Integrative Health Blog

The health of your oral cavity has an extensive effect on the health of your body. 

Stated in another way:   “You cannot have a healthy body without a healthy mouth.”

The factors in the mouth which affect overall health are:

1)   Infections of the teeth,  gums, jaw bone and tonsils

2)   Toxicity or incompatibility of dental materials placed in the mouth

3)   The physical orientation and contact of the jaws and teeth.

The effects of these three factors affect the brain, heart, liver, kidneys, gastrointestinal system, the blood,  lymphatics, immune system, our sensory organs and more.

Dentistry as taught in traditional dental education requires that dentists are mechanical in how they practice. 

Holes in teeth should be filled, tartar and plaque removed from teeth to stop gum bleeding and infection, diseased or impacted teeth must be extracted and crooked teeth straightened with orthodontics - are strictly mechanical dental approaches.

Despite this orientation our overall health may be profoundly affected (positively or negatively) by remaining or developing dental disease and in most ways how mechanical dentistry treats these conditions.

A Biological Dental Approach Treats the Whole Person

This brings us to the importance and relevance of biological dentistry.   Biological dentists look at these conditions and how to treat them not only for their mechanical resolution but how a patient’s health is affected before, during and after treatment.

Dentists (mechanical or biologic) must be aware of how toxic /bio-incompatible dental materials may hurt their patients, how oral cavity infections may spread to every part of the body and how the bite affects our structure, immune and nervous systems.  To ignore these issues due to ignorance, lack of information or fear of reciprocity does not make these health issues disappear.

It is important for patients to educate  themselves about dental health (reading, research, asking the right questions) then find a holistic dentist who will listen and treat according to biological dental principals, i.e. the mouth as an integral part of the whole body, while still delivering good mechanical dentistry.