can be one more step in an overall picture of wellness that keeps inflammation and infection in the body as low as possible.

Oral health can also be of some concern with diabetes; because diabetics’ bodies may have excess sugar in them, the risk of developing yeast infections is high, including yeast infections in the mouth (known as thrush). Oil pulling may be able to keep the potential for oral infection low, as well as warding off general inflammation.