Your Guide To Holistic Dentistry: Transform Your Health

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

Well, I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

Well, thank you for joining us. I’m eager to learn more about your expertise and what you may have to offer for folks who may be having some difficulty with hypertension and maybe think outside the box. Could you share a little bit about your story, your specialty, and how you approach dental health?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I never dreamed I would be doing what I’m doing today, which is practicing holistic or biological dentistry. I got sick over 20 years ago, out of the blue. I was a very competitive triathlete and all of a sudden I found myself hardly able to walk. After months of testing, I was finally referred to the ALS Center in Houston, thinking that I had ALS. As it turned out, I had a mercury toxicity issue. As a result of that, my practice was transformed, and I was exposed to different ways of dentistry. First of all, I was exposed to ways in dentistry that would protect me in the future, in terms of my mercury exposure, because at the time I had not placed a mercury filling in 20 years, but I had been removing them, and physicians knew that I would remove them and they would send their patients to me. But I took no precautions for myself or my staff. As a result of it, over time, it accumulated. I began to have these neuromuscular issues. 

All of that being said, I went to Montreal for treatment, thinking at the time that I had ALS, and again, it turned out to be primarily a mercury issue. But as the toxicities mount on top of one another and they aren’t normally just one toxicity on top of another, that doesn’t mean you have to know you can have a multiplier and they can overwhelm your immune system. That’s what happened. I was exposed to the teachings of the old grandfather of holistic or biological dentistry. His name was Hal Huggins. He was a very controversial man, but very bold and smart. His boldness cost him his license, but his intelligence reigns today because, over the years, what I learned from that man has proven to be very sound and very scientifically based. One was that people should stay away from mercury at all costs. We know that.

By the way, it certainly has an impact on pressure and cardiovascular health. Two, he was telling me at the time that I was doing about 100 root canal treatments a year in my office. He said, do you do anything about the root canal research and the terms of the toxicity that remains in root canals? That’s a real issue. I didn’t say no, but I said no. I began to research that. Lo and behold, I found out that the treatment that I had been rendering to my patients all along, although it saved the tooth most often, could be a real challenge for their immune system and a challenge for their system to kill. That’s one thing that I hope we can address today. Then finally, he introduced the concept of jawbone osteonecrosis; at least in the literature, it’s called jawbone osteonecrosis, most often. Osteo means bone, and necrosis means dead. He said that oftentimes, when a tooth is extracted, it’s not done properly, and the bacteria from the mouth go into the site where the tooth was removed. You grow a little cap of bone over that and overcome tissue, but there remains residual infection. He said that if you have that, you’ll probably never get well.

Well, I don’t know if I have it or not, but he said most people call it cavitation, but it’s jawbone. Osteonecrosis was nothing more than a sluggish area in the jawbone that was filled with anaerobes, and he said, I want to make sure that you don’t have those, and if you do, we’ll clean them out. I was exposed to all of this for a few weeks and my treatment in Montreal, along with many other things. I was a competitive triathlete. I was always trying to get a competitive advantage. I was super lean, which is not that bad unless you have a neuromuscular disease and you just simply don’t have enough protein and fat in your diet to build new tissues. He changed my paradigm a bit and coached me along the way. Here I am, 20 or so years later, with the transform practice. It was transformed for a year or two because people began to hear about my story. Even though I didn’t have ALS, I had quite a remarkable recovery. 

As a result of that, we are now waiting to see patients from all around the globe. It’s such an honor and a privilege to do that. We are very careful about what is one of the things that separates a traditional dentist from a traditionally trained dentist and a biologic dentist. This means that we’re very careful about what materials we put in the patient’s mouth. We can serum-test the patient for every known dental material to see if they’re reactive to it or not. Many times we simply draw ten cc’s of blood, spin the serum out, submit that to a laboratory, and have it tested against virtually every known dental material to make sure that what we put in is not a cause of inflammation or aggravation to their immune system.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

That’s fascinating because just yesterday I was speaking to a friend of mine who’s very well known, cardiologist Dr. Kim Williams, the past president of the American College of Cardiology. We were speaking just of inflammation, especially hs-CRP. For those who are eating a very healthy diet, have phenomenal lipid panels, and things like that, I was asking what would be that residual piece that they need to see a dentist to look at that dental component. To speak a little bit more. I’m curious about the root canal piece I’ve had to myself. I’m curious about what we should be looking for and concerned about whether someone has had these, which are commonplace.

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

They are commonplace. Many people tolerate them. Here is the issue of the root canal-treated tooth. Once one tooth is treated, the main canals can be cleaned out. that relieves the pain, and the tooth, and the beautiful thing about that is that you get to keep the tooth because the alternative is removing it too. There are some real discussions that we just have to have every day and make a very individual decision based on the patient. But what we do know is that in a tooth-like, for example, a typical front tooth with just one root, there are two to three miles of little microtubules in that tooth. The endodontist or the dentist doing the root canal can never get to the main canal. But these are little accessory canals. It looks like a Christmas tree or is still filled with bacteria. When the root canal is done in the process of doing that, the blood supply to the tooth is severed. Now the body can’t deliver its immune defenses to the tooth. There’s no way. Now we have a tooth that’s a little incubator filled with its bacteria and the toxins they produce, which can be far worse than the bacteria, and there is no way to keep them in check. You can’t deliver an antibiotic to it. You can’t deliver your immune defenses to it. But those toxins and the bacteria themselves can leak out of the teeth. 

This is hard to believe, Lord, but this was described in the literature 100 years ago by Western Price. He talked about leaky teeth, just like we talk today about leaky guts. Now, interestingly enough, you will find in the literature papers that talk about leaky teeth, the fact that these teeth do leak, that the bacteria and their toxins leak from the teeth, and that they secrete the bacteria when they die in the process of their form. potent endotoxin. These are polysaccharides. They’re the same sorts of toxins that we see in leaky guts. As you will see in the literature today, you’ll see that not only can these toxins and bacteria have a real impact on cardiovascular health, but they also have an impact on things like mental cognition and depression, as well as an impact on the immune system. In cerebrovascular health, the bacteria that we find in root canals, interestingly enough, there are many studies now to show that if you sample the atherosclerotic plaque from a procedure, for example, and a bypass is done, if you sample that plaque, you’ll find the same bacteria in that as you do in the root canal. 

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

What should someone do if they’ve had a root canal or require something like a root canal? What is the answer?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I’m just becoming educated about it, because would I ever recommend a root canal? I would. I did recently. I will occasionally because maybe a patient I’ve told this example about because it happened not long ago, a gentleman who had six root canals, is an 85-year-old man, robustly healthy. Now he needs another root canal, but it happens to support a long bridge. If he loses that tooth and doesn’t have a root canal, then he’s going to have to have a denture or multiple implants. There are occasions when this gentleman looks like he tolerates root canals very well. There are occasions when we would recommend them. But that’s not all. Most of the physicians, quite frankly, who refer to us, encourage the patients to have the root canals removed. Based on their history, they can say that I remember now that I had the root canal, and it was before my demise and my health. Maybe it was before the fact that I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or some other autoimmune disease. People just need to be informed that they can make a rational decision about whether they keep the tooth, what the potential risk of having a systemic impact is, or whether they have the tooth removed. Once again, there’s a new set of problems that would replace the tooth if it’s removed, whether it’s either by a little removable bridge, or it might be with an implant, or sometimes it’s in a place where it can be lifted. Maybe it’s the very last tooth, and it can just be left and replaced.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

As far as the endotoxin is concerned, that’s interesting because certainly in the literature it speaks to eating certain things like red meats and bacteria being killed, but their endotoxin is orange, and that can cause inflammation on the surface and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and such. As someone, as concerned, maybe I have some issues or maybe they had a root canal, and then it flared up and had some issues. Or they noted that they had, like you described, some type of decline in their health. Where do we find someone like you if someone can’t travel to Austin to see you in person? How do we find a biologic dentist near us?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

Well, there are more and more of us. The thing that’s driven the traditional difference in biological dentistry is the pressure from patients because patients have learned over time that sometimes the traditional way of doing things is not the very best or at the least, they need to have choices. The best way is to go to the organization that I’m most fond of, which has over 1500 biological dentists worldwide and is named IAOMT. It’s the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. It has a long history. It’s a very stringently science-based community, and it’s responsible for putting forth some protocols that now dentists across the globe can adopt into their practice. If the patient goes and sees one of these dentists seconds later, they can pretty well be sure that this dentist is practicing holistically, in a way that’s not harmful.I’ll also tell you that within, for example, the IAOMT, there are many of those dentists called what’s known as smart certified. SMART, is the acronym for Safe Mercury Amalgam Removal Technique. Dentists who have been through that training, hopefully, if they’re doing it and most likely will, are going to remove mercury fillings and other heavy metals from a patient’s mouth in a very safe way. The dentist will look kind of black in a spacesuit when he does it in the pool. The patient is draped from head to toe and covered, and there are all sorts of precautions that are taken to make sure that these sorts of metals are removed. But they stand to gain knowledge of the root canal so they can speak to that issue. Many dentists in the holistic realm still feel like root canals are safe, and there is also this dentist who is very familiar with the term cavitation. Some of them do these sorts of treatments where they treat these jawbone lesions that I mentioned a minute ago. I would look for a biologic dentist at the iaomt.org website.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

That’s fascinating. Then we’ve spoken about bacteria, but bacteria live in our mouths. We have an oral microbiome. How do we know that we have a healthy oral microbiome, just like our gut microbiome? Because it’s such an important piece, especially regarding, for example, nitric oxide. There’s a recycling effect that occurs, and I know an important piece of your microbiome is a piece of that. We speak to a little bit of that, like, What can we do to support a healthy oral microbiome?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I love the fact that you mentioned nitric oxide because we know it’s one of those major molecules controlling our pressure and keeping us from being in the hypertensive category. Interestingly, the bacteria, especially on the back side of our tongue, some key bacteria need to be there to make the conversion to nitric oxide, and we know now through studies by a fabulous biochemist, Nathan Bryant, who hails from Texas, that if we use, for example, a traditional high-alcohol mouthwash, I’ll just mention something like Listerine or Scope. Something has a lot of alcohol in it. You look at the microbiome in the mouth, and then you destroy those very beneficial bacteria that help with the conversion of nitrite to nitrites, to nitric oxide, and now, through his studies, it has been demonstrated that there is an increase in blood pressure just from using traditional mouthwashes. In terms of mouthwashes, I like herbal mouthwashes, and my favorite technique for patients to clean their teeth and mouth is to use a Waterpik with about an ounce of hydrogen peroxide in the water bath and try to get the hydrogen peroxide under the gum line. Because what you’re doing is exposing the harmful anaerobes, sparks, and others to oxygen, you will kill those, but you leave the good bacteria alone.

I’ve found over the years, and here’s one other thing, Laurie, that your listeners might be interested in. Many biological dentists keep a microscope in their office. For example, not a single patient will come through there who doesn’t have a little sample of bacteria taken from under the gum line under the microscope. We can see exactly what’s in there. We want to see a healthy microbiome. If we see one or two bad actors, like a sparrow, keep them on a slide or a microscopic slide. We know sometimes those are just keeping the rest of the microbiome vigilant. But when it’s skewed, where you have an entire slide full of spider cases—about two bounds off of the slide—this patient is at risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke, and all sorts of inflammatory diseases. It’s very well known that when you have an increase in period or when you have an increase in these anaerobes that elevate a patient’s periodontal disease, they’ll have an increased hCRP. Of course, that’s a biomarker for cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

That’s fantastic. I forgot to mention that we do take a small break here and give those who get the free content. In that case, I’m just going to make that little announcement right now, but thank you very much for joining us today. I hope you found our conversation insightful and engaging. If you’re a summit purchaser, stay right there. We’re about to dive even deeper into this captivating discussion. I have several more questions for Dr. Nunnally. If you are not, please click the button below or on the side to get access to the rest of the conversation. If you’re watching this, thank you for being a valuable member of our community, and let’s continue this very intriguing conversation. I feel like I need to make an appointment with the dentist soon. You’d mention the hydrogen peroxide, using a Waterpik, and looking at our bacteria underneath a scope. What about nutrition? What do you recommend as far as dietary foods or things that might help support our oral health or oral microbiome? That’s probably where we would have a deeper discussion because a whole-food plant-based diet that I have had for 12 years in my mid-fifties feels amazing and has amazing results with patients. But when we also speak about hygiene practices, what do you recommend for toothpaste, fluoride, and all of those things? What should we be doing daily to make sure that we’re maintaining clean teeth and things like that while also not killing too much of the bacteria? I appreciate the Waterpik. Have you any thoughts?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I love the Waterpik. I also love to have patients dip their toothbrushes in hydrogen peroxide, but then they just do what my grandmother did. She did put a little baking soda in her hand, and she put a paste on her toothbrush. That’s a fabulous way to brush your teeth. Some people even had a little dab of salt because salt’s antibacterial, and there’s no harm in doing that whatsoever. Those are good. What I would want to do is stay away from fluoride. There’s just an epidemic of thyroid autoimmune disease in this country. Much of it is due to the fluoride exposure that we have. Fluoride will outcompete iodine every time, and it is in every cell in our body. If you want to outcompete your iodine, you just give it a good dose of fluorine or bromine, and you will outcompete it. I would stay away from fluoride. I would brush with either hydrogen peroxide and baking soda or some other herbal toothpaste, or you can make your herbal toothpaste by putting a little essential oil into the mix of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. You’ve got your toothpaste.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

My grandmother had baking soda. She had her teeth until she passed away. I will never forget that she said it right there. What do you recommend, as I know fluoride is in many municipalities’ water supplies? Do you recommend any particular type of water filter or some type of treatment of water in that sense?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

That’s a great question. This is such a hard thing to do. Water is a huge issue, and as long as it’s not fluoridated, we’re doing the best we can. I don’t like to drink my water out of plastic bottles, and I don’t like to drink it from a municipal water supply that’s been fluoridated. I’ve made a very conscious decision to move where I can get well water, goodwill water, and drink that.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

What do you do when you’re traveling or visiting other places?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

When I’m traveling, I oftentimes, have to relent and drink whatever my favorite bottle of water is. Of course, I will try to get a glass bottle and put it in it.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

As far as the types of toothbrushes, they’re soft, medium, hard, and different things, and your recommendations on types because they’re also plastic, like, what do you recommend there?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I’m not as concerned about what the toothbrush is made of as I am about the way the patient uses it. And both mechanical toothbrushes and handheld toothbrushes do very well. Mechanical toothbrushes outperform handheld toothbrushes, but the key is to try to get the bristles of the brush to go up under the gum. You’re putting a slight angle to the brush when you’re putting it in your mouth, and you’re trying to agitate the area between the gum and a tooth, just like you would clean under the cuticle of your nail. You’re trying to put the bristles and the brush underneath there. Some of these mechanical toothbrushes have little rotary heads or vibrating heads, which do that quite nicely. That’s fabulous. If you combine that with water, you typically have a very good microbiome.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

What about flossing in that sense? Is that also helpful, or how often, as we did before brushing or after brushing like once, that’s ideal?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

In a lot of ways, Waterpik supplants the use of floss, but both are good. It’s just hard to get people to do both. If I had to choose that, it would be brushing and water-breaking. Sometimes it’s hard to take a Waterpik with you on a trip; you just take the floss instead.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

Let’s do two more questions regarding, for example, changing pain, stress, and anxiety, which can also elevate blood pressure. Any treatments or thoughts on that particular piece? I know it can be hard for people to find dentists who are well-versed in caring for someone like this.

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

It is. It’s not that a lot of dentists don’t want to deal with TMJ problems because they tend to be chronic. We, as dentists, like to be able to look in the mouth, see something broken, and fix it.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

I can appreciate that.

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

It’s nice to be able to do that, but many times, temporomandibular joint issues require multiple visits. The patient may need some emotional counseling because there can be very stressful issues in a patient’s life, which leads to them manifesting a way to relieve that stress in their sleep by grinding their teeth. That’s why dentists are reluctant to treat. The issue is that it’s going to be a case of the patient and the dentists having to cooperate for a long time on a specific problem. Most of us aren’t equipped to do that. Sometimes it’s a simple fix by making a patient wear what we call a night guard or an occlusal guard; they can slip in at least they can’t grind their teeth together and damage their teeth. But that hardly ever breaks the pattern of grinding. They’ll still grind on whatever device the dentist makes. That’s the reason it’s hard to find a dentist as patients typically look for a dentist who has a degree in oral facial pain. There are some oral facial pain post-doctorate programs in the United States for those patients, and there are several in California USC and UCLA both have programs at the University of San Francisco. You and California have more programs than anyone.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

Maybe two more questions. So, sleep apnea can go undiagnosed and cause high blood pressure, heart failure, increased heart disease, and all sorts of things. So, dental appliances, are these very effective, and do you utilize those as well in your practice?

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

I do utilize them, and they can be very effective. They’re not recommended for severe cases of obstructive sleep apnea. Still, the gold standard is a sleep-approved backpack for that. But many patients don’t tolerate those because they don’t tolerate them, a dentist who’s skilled in this can help with an appliance. For mild and moderate sleep apnea, dental appliances can be huge in terms of not only preventing sleep apnea but snoring as well.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

The other question would be mouth breathing. I read a book called Breath and found it fascinating. What the study meant to me was how they did treatments and were able to create more bone within the jaw with certain types of treatment. In my brain, it goes straight to, for example, osteoporosis and other things. We speak a little bit, some mouth breathing. Do you feel like the types of food that we’re eating or eating—soft processed foods—have affected how our jaws are formed? We kind of like to breathe ourselves into it.

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

Once what’s to impress them is demonstrated in one generation, taking a patient or taking someone from their indigenous diet to, for example, a traditional Western diet is horrible. In one generation, the progeny of that person will have a smaller skeleton. They’ll have jaws that don’t accommodate all the teeth. They’ll be crooked. just because they’ve been taken off of the diet that they were designed to be. Of course, today we see the effects of this horrible Western diet that we’re on. I see it even though I don’t treat children, but when I do see children anywhere, they’re almost always in a very crowded environment. Their little jaws are small. When I go, I love to go to areas of the world where there are no dentists. I’d just love to go do dentistry in areas of the world where they don’t have dentistry available. When I go to those areas I see these young children who are teenagers, even though they are on a wonderful diet, it might just be nothing but corn, beans, and rice. They’ll have a beautiful full for their mandibles, and their maxilla will be nice and full of all of their teeth they’ll be perfectly straight. They’ll have these nice, robust skeletons. Then I’ll see the family that owns the little store in the neighborhood that serves Coca-Cola or anything else. You’ll see that family, and they’ll have the opposite appearance. Our diet is huge in terms of our skeletal development and the ability to accommodate all of our teeth.

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA

I agree with the same thing. I’ve been to Uganda and Ecuador at different times in my life, doing mission trips, and when I was on active duty, in the Air Force, and other things. What was interesting is that the exact thing you notice is that they have beautiful teeth, very different facial structures, and a very plant-centric diet. It’s just a very different thing. You’re exactly right. The one suit in the little cantinas had oil. They had refined-processed, ultra-processed foods. They’re the ones that tend to be a little bit overweight, and they’re the ones that are pre-diabetic, diabetic, or have hypertension. Amazing.  It’s mind-blowing to read that book as I call it. It was fascinating. Well, I feel like there’s much more we can dive into, but I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you very much, Dr. Nunnally, for sharing your experience with us and your story. This is fascinating.

Dr. Stuart Nunnally

Thank you, Laurie. It was a treat to be with you.