There is no better way to cover this topic than to celebrate the lives of two key people who worked separately, without knowledge of the other. Both were mentors to me, and both leave a lasting legacy that will make people healthier.
Orthodontist Dr. John Mew passed away June 29, 2025. Pulmonologist and sleep physician Dr. John Remmers passed away July 7, 2025. I thank them both for their landmark contributions to health and longevity.
I met John Mew on Friday, March 2, 1990 in Newport Beach, CA. My life and practice changed immediately. He was the first orthodontist to describe why modern faces fail to grow forward as our ancestors’ faces once did.
His Tropic Premise held that our faces would grow to their genetic potential if we had proper rest oral posture: teeth together lightly, tongue firmly on the palate, and lips together without strain at rest. He developed this premise in the 1960s, and it has never been refuted.
Despite little evidence for genetics driving malocclusion, orthodontists have long been taught that heredity is to blame. In truth, few people today have proper oral posture, and most of us have recessed faces because of it.
When I first heard Mew, I was skeptical. I had traveled the world searching for ways to optimize facial balance beyond straightening teeth and had heard many unconvincing ideas.
I traveled to London in October 1990 to learn more from him, and what I saw convinced me. Using his approach, I produced forward-grown faces that were esthetically superior to those treated with traditional retractive methods. The difference was so clear that even a layperson could see it.
By 2000, I had practiced his technique for a decade and noticed dramatic airway improvements in my patients. In 2001, at the AAO meeting in Toronto, I measured American Board of Orthodontic cases and saw smaller post-treatment airways compared to the expanded ones I was producing. My focus on airway and sleep health took off from there.
At an American Academy of Craniofacial Pain meeting, I presented airway improvements from Mew’s techniques and adult space reopening. Later, in Scottsdale, I heard Dr. John Remmers speak.
A Harvard-trained MD with patents and decades of innovation, Remmers declared that OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) was becoming the most common chronic disease in industrialized countries. More importantly, he believed OSA would not exist if jaws grew forward like those of our ancestors.
This validated my own experiences and confirmed I was on the right path.
Mew and Remmers, to my knowledge, never knew each other. Yet their combined ideas gave me the foundation for producing forward-developed faces and optimizing breathing.
For more than 20 years, I have lectured and written about applying their insights. Sadly, too few in the world of sleep medicine recognize the role of facial growth. Many still believe OSA is primarily about obesity. If that were true, why do 95-pound Asian women suffer from it? My experience reopening extraction spaces or performing MMA surgery shows that airway collapse is more an antero-posterior issue than weight.
I happily give credit to both Dr. John Mew and Dr. John Remmers—not only for their ideas but for their conviction in the face of criticism. Thank you, and rest in peace.
