Developing the Airway with Dr. Felix Liao

Developing the Airway with Dr. Felix Liao

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Alright, welcome everyone to another episode. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Bennett. I'm here today with a special guest, Dr. Felix Liao, a good friend of mine and someone I’m excited to have on the show.

Some people you meet in your life who are so driven with a passion that has come about from a genuine desire to help others—and Felix is one of those people. I’ve admired the way he’s taken the art and science of dentistry to new levels with profound health effects. So today, I want him to share a little of his background and explore the powerful connections he’s found between oral structure and total-body health.

Dr. Felix Liao’s journey into this field began in an unlikely place—engineering. As an immigrant student at Brown University, he gravitated toward math and science to avoid the language barrier. With an engineering mindset, he entered dental school and quickly realized many things didn’t add up—particularly the issue of teeth grinding.

Why would the body destroy one of its hardest, most essential tissues—enamel? A night guard might protect the teeth, but it does not stop the grinding. As he investigated this issue over 30 years, Dr. Liao found no satisfying explanation—until he encountered the work of Dr. Dave Singh and the field of epigenetic orthodontics.

He realized that teeth grinding isn’t a dental issue. It's a single frame in a much broader film—a film called sleep medicine. Grinding is often the body’s desperate effort to rescue itself from airway obstruction during sleep.

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Biological Dentistry and Whole-Body Health

Dr. Liao has practiced as a biological dentist for over 25 years, focusing on how oral health impacts the entire body. When he moved from Providence to Northern Virginia, he became the go-to dentist for members of the Weston A. Price Foundation—patients already committed to traditional nutrition, free of processed food and industrial toxins.

Even with clean dental checkups and healthy eating, these patients often reported unresolved symptoms: jaw pain, tooth sensitivity, and sleep issues. These signs pointed to something deeper than diet and fillings. Many of them had undiagnosed TMJ dysfunction, airway obstructions, and teeth grinding that standard dentistry never addressed.

He also spent years learning from TMJ expert Dr. Brendan Stack, deepening his understanding of jaw-related chronic pain. Still, something was missing. Through craniofacial development insights, he discovered that the mouth’s shape and size—especially an underdeveloped upper jaw—affects the airway, head posture, and even the hips and spine.

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From Underdeveloped Mouths to Whole-Body Suffering

So let’s talk about the underlying contributors. If you were to name the top three things contributing to this chronic teeth grinding condition—what would they be?

Nutritional deficiencies top the list. Dr. Liao is a devout follower of Dr. Weston A. Price, who found that traditional societies with nutrient-dense diets had perfectly developed jaws and never needed braces. In contrast, the Western diet—rich in calories but low in nutrients—produces underdeveloped jaws and crowded teeth. This structure becomes a "six-foot tiger in a three-foot cage," where the tongue doesn't fit properly in the mouth and pushes into the throat during sleep.

That’s how grinding begins—not as a dental issue, but as a survival reflex. During REM sleep, when muscles relax, the tongue collapses backward. The brain, starved for oxygen, triggers the jaw to thrust forward to reopen the airway. Over time, this becomes a destructive pattern that leads to facial pain, dental damage, and chronic fatigue.

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Case Studies and Life-Changing Results

Dr. Liao shared two memorable cases. The first was a chest surgeon who wore a CPAP but still snored and clenched his teeth. Even when considering a tongue-shocking implant, he was told his case “wasn’t bad enough.” It’s a tragic situation when surgical interventions are considered before structural solutions.

The second case was a woman scheduled for hip replacement surgery. She suffered from intense hip pain and poor sleep. After a consultation and receiving an epigenetic oral appliance to realign her jaw and correct a crossbite, she was able to sleep through the night and walk pain-free—possibly avoiding surgery altogether.

These transformations happened not by treating symptoms, but by correcting the structural root causes of her pain.

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The Mouth as the Root of Human Structure

That’s powerful. Especially when you consider the mouth is one of the first working systems we rely on as infants—to breathe and feed. If the mouth is our foundation, then everything else depends on its development.

Dr. Liao agrees. “The mouth is to humans what roots are to plants,” he said. We’re born unable to walk or talk—but we can suckle. That tells us just how foundational the mouth is to survival. If it’s underdeveloped, then everything—airway, posture, pain, sleep—suffers downstream.

This concept is central to his coined term: Impaired Mouth Syndrome. It’s when a mouth looks normal but functions abnormally due to being too small for the tongue. It sets off a chain of adaptations that lead to serious chronic conditions later in life.

He also described the embryological link between tooth development and the central nervous system, reinforcing how deeply connected oral health is with the rest of the body.

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Bridging the Gap with Nutrition and Epigenetics

Dr. Liao’s most recent insights have shaped his upcoming third book, which addresses a critical missing piece: how to support bone development nutritionally while using epigenetic oral appliances.

While oral appliances like the DNA Appliance® or Vivos are powerful tools for expanding the palate and correcting jaw alignment, their success can be limited by poor nutritional status. If a patient lacks the necessary bone-building nutrients, they may experience minimal improvements—or worse, regression.

Hypothyroidism, often overlooked, plays a major role. For every one-degree drop in body temperature, enzyme function drops 50% and immune strength by 33%. Dr. Liao emphasizes that most Americans are iodine-deficient, and our exposure to fluoride (via tap water and dental products) further displaces iodine from the thyroid gland. This can lead to sluggish metabolism and poor healing.

To counter this, Dr. Liao advocates for what he calls a “Holistic Mouth Style”—a mindful approach to diet, environment, and oral function.

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The “Holistic Mouth Style” and Bone-Building Nutrition

What is a mouth style? Just as people have a lifestyle—a unique blend of habits, diet, and activity—a mouth style defines how you eat, chew, breathe, and speak. Dr. Liao breaks it down into two key pillars:

• Eat Smart: Choose nutrient-dense foods that support bone and soft tissue health—like leafy greens, fermented foods, organ meats, and mineral-rich seafood.
• Eat Clean: Avoid foods cooked in fluoridated tap water, processed sugar, and hormone-disrupting packaging. Opt for home-cooked meals using filtered water and clean ingredients.

His favorite prescription? Bone broth and green smoothies.

These two powerhouses offer a wide array of benefits:

• Bone broth provides collagen, gelatin, amino acids, and minerals necessary for bone regeneration and tissue repair.
• Green smoothies give antioxidants, magnesium, vitamin K, and plant-based anti-inflammatories that counteract oxidative stress and improve vascular health.

Simple Bone Broth Recipe:

1. Buy organic bones (chicken, beef, lamb) from a trusted butcher.
2. Place them in a slow cooker with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar.
3. Cook overnight (12–24 hours).
4. Skim the fat and use the gelatin-rich broth as soup, base for stews, or to cook grains.

This nutritional approach pairs synergistically with oral appliance therapy to help bones grow stronger, airways widen, and systemic inflammation decrease.

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From Mouth to Muscles: The Full-Body Connection

We see this all the time in our patients too—especially those who are stuck in chronic pain without a clear trauma or injury. They say, “I’ve never had an accident, but my jaw hurts, my face aches, and I can’t sleep.”

The underlying cause? Disrupted breathing during sleep, which triggers jaw reflexes to move in an effort to survive. This nightly grinding damages teeth, inflames the TMJ, and worsens fatigue.

Pain becomes the fire alarm—but the fire is the airway. And unless you find the source, pain management is just turning off the smoke detector.

This “movement disorder,” as Dr. Bennett calls it, results in bruxism and often manifests as:

• Facial pain
• Headaches
• Popping or locking jaws
• Unrefreshing sleep
• Irritability and fatigue

Pair that with poor nutrition, hypothyroidism, and environmental toxins, and the body simply can’t repair itself overnight.

Healing begins when we fix the breathing.

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Practical Solutions for Patients and Practitioners

Dr. Liao’s work emphasizes a comprehensive protocol for both patients and dentists to consider:

• Evaluate airway structure with 3D imaging and oral exams
• Check for impaired mouth signs: scalloped tongue, narrow palate, crowded teeth
• Address nutritional deficiencies, especially iodine and mineral imbalances
• Start oral appliance therapy to expand the jaw and improve nasal breathing
• Incorporate bone broth and green smoothies into daily routines
• Test thyroid function and reduce fluoride exposure
• Collaborate across disciplines—dentists, physicians, and nutritionists

By connecting the dots between oral structure, airway health, sleep, and nutrition, patients finally experience the healing they’ve long been searching for.

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Final Thoughts: Let the Mouth Be the Gateway to Healing

That phrase “Impaired Mouth Syndrome” has so much meaning to me now. Because when we treat a crowded mouth, we’re not just treating teeth—we’re restoring breathing, posture, energy, and the body’s capacity to heal.

An underdeveloped mouth can lead to an underperforming life. Breathing becomes strained. The body compensates with jaw tension and grinding. Sleep gets interrupted. Pain becomes chronic. Inflammation increases. And the cycle goes on.

But there is a way out.

With insights from pioneers like Dr. Liao and clinical support from airway-focused dentists, patients can reclaim their sleep, rebuild their health, and rediscover vitality—without surgeries or lifelong medication.

To learn more about Dr. Felix Liao’s work, including his upcoming book on nutritional synergy with oral appliance therapy, visit holisticmouthsolutions.com or check out the Holistic Mouth Doctor channel.

And as always, stay tuned to The Healing Power of Sleep Podcast for more groundbreaking interviews that connect the dots between sleep, breathing, nutrition, posture, and total-body wellness.

Take a look at your family’s posture. Peek into their mouths. Do you see crowded arches, worn-down teeth, or signs of poor sleep? It might be time to look beyond the teeth and into the structure that supports total health.

Until next time—breathe well, sleep deep, and take care.

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