Six Common Dental Procedures That can Harm Your Health

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http://mercola.com/2004/feb/18/dental_health.htm

 

 

Six Common Dental Procedures That can Harm Your Health, and How Environmental

Dentistry can Help

 

 

 

By Lina C. Garcia, D.M.D.

 

Conventional dentistry and conventional dental practices have certainly helped a

great number of people enjoy good dental function for many years now. And if

that’s the case, why should anyone be interested in seeing an environmental

dentist rather than a conventional dentist? What is an environmental dentist,

anyhow?

 

 

 

Environmental dentistry, in a nutshell, respects the fact that the mouth is an

integrated part of the entire body, and that it should always be viewed and

treated in this respect. The primary aim of environmental dentistry is to

resolve a given patient’s dental problems while impacting the rest of the body

as little as possible. Unfortunately, even though many patients leave the office

of a traditional dentist chewing much better than before they went, a

significant negative medical impact on the rest of their body will result from

what was done in the dentist’s office.

 

 

 

The negative medical impact of conventional dentistry can come from any of a

number of sources. The most common ones are:

 

 

 

Mercury-Amalgam Fillings: Commonly known as silver fillings or just amalgam

fillings, these fillings should really be called mercury fillings, since mercury

has been and remains a full 50 percent of the content of these fillings.

 

 

Conventional dentistry long asserted that the amalgamation process rendered the

mercury non-toxic by the chemical reaction that was supposed to be taking place.

In our environmental practice we also take precautions and follow a protocol to

minimize patients’ exposure to mercury upon its removal.

 

Other Toxic Dental Materials: Unfortunately, conventional dentistry continues to

evaluate new dental materials primarily, and sometimes exclusively, by their

mechanical characteristics. Little thought is given, even today, in trying to

evaluate whether a given material will have a long-term adverse toxic effect on

the patient.

 

 

Environmental dentists use biocompatible materials that will not adversely

impact a patient’s immune system. Stainless steel and other metals continue to

be used in the mouth even though they have been well-established to have a

cancer-causing effect when used elsewhere in the body.

 

Root Canals: Root canal-treated teeth are proving to be almost always infected,

and the toxins that have been isolated from them are often incredibly potent.

Some researchers claim there is a strong relation between the presence of root

canals and the development of cancer and heart disease. It appears that the

longer root canal-treated teeth stay in the body, the more the immune system

becomes compromised.

 

 

Cavitations: Pockets of gangrene in the jawbone are often found at the sites of

previous extractions by conventional dentists. These toxins are essentially the

same as those found in root canals, being the product of aerobic mouth bacteria

being forced to live in an anaerobic environment. Most traditional dentists

still think cavitations do not exist, even though they have been shown to be

extremely common, especially at the sites of wisdom teeth extractions.

 

 

Implants: Currently, implants continue to be done without biocompatibility

testing, and they are often started at extraction sites where cavitations are

already developing. Autoimmune diseases seem to be often aggravated or even

initiated by implants.

 

 

Periodontal Disease: Not enough emphasis is put on how severely the infection in

the gums of the periodontal-disease patient impacts that patient’s long-term

health. Heart disease is clearly the result of such disease in many patients.

Repeated surgery and antibiotic courses are not the first choices of

environmental dentists in treating this condition.

 

 

 

We recognize that the mouth and its contents can have a huge impact on a

patient’s health and the way in which it is approached can either support our

health or do the opposite. We have to understand that we function as a whole and

as doctors, we must pay attention to the whole and work with other disciplines

in order to create continuity for our patients.