The Vital Role Your Oral Microbiome For Overcoming Long Haul and Chronic Fatigue

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the long haul covid summit. I am your co host, Dr. Sharon Stills. It’s a honor and a privilege to be here with you all, talking about this very, very important topic that we are seeing. I know I’m seeing more and more and more of in my practice every day. And so that’s why we have this summit coming to you to give you solutions to give you things to think about. So you can start to manage your own health care and hear about things that you might not hear about anywhere else. And we’re going to do that today because today we are going to be talking with Dr. Gerry Curatola. He’s an internationally recognized biological dentist with more than three decades of experience as a clinician or a researcher, educator, author, humanitarian. He’s a graduate of the Colgate University in New York University college of Dentistry, where he now serves as adjunct clinic Associate professor. 

He attended Harvard’s Medical School program and complementary and alternative medicine. He serves on the medical advisory board of the bio regulatory medicine institute with me. He is the founder and director of rejuvenation dentistry, rejuvenation health in New York, New York and east Hampton. He’s the founder and chief science officer of Riveting Life Sciences, which is headquartered in New York. He holds multiple patents and trademark for his pioneering research on the oral microbiome. He’s just he’s been on Dr. Oz and CBS and Fox and ABC. He’s published extensively. He’s the best selling author of the mouth body connection. He supports many international charities. He’s currently constructing medical dental clinic and hospital in India, he is always up to something. He is one of my favorite humans. He is definitely one of my favorite dentists. And I just really wanted to bring him on today because we don’t always think about our mouth when we’re thinking about our physical body or about Long covid. No one says, oh Long covid, let me go talk to my dentist. But he is here welcome. And you’re going to find out why if Long covid is an issue for you, you should go talk to your dentist. So welcome Gerry.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

It’s just listening to you go on and you know, my wife always says you do too much and I’m like no, I don’t what do I do, what do I don’t do anything. And this is just a little like, you know, I was like maybe maybe I need to take a breath. I was born. It’s funny, I was born in the Chinese year of the rooster and the roosters are always busy, right? Really busy. All of my friends are born around my year. You know, we’re all like busy doing stuff and trying to make the world a better place, but it’s great. I am really excited to be on with you and this is such a hot topic because it’s not a lot now right? We’re pioneering on the whole new condition that has a lot of connections between the mouth and the body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly, exactly. And I, you know, because I studied in Europe so early in my medical career, I got this jammed into my brain. It’s how I think, but it’s not very common, it’s becoming more common in the States. And I think part of that is because we do some, it’s like this and we’re getting the information out there, but you are definitely a leading, leading dentist in this area and one who knows what they’re doing. So when I have a patient, I want them to go see Dr. Gerry, Curatola. So let’s educate the audience, have them, find out why you’re here. So, you know, what is this bi directional nature of the mouth, body cam connection, oral health, systemic health. Why is this important if you’re dealing with something like a systemic long covid.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Yeah. And it’s interesting that you mentioned your your background and education in Europe and and with our mutual friend Thomas Rau who this past September, I lectured to the European Congress and integrative medicine and Thomas Rau was there, you know, and he he I I said to everyone, there was 700 doctors there and I said, you know, there’s one doctor that I was so impressed with my entire career because the first place he would look when someone had autoimmune disease cancer. Got anything, you, you know, in the first place. He would look, was the mouth and it seems so out of context to how our medical system works over here where, you know, the dentist kind of practices and his own you know world. As a matter of fact, when I came out of dental school, the number one reason why dentists were sued was the failure to diagnose periodontal disease, gum disease. 

Because all they would look at was the teeth. They think like the teeth were like the only thing that they were trained to look at. And meanwhile we have an enormous number of conditions that have this bidirectional thing. For example, if you have gum disease, it affects the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar. And it gives you a seven times greater chance of developing Type two diabetes. Conversely Type two diabetes causes a tremendous amount of periodontal inflammation and tooth decay by shifting the whole microbiome in the mouth. So this you know, you know you have diabetes causing oral disease and oral disease. You know, being linked to type two diabetes. So this bidirectional thing was misunderstood for so many years. But basically 80% of infectious disease has links to the mouth. I mean gum disease is linked to everything from Alzheimer’s to colorectal cancer. As a matter of fact, five types of cancer. And as you know, I did a lot of research for many years on the oral microbiome. I was mentored by probably one of the early researchers Dr. Steven Moss who was involved with the research being done on the oral microbiome around the world. And the oral microbiome is this complex community of bacteria in the mouth that do amazing things. One of the things that it does is regulate your immune system. So this connection between the oral microbiome and our immune system I use my hands a lot you know Italian you know people who are watching this podcast they’re going to enjoy seeing all the hand this really amazing interconnection. 

And one of the biggest aha moments I had in my research was that oral disease is not caused by individual bacteria and it’s not caused by you know bacteria that fly in your mouth and set up shop. It’s caused by an imbalance in this terrain. And as a naturopathic doctor you know you guys were right all along. It’s not about the c meaning of bacteria, it’s about the soil, right the terrain. And so when I understood that if I could support and that’s where my research went for 20 years promoting microbial homeostasis. Mao because when we do that we make it very inhospitable for Lyme spirochete for covid viruses and all kinds of major systemic pathogens, parasites. I saw two people today that you would never know dentists don’t even know that parasites are in the mouth. You know like you can people can have this parasitic overgrowth. Candida overgrowth. You know they don’t even see candida. So my real hope is and the next number of years that we can continue doing things like this but that I could be helpful in educating other dentist and and and in the biologic understanding of of what’s going on and the importance of this bidirectional relationship between the mouth and the whole body.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So how exactly is the oral microbiome tied into the immune system? Maybe you could give us a few examples.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Absolutely. So it stratified your immune system. They that’s bidirectional itself. So when you were in a state of microbial homeostasis, your immune system is working optimally not just in your mouth but in your whole body. And conversely this mechanism this and it’s really kind of a living breathing organ system. 6 to 10 billion bacteria. I was talking about an aha moment. The biggest aha moment I had is when that terrain is in balance. It actually takes minerals from saliva to re mineralized your teeth. So your teeth heal the enamel heals. People ask me all the time, can your teeth hell. And I said yes to a certain extent, until that decay hits what’s called the dental enamel junction and you get into the Denton which is more organic. Your teeth can re mineralized and they’re supposed to re-mineralize. So and you don’t need fluoride like every day. You know they drill it into Dentist Dental hygienist dental students and I have to kind of reverse this this long. You know, junk science, you know, failed public health experiment. We have fluoridated communities with more higher decay than non fluoridated, but fluoride is disturbing to the oral microbiome. It destabilizes it. So when you look at the oral microbiome, not only does it help re mineralized teeth.

Not only does it bring molecular oxygen transports, it’s an intelligent semi permeable membrane that transports molecular oxygen to the guns and conversely, it takes ionic oxygen or free radical species away. So this whole metabolic, you know, balancing of what’s going on in your mouth is all facilitated by a healthy microbiome. So it’s all about balance. It’s all about understanding this and not trying to eradicate this. The history of oral care was all about eradicating. We can talk about that in a little bit. But what happens when it’s out of balance is we get inflammation, chronic inflammation and that chronic inflammation in the mass of the body. And a lot of people don’t understand this. The bodies. Number one source of chronic, low grade inflammation is gum disease. 

Number one. So chronic means it’s there in a long time, right? Low gray means it doesn’t hurt. Most people have gum disease doesn’t hurt. They noticed their gums bleed. I love people who tell me, oh, I brush my teeth and my gums bleed, I guess I’m brushing too hard and this and then I’m like, well, when you comb your hair, if you see a scalp bleeding, you think that’s normal. No. If your gums bleed, it means that you have gingivitis and which is the early stage and then it becomes early, moderate and advanced periodontitus. But this is a major source of inflammation which dysregulate your immune system. So if you have dysbiosis in the mouth, what we call dysbiosis. It dysregulate your immune system and your immune system is not functioning at capacity, which for somebody with long haul or somebody battling covid really complicates things, 

Dr. Sharon Stills

Right? I mean, we look at, you know, we look at it as like this big bucket and you have all these stressors. And so if you know, and covid is this, it’s kicking off underlying issues. It’s reactivating viruses and people who are susceptible to that. And so, you know, we’re not always just chasing symptoms. We want to heal the whole terrain and the whole body. So the mouth is such a major source. Like you just said, I didn’t realize that gum disease number one source of inflammation. And so if you can take away the imbalances there, you’re going to just support your body in such a huge way that even if your symptoms from long covid, you don’t think are affecting your mouth. They could be coming from your mouth because there’s so many issues in your mouth that are suppressing your immune system.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

And there’s been thousands of studies to support this. Thousands that if you have gum disease, you have a 10 times greater chance of a heart attack. You have a seven times greater chance of stroke. If you’re a pregnant woman, you have a seven times greater chance of having a premature low weight baby and preeclampsia, a dangerous blood pressure condition. So the obstetricians who said, oh you know, you’re pregnant, don’t get on your dental work. I’m like, no, you need to maintain things because during pregnancy the hormonal changes called some cause something called pregnancy gingivitis. Your gums get puffy and inflamed. That’s gum disease. They used to say, oh, you know women had, you know, they start losing teeth after having babies because the baby robbed the mother’s calcium. And that was a wives tale what they had was pregnancy gingivitis, which is gum disease. The number one reason why you lose your teeth.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So you you talk about the oral microbiome and we, you know as physicians, we talk a lot about the gut microbiome and we have stool testing. We do where we can really dissect it and you can see someone know if their oral microbiome needs some TLC if it’s balanced or not balanced.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Well the physical signs of that are puffy gums, bleeding gums, thick, sticky roby saliva. You know, there’s a lot of things that contribute to the dysbiosis , right? There’s toxicity. So we have toxicity in the mouth. I mean I had I did and I can send anyone we can put a link for that on this for people to receive two info booklets that I created on the top 10 sources of toxicity and inflammation in the mouth. Heavy metals. You know mercury and and of course other metals like nickel cadmium lead that are all in dental restorations by the way jock habitations. BP A containing plastic fillings, composite fillings. But another one that’s really interesting Sharon that is become a big deal is obstructive sleep apnea because 90% of obstructive sleep apnea has to do with upper airway resistance and upper airway resistance happens because of a narrow mountain high vaulted palate tongue tie. All of these things contribute to upper airway resistance. 

And it’s correctable in a non surgical way with airway dentistry. And so we make these appliances called the D. N. A appliance that can expand the arch and make more room for the town. I have a friend Dr. Felix Liao is another biologic dentist who wrote a book called six ft tiger. three ft up three ft cage. six ft tiger is your tongue. The three ft cage for many people with narrow arches, high vaulted palate or people who had teeth pulled to make room to make their teeth straight and orthodontics that just shrinks the cage. So there’s a lot of people walking around with a big tongue and a little mouth, which is a dead ringer for obstructive sleep apnea. Which is also extremely debilitating systemically linked to so many and depression, anxiety or cognitive decline. Heart attack stroke, diabetes. All these other hypertension have been linked to O. S. A. And O. S. A. Has a lot to do with what’s going on in your mouth. So these are the kinds of things that we look for that are dysregulating to your immune system that are all linked to what’s going on in the mouth. 

Dr. Sharon Stills

So that you just spit out a lot of stuff there, you know. So let’s let’s take sleep apnea first. So is that something, if someone comes to you, you can evaluate them for? Is that something someone have a sleep study or you can just economically. 

Dr. Gerry Curatola

And in fact I have one right here. This is a home sleep study. And it’s literally we send it to you and it has a sensor that goes over your finger that measures blood oxygen. I want to thank Kim my office manager for putting all these toys on my desk wristwatch. There’s a little swatch, wristwatch, it’s all disposable in this sensor. We get seven pages. So when I did a sleep study I think it was 16 years ago, my brother is a cardiologist. And and and he said, hey I want you to do a sleep study because you know sleep apnea is linked to heart disease. Well you know and he’s like and so what they do a lot of medical doctors is they put the patient on a CPAP device which is forced air to kind of force the air in the back of your throat which stretches out. And that’s treating again as biologic practitioners. You and I that’s treating the symptom but not the cause forcing Aaron isn’t fixing the problem. It is literally stretching the lining of the soft tissue that makes it cyclonic when you blow up a balloon too many times it gets blasted. So it’s actually dangerous. There are long term complications from that. What you want to do is make the airway bigger. Just don’t try and force air down the back of the throat. And the way we expand the airway is with an appliance and orthopedic and orthodontic orthopedic compliance that expands and stimulate stem cell activity for the maxillary to expand the upper door and the mandible as well. 

And so we can take somebody who’s arches like this and make it like this. That’s not orthodontics not moving the teeth, it’s changing the shape of the jaw from people who have a very narrow arch to  making people have a wider arch which makes more room for your tongue. But the diagnosis of this. People should know I have people get a tone beef which is a three D. Scan of their head and neck. We do a cone beam and we send this to you and I can do a virtual console immediately and tell whether you’re a mild moderate or severe sleep apnea. And that is a major what is covid? It’s a respiratory disease. How many people had serious problems with covid and even succumbed to covid because they were mouth breathing. They had obstructive sleep apnea. They weren’t you know, we filter air through our nasal, we make nitric oxide nitric oxide in our sinuses which is so important for methylation. We’re talking about all these wonderful biologic processes that are inhibited because of what could be going on here. So if you’re breathing through your mouth and you’re not breathing through your nose at night, you’re not a you’re not producing nitric oxide which is important for regeneration and for the health of your immune system, health and your cardiovascular system all of these things. And you’re also not filtering dangerous viruses and bacteria that you’re inhaling right into your lungs.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm, interesting. Yeah. I was using nitric oxide to work with patients who are dealing with covid to help so well I have so many questions so that’s really fascinating and that’s super cool. But you mentioned cone beam. So I want to I want you to just explain because I want the listeners to kind of understand. I think there’s and you and I have personally talked about this. There’s many dentists out there who are saying they’re holistic dentists or biological dentists and maybe they only took a weekend course or something. And so you know, but we want our listeners to really know the best of the best. So like it’s what does someone need to know for evaluation and what is the cause we were initially just doing panoramic. I mean that’s what we started doing in Switzerland. So if you could just talk a little bit about that so we can 

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Yeah that’s an excellent question. Cone beam is the gold standard for X ray diagnostic technology. And it’s not X ray, it’s actually been very very low exposure, low exposure than the old X rays because it’s digital. So it’s cone beam or C. B. C. C. T. Stands for computerized. I’m gonna just drawing, drawing. I’m having a Senior Moment technology. It’s a three D. Technology that enables us to see a lot more things that we used to miss with two D. So it’s two D. Versus three D. Two D. Or conventional X rays. And let’s just say let’s talk about a capitation for example. And where my head is is a hole where the tooth was exposed where tooth was removed, A wisdom tooth extracted and where my hands are is cortical bone of the jaw here and here superimposed. You can’t see you just can’t see when you know what you’re seeing in three D. Three D. Enables us to see in every direction. So it is literally a game changer. It’s like you know a horse drawn carriage versus an automobile. And so every dentist should have a three D. Company now there’s two problems. Most dentists don’t invest in that technology and the dentist that do invest in that technology are improperly trained and not adequately trained to see the kind of osteonecrosis and other things that could exist from extracted wisdom teeth or infected root canal teeth, right? Root canals are a huge producer of osteonecrosis around it and cysts and major putrid infections that when I remove an infected wisdom and expected root canal tooth and I send it out for analysis what’s growing around. It would make your hair stand out. 

It’s parasites. It’s antibiotic resistant bacteria like superbugs it is. Amigas, it is fungal viral T. B. I mean I see bizarre tuberculosis bacteria. Like how did that get there? So it is scary what you see around an infected root canal and most root canals that just go it looks fine, looks fine, looks fine on three D. Cone beam are serious. So and you know I I love to share like just right before covid in the summer of 2019. I had a patient come to me from Houston Texas referred by a functional medicine doctor down there and she was diagnosed with a tumor on her left lung and the tumor was so large they wanted to remove the lung. It was like three quarters of her lung was filled with this tumor. And the functional medicine doctor said, you know, I know about meridians and teeth and meridians and you know, I just want to know could there be anything that’s going on in the mouth related to this? And I said, number one question is does she have any root canals? 

And I got a call back and said yes, she has one on the lower first molar. What’s the lower, lower left first molar lower left first smaller is on the meridians, energetic meridians to lung and colon, lung and colon. You know, as a natural pal, I know you’re familiar with these meridian charts which when I first saw that at Harvard Medical School, I saw like they put up this meridian chart in this program and complementary and alternative medicine that was being given with this Dr. David Eisenberg. And I was like, I can’t believe this is like voodoo, you know, I mean, what what does, what does this have to do with that? And? And then I learned, you know that and actually Thomas Rau gave a great education about that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So it sits in my draw in my desk always because I’m always pulling it out with patients when I do a tomography to show them, look there’s a problem with this tooth and it’s affecting absolutely everything. It’s so important.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

And I always put it in, I haven’t in your book, it’s in my it’s in my book. 

Dr. Sharon Stills

Could you just explain for those who are listening what we’re talking about in case they’ve never heard of this?

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Well, the way I explained it to patients is, as I said, you know, there’s in biologic medicine, we believe that there are five levels of the body’s ability to self regulate and heal. There’s a biologic level, right? There are biochemical pathways which you are an expert in and my wife will be coming to you. We talk about hormone channels and all these things that are, you know, biochemical pathways, right, thyroid, how much thyroid dis regulation that gets interfered with because of metals in the mouth and all this other stuff fluoride to and and and and things like that. But there’s so there’s biologic biochemical and then there’s bio energetic or energy pathways which the Chinese medicine we’ve known for so long that they deal with acupuncture meridians and the meridians are like energy flow where energy beings, we are literally energy beings. 

And then of course there’s psycho emotional levels which I deal with a lot in dentistry people who are traumatized by past experience for people that have been ill for a long time that come to me and I’ve been doing fixing a capitation or treating and helping them eliminate this disease. And there was somebody less ever that I that I stopped before I was about to start a capitation. Just something just hit me. Intuitively I was about to administer anesthesia and I said Erika do you believe you’re gonna get better? She had chronic line and I said do you believe you’re going to get better? And I said because if you don’t believe you’re going to be better and we’re just you know what they say, you know throwing garbage on the wall or they use another word and if it sticks you know see if it were like she didn’t know like let’s give this a shot. I went 20 other doctors and I was like oh you know there’s a man Bruce Lipton wrote a book the biology of belief that what we believe can change our D. N. A. And so you know she started crying and I said you know you gotta tell yourself right now I have a divine capacity to self regulate and heal. I have a god given ability to self regulate and heal and I will heal when we eliminate these interferences and toxicity. 

And I always tell every patient I don’t fix you, you heal yourself. I just have help I help take out these interferences and then of course the fifth level is our field the spiritual level and and you know and it’s important for people to understand that it’s mind body spirit thing isn’t a cliche spirit has never talked about in medicine but it is such an essential part that we have this field that is our spirit that extends a foot and a half from it has an electromagnetic potential. We do muscle testing by entering that field and it seems so surreal but it’s actually quite real and quite important for everyone’s ability to self regulate and heal. So the meridians of your teeth from your teeth to the organ systems or energy pathways that when they are blocked it’s like flipping a circuit breaker. It doesn’t mean that an infection in an upper molar which is connected to the breast is going to cause breast cancer but it’s actually flipping the breaker on the field. The the really the innate immune system is compromised by that infection in an energy pathway. So when I took out, which by the way the woman from texas on the lower left, first smaller, excuse me. 

She had a giant infection that wasn’t seen with a regular X ray, a giant infection between the roots and I took that tooth out and I disinfected. I used ozone and then I grafted it and she went back to texas in five weeks. This was the thing that really you know changed my world is five weeks later I get a call, she went for her pre surgical evaluation for her surgery to take out a loan. And she, they were like all buzzing around and they said, oh, we don’t know what happened, but the tumor shrunk to one third the size it was taking up below. And they still scared her. And that was only in five weeks, right. She had this giant thing growing and they scared her into because she was in the queue for surgery. They took out, they did a low back to me and they took out part of her lung. But they saved the lung of course. And then the part that they took out the tumor was benign what was going on there. Her body was beginning to self regulate and heal because the dental toxicity was interfering on an energetic pathway with and her immune system. So when we talk about long haul the kinds of things that you’re talking about, I mean it is so important for people to look in their mouth and have a dentist really evaluate, what’s going on in their mouth for them to be able to optimally regulate and heal that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And what you just described, you know, it’s such a powerful story. And the thing is, it’s not a weird story. You know, sometimes you hear these amazing stories, but then you drill down, it’s like, well yeah, that happened in one patient in 20 years. It’s like, no, we see this all the time where when the mouth is healed and the, the root canals or the capitation or the mercury, whatever it is that the body can heal, whether it be cancer or autoimmune, it’s you know, so this is this is so important listeners that we can’t disregard our mouth even, you know, when I first became like was going to medical school, like I didn’t think, you know, I think we were all taught growing up, the mouth is just something you so pay attention to once a year. Like you go get your oil change, you get your hair cut, you get your teeth believed, but like you never really thought about the mouth, which you know now of course it’s like, hello, the mouth is like the beginning of the digestive system and our immune system. You know, it’s in the head, like how can it not be a part of our health, but it’s so important. So it’s what I wanted to bring you on because I don’t think people are thinking of long covid and well what’s going on in my mouth and we want to lower the load in your body of infection of toxicity, of imbalance. And then, you know, I always feel like with my patients, like if we can handle the mouth, like we knock out at least 50% of, you know, 75% of the problem. It makes my job a lot easier.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

You know what’s interesting in oral care is that oral care was all focused on killing everything even now, you know they’re they’re you know one of my pet peeves in oral care especially with natural dentist. You know biologic dentist is they all kind of embrace this xylitol. You know, xylitol is a chemical, okay. It is made by an industrialized process that includes hydrogenation the way they made margarine and it’s a white chemical. And it’s made from you know the original development as a little was by a subsidiary of Dupont called Danisco in europe. And they did these studies in Finland that showed that xylitol killed strap mutants, bacteria, the bacteria associated with tooth decay strep mutants lives in our mouth. Everybody. And it’s part of a complex community of 6 to 10 billion bacteria. And literally not just bacteria, viruses and fungal organisms and everything else. But they live in this diverse fish tank of microbes like Jacques Cousteau, you know, undersea adventures. 

It is this beautiful, diverse community and we want you know when I I was on the Martha Stewart show a number of years ago and Martha was great and she was really into oral health because her father died of oral cancer. Her brother was an oral brother isn’t I believe still an oral surgeon. And she was very interested and had heard me and had me on the show to talk about the work I was doing in oral care. And I said you know Martha toothpaste was invented by soap makers, you know developed by soap makers. You know 100-250 years ago. And I said it was basically flavored detergent for the mouth. So my mother would say if I said something dirty as a little boy as a dirty word, she said, I’ll stick so open your mouth. And I was brushing with it already and everybody laughed, you know, because I was brushing with flavored detergent. Then in the 1970s we saw you know an extension of the germ theory of like oh we looked at these back bacteria, we would take a swab and you’d see all these bacteria swimming around it was like kill it like Ray kill it, kill it. And so we took this antimicrobial approach in the mouth using you know antiseptic, you know, Listerine which had more alcohol than you know, actually when they did an alcoholism campaign in Russia and took the vodka off the shelves. Everybody started drinking mouthwash, there was so much alcohol in it, you know, and they and they had to pull the mouthwash. But there’s a study on green oral cancer because he and my mother used to think it was good because it gave her a they even called it a medicine taste, you know killing everything. And that’s like killing the coral reef. 

I not that was so Italian, I’m not the computer over. So this, this whole antimicrobial scorched earth policy approach. And you know what I said on the Martha Stewart show, I said we gotta take bug killing And I said and and that’s really bad. And so I think it’s time for all doctors to get out of the pesticide business. And what I’m promoting is organic gardening for the mouth. And that is how I came up with and I spent 20 years developing, Revitin. So what is, what’s the big deal about Revitin? Well is a toothpaste that’s filled with vitamins and probiotics by the way, if you took this much toothpaste off of conventional toothpaste and you swallowed it, you’d have more than a pea sized amount of swallowed called poison control right away. Why is the poison warning on commercial toothpaste? Because fluoride is toxic. And Procter and Gamble made a toothpaste that tasted like bubblegum in the 19 eighties and kids were eating it and fluoride fatalities in Children under five went up 280%. 

So it took 10 years. But the FDA put a poison warning. And if you look at commercial toothpaste, it says warning, it’s more than a pea sized amount of swallowed, you know cold poison control immediately. And it’s like wait a minute we’re sticking in our mouths, but we gotta worry about calling poison control, we accidentally swallow it. So the first thing I wanted to do is make something that kids could use and can swallow. But more importantly than that. I started using probiotics, key antioxidants that are and and and vitamins that are essential for promoting what microbial homeostasis. So that’s why you know we see amazing things when people use this and people call and say oh my God stop leading in two days. Oh oh you know everything is healthy. 

So what and and and and I’ve been at this a long time, you know and and the reality is that if we can rebalance and promote microbial homeostasis rather than trying to kill everything. Because people call me about what about oil pulling? What about charcoal? What about clay? What about this? And all these fads. Now the big thing is nanoparticles of hydroxyapatite. Well nano hydroxyapatite nanoparticles penetrate not just the cell membrane but they’re small enough to penetrate the nucleus and damaged DNA in the cell. And so hydroxyapatite is all about because our teeth and bones made of hydroxyapatite. So the idea is let’s throw it in there and then that will help remineralize teeth. The reality is that hydroxyapatite has calcium and phosphorus the same minerals that come out of your saliva that a healthy microbiome transports to your teeth. So again, there’s so much misinformation in the world of oral care that destabilizes and causes the very dis bio sis we’ve been talking about that compromises your immune system and hinders your ability to recover from long haul covid.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So, in Dr. Gerry’s perfect world, you know what? So we’ve touched on canals. But you know, a lot of people listening, I mean, you know, may already have. So we, you know, don’t get a root canal. Like if you need one, don’t get one. But what if you’ve had one already? Do you always pull it? What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Gerry Curatola

That’s a fantastic question. Because when I came out of dental school 40 almost 40 years ago, 1983 I was 10. I was like the digi hazard. So when I came out of dental school, you know, I was like re canal, we saved the tooth. That’s a good idea. We saved the two. It’s the only procedure. And by the way, when I came out of dental school, they were just banning. They used to fill the root canal is something called sergeant space that had formaldehyde was literally embalming something dead. And it’s the only procedure that we do in medicine where we keep something dead inside you. So that in and of itself. And you know, we’re doing a lot of histological studies and things autoimmune issues and all these other things and I used to believe, well, if the root canal isn’t done well then, you know. Yeah, that, but the reality is at best. Root canal is a temporary procedure, because as you get necrosis right? Break down anything dead will break down, we call that necrosis, right? 

And so you know, a dead organ will necrosis. Dead body will macros, you know, if you you know have and we see the effects of this in the body necrosis and a tooth is it’s not, we used to think like oh it’s just the truth that sits in there. You know, it’s still, still has a ligament around it, that gets blood supply and all that. Well, no, a tooth is really like a living breathing organ. It has a nervous system and has a circulatory system. It has all these organic processes that go on. And as we said, you know, it is also intricately linked energetically to the rest of the human body, which is this big energy world of the human body inhabited by this field, our spirit. That is working together. You know, my body spirit is not a cliche, it’s a real thing. And the mouth body is a real connection, which I’ve tried to illuminate, you know, and as much as I can and will continue to. But root canal is an issue. What I generally do is I take a cone beam and if I see necrosis occurring or you know because the canal will look perfect looking like that, right? It looks perfect like this. Like, excuse me, like this, you don’t see it. And so most dentist to look at two D. X rays, they’re like oh the root canal filling which really well done. And you know it’s a whole art and I have some great friends who are end Adonis root canal specialist and and I you know and I talked to them about taking a more biologic approaching during root canal and using ozone and and all this and and really wonderful. And the donna sal cantor out in out in Los Angeles has been really working hard to try and make root canals better. But it is unfortunately a flood procedure because anything dead will macros but if she can get that to the last longer without developing the kind of necrosis around it. Then that’s a step in the right direction. I think eventually we’ll be looking at not doing root canal where we embalm the dead thing. But we’re gonna be looking at using stem cells in the pulp and regenerative regenerative and the dontics. It’s not yeah regenerative and the dontics where we can regenerate a pulp and keep it vital or even use stem cells to regrow. The two were quite a ways off from that but it has been shown that we can get differentiation of stem cells into what is the you know metamorphic metamorphic metamorphic properties. That can develop into a enamel Denton and pulp of the tooth. So this is the future. But re canals right now. If they are infected they are bad news for your immune system. They are bad news for recovery from from long haul. They’re bad.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Most of them are infected. So if you have root canals in your mouth and you have long covid, you gotta get a cone beam and get a proper evaluation by someone like Dr. Gerry,

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Right? Because if there is necrosis around it, if we do see a capitation that should be removed and if it is removed and the bonus disinfected, you’re an excellent candidate for a ceramic implant. No matter 

Dr. Sharon Stills

That was my next question. So yeah you so you pull the tooth then what? Because so answer titanium. So if you could speak to that.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Yeah, so it’s interesting. There’s so many things we’ve used in dentistry like take out mercury fillings put in tooth colored fillings. But those tooth colored fillings if their best gm a composite are loaded with this fennel, it’s this panel, a life settlement tackle it. And that is a nasty chemical that dis regulates your endocrine system and it’s linked to breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer. Man, that’s resin the same thing that plastic water bottles do in your hot car because your mouth is 98 degrees and you have this plastic resin. And so that’s basically a source of toxicity and inflammation. So we took that mercury and we put in by G. M. A. B. P. A. For someone who’s getting their mercury removed?

Dr. Sharon Stills

And they’re seeing a biological dentist. Do they have to ask or is it commonplace now that they will be B. P. A. Free?

Dr. Gerry Curatola

No, it’s not common place. A lot of dentists still use what they get. Their biologic dentist out there who are not using proper restorative materials even though they think they’re doing something good and they’re careful to do safe mercury removal which is isolating the tooth and putting a separate air supply oxygen and also protecting themselves because there’s an invisible cloud of mercury vapor that comes out of that tooth. And I’m actually developing right now sharing a I’m under construction for a new facility that is going to be the most advanced wellness environment. And I’m working with a company called Delos and we’re getting a platinum well certification because it has the most advanced filtration in the dental office, air filtration, water filtration, circadian lighting, ionization in the rooms where mercury is coming out and I’m hopefully trying to create a standard that will be replicated in other dental offices around the country. But dental offices are notoriously toxic. 

The office environment. I’m not talking even not just the people. No, no. The the office itself and what’s coming out and what’s being spewed around is toxic. So a lot of dentists have started to become wise to the importance of filtration. But mercury fillings were like you were talking about heavy metals coming that are actually in that some people have crowns and bridges that have metal under the porcelain and some of that is nickel, nickel, chromium chromium cobalt. All these metals what we call PFM crowns. Non precious crowns had a lot of nasty heavy metals. And then we get to titanium which you were just mentioning and we thought, you know, um so the origin of titanium influences really interesting. There was a Swedish hematologist by the name of Mark and he was doing bone marrow studies and he had these titanium cylinders. He was putting into teamers and of animals and and doing and when he went to retrieve them he saw the bone grew around them. And he’s like wow if it grows around the cylinder that he was taking a bone marrow sample from. What about if we take that? And then put it in the human jaw.

And lo and behold wow, it looks like the bone really grows around this thing. And it’s and and we love titanium, you know, because we thought, oh it’s biocompatible. But what we know now and what the science has shown what the research has shown is it’s actually inflammatory and the kind of bone that grows around a titanium implant versus a non metal implant like zirconia implants is the titanium implant gets like almost almost like scar tissue bone. So it’s sclerotic bone. And when we look at cross-ex as we see it doesn’t have a great blood supply. Then we see the soft tissue get really inflamed around it. And so all the periodontist have this very busy practice treating what’s called peri implantitis which is inflammation Around the titanium implant. So and then finally a study from Germany showing you know that the titanium especially with 5G. You know, it actually heats up. It’s an antenna for a cell phone. And then study from China 2021 actually demonstrated that there is corrosion of the titanium in the mouth because saliva is an electrolyte and other things like fluoride and other chemicals actually causes corrosion of the metal. And those titanium particles have been found in the liver and the kidneys and the lungs. So we’re moving away from all the major implant companies like straw man and and Nobel Biocare. These are multi billion dollar implant companies are quietly introducing ceramic all tournament introducing onto your implants. And so this is what we’re dealing with. So zirconia implant implants. You have the root canal tooth out and healed beautifully. You put a zirconia implant in there. We see that the bone that grows around it grows slower but much healthier, healthier because it’s vascular bone that has a blood supply, the soft tissue. Love circling but you have to know how to work with it. It is a complicated, I’ve been working with a swiss implant company helping to develop some of the prosthetic attachments and all that. But we got to get out of the metal, get the metal out that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Are you working with sts?

Dr. Gerry Curatola

I’m working actually now with STS. I’m working with zero max. It’s a really great implant company. And they’re open because they’re open to the kinds of development advice for the prosthetic attachments with these. And I know I know Ulrich and sts and all that. But there are you know the important thing is developing better prosthetic attachments for these implants. And understanding that these implants take longer for the bone to grow. But the bone is much healthier. You have to be a little more patient. You’re not going to put a crown on a tooth with a zirconia implant in three months. You’re gonna do it in six months.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So people who have titanium implants.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

Yeah we don’t automatically, it’s funny you brought up something really interesting. The first was talking about root canals. You take all the root canals out. No we actually we don’t live in a perfect world. And even the root canal isn’t a perfect procedure. If there is no signs of necrosis or breakdown. I would not recommend touching it. But if there is I recommend getting it out if you have an autoimmune condition. I recommend getting it out if you have your fighting long haul and there’s there’s a cavity station around this or in a third molar area. I recommend getting that treated. So same thing with mental implants, if they’re, if they’re integrated in the bone, it’s more traumatic getting it out. You know, it’s kind of like mercury fillings and the most amount of mercury is removed when the dentist tries to take it out. So that’s why you need safe removal. I’m not saying leave the mercury in if you have thyroid dysfunction and you got 30 amalgams in your mouth and all this other stuff, like I went on the Dr. Oz show, and the first thing I said is mercury’s most neurotoxic element on earth. And we’ve been using this stuff since the Civil War and we really have to rethink what we’re sticking in people’s heads two inches from their brain because the symptoms of mercury toxicity and the symptoms of Alzheimer’s are identical.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly. So it really is, you know, if you’re listening and you don’t have any of these things, you know, not to get them. And if you’re listening and you have some of them, you know, you need to be evaluated and industry is, you know, it’s, it’s always what’s gonna be best for you is this root canal impairing your ability to heal. It needs to go if your body is regulating and moving with it, maybe that’s not the first thing on the list that you need to go and so

Dr. Gerry Curatola

What I always say is that it’s just important to be conscious and awake and to know what’s going on. So I mean like there are people like sometimes I give this lecture on the top 10 sources of toxicity information. And I see the doctors themselves squirming in the chair. You know like, oh my God, I got three of those. Oh I have four of those, I have five of those. We don’t live in a perfect world. But you know, the first step to getting better is to be conscious and and knowing and having someone, I help people so much with prioritizing their care. So yes, may not be able to do all of it. You may not be able to afford to do all of it at the same time, but at least you’re moving in the right direction and as you start to move in the right direction, things start to happen that like a woman yesterday had a lot of issues in her mouth, but I was like, there’s a root canal and tooth number two and the cone beam showing a lot of cavity and she goes, that has bothered me for 10 years. 

And I’ve onto countless dentist who have said the root canal looks fine. And you’re the first one that the first thing that I zeroed in on was that and she said, you know, I’ve I’ve come four hours to be here, can we do this today? And it turned out that, you know, this is kiss me, you know the way the universe aligned Dr. Alex periodontist and implantologist had a cancelation and his schedule and she went in there, the tooth was removed and I walked into the room and she was crying. I’m like oh you and pan said no I felt nothing through the whole procedure. I am crying because I can breathe and my entire sinus has opened up on this side of my face, I can breathe for the first time. And I’m so relieved because I feel like somebody heard me and that’s a big thing. Doctors don’t listen to their patients and I learned that a long time ago that if the patient they know their body better than you think, you know their body listen to your patients, they’re not great, they’re not crazy. Listen, 

Dr. Sharon Stills

We learned that in naturopathic medical school, you know the first thing you do is spend an hour with the patient and you just listen and if you listen more than like 80% of the time the patient will tell you what’s wrong, what they need. And I always tell my patients that you know you’re in your body 24, I just get the honor to drop in for an appointment, everyone. So you know 

Dr. Gerry Curatola

You know same thing Sharon and it’s so great when patients start to open up and just talk because they don’t even know how what they’re saying tells a big story of what’s going on in the body and you start to hear it and they’re communicating it. It’s not just looking at their X rays or looking at their mouth or whatever it’s listening to what they have to say. That was just and so she hugged me. I was like the first patient that hugged me for surgery.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love it. Yeah, absolutely. I always see a lot of times patients be like, I don’t know if you need to know this. I’m like, I need to know everything because you never know what you’re gonna say. That’s gonna lead me to the right homeopathic remedy that’s gonna put together something in my mind. And so yes, spill all your beans to your physicians that make sure they’re listening to you. Well I hope I know everyone has enjoyed listening to this. Unfortunately our time has come to an end because I could talk dentistry with you for you know, the next seven years. And so, you know, I know a lot as a physician about the importance. That’s why I wanted to bring you on to have this conversation for people to understand if you’re suffering with something like long hauls and it’s affecting your whole system. Don’t forget about your mouth taking the load off your mouth. Doing the proper dentistry. Can really lesson what’s going on in the rest of your body and may be a contributing factor remember covid is if you have long hauls, it’s like things have been kicked up and maybe some underlying whether it be periodontal disease or decapitation or the mercury or canal or an implied. I mean, there’s so many options in the mouth, unfortunately.

Dr. Gerry Curatola

And so absolutely, absolutely true. I just, I want to thank you too Sharon, you know, because often, you know, the dentist is the 800lb gorilla in the wellness room. Like it’s like they’re like, you know, sitting there and nobody’s talking about it and it’s important to understand. And that’s why I, that’s why I did this book. I encourage people to see where I think we’re going to give a gift of this with the program. I think my team has talked to your team about that. And, and again, just to sum up the last thing I would have to say is that your ability to overcome not just covid,, long haul. And so many other attacks on our immune system is the ability to eliminate tax to eliminate toxicity and inflammation. So your immune system can reregulate. And that’s the biggest thing. I hope we got across today.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yes. Amen to that. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for everything you do. I can’t wait for the new office. I’m excited for that. And thank you to everyone listening in the audience and you’re probably gonna want to listen to this one again. We kind of like went through a lot of topics, but it’s such an important one. So I take hope you take it to heart and take action, and we’ll be back with another episode soon, so thanks for being here.