DENTAL patients need to know that dental treatment is not without its fair share of adversities. So, even though many patients leave the dental office chewing and looking much better than before they went, some degree of negative impact on the rest of their body may result from their treatment.

Conventional dentistry has certainly helped a great number of people to enjoy good dental function for many years now because it 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. Its primary aim is to resolve a patient’s dental problems while impacting the rest of the body as little as possible.

The negative medical impact of dentistry can come from several sources. Among the most common are mercury from amalgam fillings and bacterial toxins from root canal therapy. Commonly known as silver fillings or just amalgam fillings, these fillings should be called mercury fillings since mercury has been and remains a full 50% of their content. Patients must be told that if an old filling is being removed, the filings should be spat out immediately to minimise exposure to mercury. I have ceased using amalgam fillings in my practice for many years, and I suspect that this may be a rapidly growing trend.

Unfortunately, dentistry continues to evaluate new dental materials primarily, and sometimes exclusively, by their mechanical characteristics. Insufficient effort is given to evaluating whether a given material will have a long-term adverse effect on the patient. Stainless steel and other materials continue to be used in the mouth even though some studies seem to indicate that they could be implicated in causing cancer. After all, this has proven to be the case elsewhere in the body.

Root canal-treated teeth are proving to be infected at times, and the toxins that have been isolated from them are often incredibly potent. Although it has not been conclusive, some researchers claim there is a strong correlation between the presence of root canals and the development of cancer and heart disease. It appears that the longer canal-treated teeth stay in the body, the more the immune system becomes compromised.

Pockets of gangrene in the jawbone are often found in sites of previous extractions. 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. There are dentists who still think cavitations do not exist, even though they have been shown to be extremely common, especially at the sites of wisdom teeth extractions.

Currently, implants continue to be done without rigorous biocompatibility testing, and they are often started at extraction sites where cavitations are already developing. Autoimmune diseases seem to be, at times, aggravated or even initiated by implants.

Not enough emphasis is placed on how severely the infection in the gums caused by periodontal disease impacts a patient’s long-term health. Heart disease is clearly the result of such disease in many patients.

We recognise that the mouth and its contents can have a huge impact on a patient’s health and that the way in which it is approached can either support our health or do the opposite. We must understand that we function as a whole, and doctors must pay attention to integrating their work with other disciplines to create continuity for the patients.