Your Oral Microbiome’s Impact On Your Menopausal Journey

Introduction to Menopause and Biological Dentistry 0:00

Hi, ladies. Welcome back to Mastering Your Menopause Transition Summit 2.0. I'm your host. Still, Dr. Sharon Stills and as always, excited to be here with you and help educate you and make your transition your hormonal journey easier. And today we are going to talk about teeth and biological dentistry. And you might think, did Dr. Stills lose her mind? We're here for menopause. Why is she talking about biological dentistry? But for those of you, many of you now, and for those of you that don't know, I have studied extensively since I was in Catholic Medical school over in Switzerland and Germany.

And part of what I do as a natural practice practice bio regulatory medicine. And so all my patients, all my menopause patients or whatever anyone is seeing me for, they all have to go to the dentist. They all have to get their teeth taken care of. And there's very good reasons for that because the mouth is connected to the body and is really one of the focal places where disease can breed. And so when you're going through menopause and your body's changing, yes, we want to balance your hormones, but we want to treat your whole terrain in the mouth is a integral part of that.

So, of course, I have my buddy and my favorite biological dentist, Dr. Gerry Curatola. I wrangled him up so he could come out of the conversation with me and help educate you. So welcome, Gerry. It is. On here. Thank you for having me. And I always love our talks because they are educating, educating. A new word. To educate and we can really keep it light and have some fun. Yes. And I love what you do. I am I have embraced naturopathic medicine for a long, long time. And it helps me in my practice with patients in many ways.

Yes, it is really it is really a marriage. I had a patient come see me here in Arizona the other day and she said, you know, I've already beento Dr. Gerry Curatola. And, you know, I wanted to be prepped. And I've heard you say, like, you have to have your mouth taken care of before you do anything else. So she's like, I'm already on and I was like, yes. And so, you know, I, I had a patient today that had some jaw cavitation, very serious jaw cavitation. They were very large. And cavitation, as you know, necrotic areas of bone, usually where you had your wisdom teeth removed.

She had so many gut issues, so many gut. And she has been to a lot of prominent doctors that you and I both know. And no one can fix the gut issues she had. She did cleanses for weeks and weeks and weeks. No one, not one of the dentists that she saw could read a cone beam or could see where these cavitation are. And and they were tremendous. And they were filled with parasites. Candida mold, lumps by rickets metals, heavy metals. They're basically petri dishes for pathogens because it's warm, it's dark, it's moist, and there's no blood supply.

So here she is suffering. And what meridian is the wisdom teeth on. Small intestine and oh. Here we are. Pretty for $500. $500 000. And then I said, it's also on the heart meridian. And she goes, Oh, I have an appointment with a cardiologist. I get this fluttering, you know, my heart then. And it's like that pericardium, you know, the meridian for the pericardium is in that same area. And so she had these toxic areas of bone that all of these doctors were treating her like. She went like all down the line.

It was like the movie Root cause where the guy had the root canal and he got seriously ill and everybody's trying to fix him and he's walking on

Mouth-Body Connections and Meridian Theory 4:10

coals like, you know, doing all these things and all these meditation and everything. And it turned out it was a it was a sick to yeah, it was this whole debilitating thing. So I'm going to really enjoy talking about it. I love that you are the women's health queen and that you are so in tune with reproductive health, of course. But menopause is one of those interesting topics that a lot of women have more difficulty than they should. Mm hmm. And it could be an easy ride. Or what? What I loved Boots is that Mandy, while the had a senior brother, he you know, he stopped everything.

He was like a.h, anti-aging, anti-aging. And he coined the term healthy aging and so healthy aging, you know, and I when I turned 60, I was like, I wanted to party in a Chinese restaurant and my wife's like, What's with China? And I said, I asked my daughter, look up the significance of age 60, which is, you know, and 60 is one of the most important birthdays in Chinese culture, because they consider it the completion of one cycle of your life, the yang, younger yang, you know, 0 to 60, where literally you're wild and crazy and you know, you're learning a lot.

But the second 60 years this we're genetically programed to live to 1/22 60 years which are menopausal years and post-menopausal, of course. And those second 60 years are really important for healthy aging. I love I did not know that about the Chinese culture. And so if you look it up, the Chinese celebrate the first year. I think ten is significant, but 60 is major because it is you are transitioning in your lifecycle from your yang to your yin, which is super cool. And that's why I have this real great passion to teach and to educate.

So when you invited me on this, I was like, I'm there. You know, I'm there because I love to teach and I love you. And you had no choice. And no joy. So I want to go back and and so that's good because I'm only 55. So now I know what I'm doing in five years for my 60. Thank you. You'll be there? Of course. Guest of honor. So you've already touched on a few things that I just want to go back and, like, fill in, so. And what you were talking about. So if you are someone who's been sick and going from doctor and doctor and the mouth, see, that's why I always look at the mouth first because I'm like, let's just take care of the area of the body that has the most focal infections.

And yes, so you talked about the meridians. So each tooth. Can you just talk about like the Meridian connection a little? So, you know, we know and you know, as you know in in biologic bile regulated very medicine. You know, there there are five levels for the body to self-regulate and heal. And, you know, we we're all familiar with the biologic level microbial world of, you know, you know, by antibiotics and by accident. And so, you know, bacteria in the war against bacteria, you know, that's been the microbial level.

That bacterial level is often misunderstood and mistreated. So my mantra there on that level has been, make peace with your microbes. You know, don't try to nukem with antibiotics and all the other stuff, which just just really creates havoc. And, you know, full disclosure, antibiotics could save your life. And when I do capitation surgery, I do prescribe an antibiotic. And the reason is because it's an invasive surgery that's into that with a major connection to the circulatory system. So I always tell patients, yes, you know, we need to protect your gut and we need to keep your gut healthy.

But at the same time, subacute, bacterial endocarditis is a nasty infection. And I'm going into a hornet's nest, the pathogens. Exactly. Cleaning it out. So let's not, you know, try to you know, they go like, can I use that on silver and that or not? And I'm like, I really want something systemic in your bloodstream, you know? And you know, I've had patients do, you know, IV antibiotics and and I am shots and stuff. But you do need that coverage because of the risk. And and then the second level, you know, biochemical pathways, we deal with it.

I mean, how much of that do we deal with how there's an epidemic of thyroid disease where hormonal pathways are disrupted and the body's ability to regulate hormones is really important. And you again, I love the work that you do because you understand that and help women so much by taking in naturopathy approach to hormonal regulation. And I deal with it on my end because when there is an infection on a meridian, which we're going to talk about the minute, for example, the upper first molar tooth number three is on the thyroid.

The upper first molars are on the thyroid. How many people have have I had a woman this morning. She had a horrific infection with a root canal on tooth number three, like it was a nodule on her breast. She was I was like, how's your thyroid? Oh, it's a mess. My thyroid is totally a mess, you know. So she had thyroid disease, all this other stuff. But you know what the most gratifying thing is when we help these patients and they see it, the most gratifying thing is when we see them reregulate and it's like, well, we got, you know, doctors like to say, oh, I cured you.

Now doctors don't cure you. You have this divine light force that gives you the ability to self-regulate and heal. And that's the great thing. So meridian flow, you know what? I first I was that I get the Harvard Medical School program and complementary and alternative medicine. I'm just going to take a sip of water and I'll repeat that. Well, while you're standing, I'll say a few things while you're drinking. Yes. You know, and yes, antibiotics just to go back and touch on that, because I've been practicing for 21 years now, I have treated everything from pneumonia to erysipelas to strep.

And I don't use antibiotics because I'm trained and by regulatory medicine. And I understand how to rebalance the terrain and the ISO Catholic remedies I used. But I totally agree. When someone's going for cavitation surgery. Yeah, we're. Open. Yeah, we have to. We have to, like, weigh risks and benefits. So I will allow them because they'll always be like, oh, you don't know, you're having like major surgery. And we've been doing good things and we're prepping you and we will post and we will get your gut rebalance, but you have to think about the risks.

And so we want you to be safe. We don't want you to not be covered. And then you have like major infection afterwards and then it's like a total. I use the most benign, I use the most benign antibiotics and the ones that the gut can self-regulate and heal from, you know, reregulate. And that's the amazing thing about our microbial flora microbiome. You can really mess with the microbiome. It can take a lot of hits and and it does have this, you know, capacity to reregulate and heal it. When it doesn't do that, when your life force is dwindling.

You know, and and, you know, when you talk about meridian flow and energy flow.

Microbiome, Oral Health, and Toothpaste Ingredients 12:40

So the ability to reregulate is on a microbial level, on a hormonal level, on an energetic level. And these meridians from teeth. I said I was at Harvard Medical School. They put up this tooth organ relationship chart and I was like, This is voodoo. I mean, how does this relate to the press? You know, how does that is how does that lower molar relate to your love in your colon? And I really was skeptical because most conventional doctors really don't get it. And so here I was in this program, this is 1996.

And I'm like I'm like, okay, let me see. And sure enough, I started treating people, you know, looking at medical conditions, treating the dental conditions and seeing the medical conditions literally dissipate or just materialize, you know, and one of the most dramatic ones that I that I recall was a woman who had she had heard me speak. I heard her girlfriend heard me speak. And she was a health coach. And and she was diagnosed with a tumor in her in her left leg that took up. It was like three quit.

They were talking about removing her lung from this aggressive tumor that was on her left lung. And so her friend Laura called me and said, you know, my girlfriend Lisa was diagnosed with this. You know, you know, what do you think there'd be any dental connection? And I said, Does she have any root canals y root canals or root canals and notorious because they think they're a major producer of and no toxins. And as a matter of fact, there was just a newspaper story that went to 25 million people.

And I had two calls from root canal specialists, friends of mine. You know, they're like, Gerry, what's up? Because I said, these are it was like, these are four things that this dentist says you should never do. You'll ruin your teeth and, you know, charcoal, toothpaste, you know, conventional commercial mouthwash, root canals and, you know, mercury. So they, like, put four of them out there. But the root canal, what canal? One was out there because there had been already histological studies, scientific studies showing that 100% of root canals produce no toxins, which are bacterial bacterial byproducts, and they're inflammatory.

Again, that word inflammation, which is a normal healing process. And in some case and normal experience. But when it's off the track and it's chronic low grade inflammation, we see lots of bad things. So make a long story short, I took out the tooth, the root canal tooth, which had an infection around it that that was not diagnosed by two other root canal specialists because we used a 3D cone beam and you can see 3D and I took out the tooth and she went back to Texas and I treated the bone, you know, disinfected the bone.

And we use ozone and we use platelet rich fibrin and yada yada. We, you know, do all this great healing. And she went back to Texas. And five weeks later, just five weeks, the tumor had shrunk to 25% of the size. And all she did. Was doing a presser now evaluation. And they still scared her. And I was like, if in five weeks that happens, your body is reregulating, it's healing itself. So and they scared her into taking a little part of the lobe out of there, and then they biopsied it. And it was benign.

It was benign. Wow. So our bodies want to reregulate and heal. And the fourth and fifth level, which I know you'll appreciate, is psycho emotional and spiritual, psycho emotional issues. You know, I call it stinking thinking. People have said for a long time they they don't believe they're going to get better. And if you don't believe you're going to get better, you're not going to get better. That's like Bruce Lipton, you know, the biology of belief. What we believe can alter, can change our DNA.

MM And then the fifth level, which a lot of doctors never talk about, is this is the spiritual connection. And, you know, biologic medicine. We talked about the field. You know, we talk about this field. That field is our spirit and we need to be connected, you know, spiritually to source. And when we're not, it does affect our that does affect that life force that that's all important. So and you said so many good things. I'm like, all right, I have a few things to say. So, you know, when you're talking about the the microbiome and, you know, being in a relationship, if you think about it from a polymorphic perspective, all these bacteria, even the bad ones, the ones that cause disease, they all live within us.

They all start out as symbionts, helping us with circulation, with lymphatic flow, with bone growth. And it's just when our terrain is out of balance, when it's stinking thinking or not connected or fascia as congested or the lymphocyte congested or the P-H is off, or we're de mineralized or we have chronic infections in our teeth that are sucking our whole immune system. That's when everything goes through this up, leveling this polymorphic process and becomes pathogenic. And so, yes, we if we understand terrain based and we're not just trying to kill things, then we can like you're saying, we can befriend our microbiome and we can, you know, killing something that lives in your body is part of you is, you know, all the antibiotics, the anti you know, all we don't want we want pro not and yeah.

You know what the most amazing aha moment I had in my professional career my most Aha moment was I go through dental school and everything is about kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kick Listerine. Right. Colgate Total kill germs 20 hours. Colgate Total was almost going to launch as the first antibiotic toothpaste. And then everything was emerging, especially from Josh Lederman and other people who were working on the microbiome, saying, wait, you know, you know, antibiotic, you know, we will lose that antibiotic war, you know, and and that because of the ability for bacteria to, you know, communicate and, you know, they vote, you know, it's called qualm sensing.

And then they flip the pathogenic switch when they're under attack and they will always win. They paid a much higher evolutionary price and they were on this planet before we were. As a matter of fact, I even in many talks, I talk about how, you know, in Genesis chapters, well, whatever it is, chapter two, verse seven, you know, the verse that says a god took from the dust of the earth and breathed his spirit into it, and we became mind, body spirit. Well, no, it wasn't just I had a Jewish scholar who had studied Torah.

And this said that he's like, the word is not dust, it's slight, it's one. And I was like, That makes sense because the Earth was covered with microbial slime. Yes. Our creator of your creation is doing evolution. Is that was from evolution, you know, from taking the slime and bringing spirit and that these microbe was organized into cells that are human cell and a and a bacterium. They divide the same. They have the genetic information. So there's you know, I know you know about the mitochondrial bacterial theory.

You know that that our own human cells were once bacterial in origin. And we are more back to, you know, our. Bacteria ten times our. Mutual colleague, friend, teacher, Dr. Rao, who when, you know, 20 years ago he'd come in with his, you know, Swiss accent that I can't really do justice to. But, you know, we are walking bags of bacteria. We are walking back up again. Then we are human cells. And, you know, and I learned from him very early on that, you know, when you go to Switzerland, these clinics, these bio regulatory clinics overseas, you know, the dentist and the doctor under the same roof and he wouldn't always say, you know, I send the patient to see the dentist first because, you know, why?

Why make my job harder? You know. I lectured to the European Congress of Integrative Medicine was about 700 doctors. It was in Portugal last September. And Thomas was at the of that. And he sat next to my wife. And and when I got up to speak, I said, there's one medical doctor in this room would change my life. And and he was the first medical doctor I ever heard of. I ever heard of that. If you had a problem, if you had cancer or autoimmune disease, whatever you had the first place he would look is your mouth.

And I said, Edie inspired me to write this book, you know, and and then I did this whole presentation on, you know, sources, toxicity and inflammation and blah, blah, blah. And then he got up and he said,You told my wife, you said, Tell Jerry that was a very good talk. I want to get to the aha moment. This is really important, really aha moment. Here I am thinking that bacteria are the enemy. We got to kill them. And you know what we learned with the Human Microbiome Project? You know what I learned when I started going down the rabbit hole of the oral microbiome 20 years ago, I learned that the bacteria are an intelligent, semi permeable membrane in the mouth that transport minerals, the bacteria transport minerals from saliva to minerals, your teeth you don't need fluoride are toxic applied poison.

You know bacteria help to rebuild our lives. Your teeth bacteria transport molecular oxygen to your gums and takes biotic oxygen free radicals away from the gaps. So there's this whole metabolism going on that bacteria regulate what's going on in the mouth. They help in the production of nitric oxide. This is unbelievable. This is, you know, how we stay alive in a healthy oral microbiome is critically important for healthy menopause. If you have gum disease and you're going through menopause, you're going to be suffering.

Mm. So and gosh, I have so many questions. Okay. So. So how does, how do the listeners what are some tips to know and to do to have a healthy oral microbiome? You know, some of the topical things that happened during mental pause are dry mouth, for example, you know, and that dryness is part of this hormonal changes that that that cause that. And it's really important that you, you know, that that dryness is addressed and there are different ways you can do that. I mean, I, I basically created a toothpaste, that's all.

Vitamins, right? So it has. And I think for your wearable summit, you you get a everyone on the summit gets a coupon code for this would you post. And I want you to explain because that was my next question for you but we can roll it in. So because you did create a toothpaste and a lot of the natural toothpaste out there that we think are good, like xylitol charcoal, can you kind of. Yes, yes. Why you created yours and why those aren't as good as. Oh, they are. Like I said, a healthy microbiome is essential for healthy menopause.

And a lot of people are not healthy and they don't have healthy menopause and they suffer. So I was talking about, you know, dry mouth. And what does that do? Well, saliva is the lifeblood of your teeth and gums. So if it's drying, you are more prone to tooth decay, you're more prone to gum disease, and you're more prone to dysbiosis. Right, because you have teeth, gums and saliva and this microbial flora that's bathing everything with it. Right. So it's called the dental sale of microbial complex.

And when you when you have a healthy microbiome, you are you're actually able to your microbiome transports minerals, ionic calcium, ionic phosphorous from saliva to the surfaces, your teeth. Those minerals are in saliva and it oxygenates your gums when you microbiome. It's not healthy, it's not working like that. It's actually doing the reverse. It's taking minerals out of your teeth, it's causing inflammation and dryness and and other debilitating conditions, especially periodontal inflammation, gum, gum disease like gum inflammation.

The gums are more sensitive, more friable. The teeth are starting to get metabolized and you get chipping and wear and erosion. And these kinds of things. So how do we keep the microbiome healthy so that your mouth is healthy, feed your microbes? This toothpaste is vitamin C, Coke, Q10. I love coke. You can. Mm. I've got a patent on CO three patents on CoQ10, but this is basically a dietary supplement. You can brush your teeth to get rid. Of. It. You can eat it. I eat it. It's going to help my voice.

So I developed this 20 years ago with with a lot of research and it took three years just to put this together in a formula that nourishes and supports in a prebiotic way. So, you know, this prebiotics and probiotics and probiotics always got the big the big hoopla thanks to Dan and yogurt and, you know, all those companies that felt like, oh, you need probiotics. You need probiotics. Well, probiotics, as we've discovered, don't work as good as prebiotics because the flora are micro flora. Our microbiome is almost as unique as our thumbprint.

Mercury Fillings and Safe Removal 28:20

So the idea of people and, you know, in the mouth, probiotics don't work at all. They were tried as far back as the seventies. In the gut they work. But now we're looking at prebiotic probiotics work better in the gut, which is a closest I'm in the mouth. Probiotics don't work because as I like to say, if probiotics were so, it can biotics, you know, they're like biotics. That's like, you know, salmonella, you know, you get salmonella infections in your mouth, it'll blow out your gut. But pathogens, you know, or the con biotics, the pathogens, really, your your microbiome protects you from deadly viruses and bacteria and the environment around us.

So if probiotics work, so it can biotics, and that's why we want to nourish and balance the indigenous microflora. And when you have a healthy microbiome, you have healthy saliva flow, you have your teeth are healthy, your microbiome is working to protect, nourish and support the entire oral cavity. So we need so why not charcoal and why not xylitol? Because those are two big. Thank you charcoal. And you know, I give patients charcoal capsules when I take mercury out of teeth. So we all love charcoal because it's it binds to stuff.

And the idea was, oh, well, you know, charcoal bind to pathogens in the mouth. It binds to everything. Okay? It'll, it'll bind to the whole microbiome. It'll strip your microbiome. But what's also insidious and stupid about charcoal is that when you brush with it, it is highly abrasive to your teeth. So you have people brushing with charcoal, which is an abrasive mineral, right? And they're wearing their enamel. So even like it's it's come out all over, you know, now even the American Dental Association's like, oh, well, charcoal.

This is after Colgate Crest and everybody came out with charcoal. Then there were some natural companies that came out with charcoal and xylitol and the xylitol issue is one which I, I always get on my soapbox about because xylitol was made from a bio waste, you know, that. I do. Because I've talked to you. Really? And it was a brilliant invention, a brilliant way of making a sugar substitute. You know, the new method on for the heroine of sugar, right? You know, we had we had aspartame, saccharin.

Now we have the sugar sugar alcohols. Add a richer to all is another richer it's all they just had a couple of months ago studies emerging that a richer talk causes clots and embolisms. And the reason why is a richer it's all is a chemical, by the way. It's xylitol. It's chemical. They love to say, oh, it's naturals. And it comes from pretty birch bark. Well no it's, it's, and it's made from Zealand extracted from organic substances whether it's birch pot or, or GMO corncobs, which is the original.

And now the xylitol, they say they were throwing all these corncobs away GMO corncobs to extract the corn. The other corncobs. The corncobs had Zealand and they said they extracted solid how did they extract the violet and industrialized true story and industrialized process of extracting using the hydrogenation like how they make margarine from oil a hydrogenation process using the heavy metal Rainie Nicole as a catalyst they made a what's called in the organic chemistry textbooks, a high value chemical known as xylitol.

It has 40% of the calories of sugar. So it's like, oh, that's good. Oh, won't spike your insulin. Well, actually, they have found that it does. It cools your insulin. Okay. And it is a chemical that is not recognized by the human body. So a lot of people like, oh, it's good for you, it prevents cavities because they did studies in Finland showing that xylitol disrupts and even kills streptococcus Buchanan's bacteria on teeth, which is the bacteria most commonly connected with dental caries xylitol actually disrupts that.

Well, don't just just disrupt that it disrupts the whole microbiome and it disrupts the gut microbiome. That's why people have wicked diarrhea and gas and all this other crap. Literally. And so I'm here, you know, and it's like the darling of the natural products, of the darling of the natural toothpaste. And I'm like, it's a chemical look it up in an organic chemistry textbook. It is a chemical. And I'm like, and I have these people come up to me, they're like, so, so like bought in on the xylitol thing.

They believe they had this one person in Texas. She did a whole oral care line on xylitol. And I'm like because she believes that xylitol, you know, keeps the mouth clean and it kills and it, you know, and I was just I lectured to the Holistic Dental Association recently, and I had a woman just literally cornered me because I said a junk science. And that was that was a nasty remark. All science that's done properly is a science that should be reviewed, criticized and respected. Unfortunately, we do that with vaccines and all this other stuff.

But be that as it may, you know, and you know, there wasn't an intelligent dialog there, you know, and that and there wasn't there really hasn't been an intelligent dialog on xylitol, but I sure would love to have one because and, and I've actually been on a radio show in Texas and I got yell of someone yelling at me because they have the xylitol products company. And I was like, xylitol disrupts and disturbs the oral microbiome and the gut microbiome. It is a high value chemical that is not recognized or by the human body.

It's not absorbed or recognized. The only thing worse than xylitol is a retro gel which often gets paired with monk fruit. You know, a natural ingredient. And you have to look at it like that, buy a drink, you know, incense flavored with fruit. And then you look, it's monk fruit and xylitol and I'm sorry monk fruit and a retro doll. What's the problem with a retro doll? Well, a retro doll is absorbed by the human body, but it's not metabolized. Xylitol is not absorbed nor metabolized. It just goes right through you.

Yes, it really until good or bad and it can't get out. It's link to esophageal cancer and it's been linked to Trumbo said it clots and heart attacks and strokes and you can look that up and just see the science that's emerging on a rich result. Also a high value chemical. Mm. Well that, that's something I do. I just, I do this all day long with patients I just had last night. You know, patients are come in and they're on protein powders and they're like, No, it's a good one. The influencer I follow on Instagram said they drink it and then I'm like, you.

Know, the Instagram influencer is getting paid. So I'm like, or, you know, as a self-proclaimed health, you know, wizard. So I'm like, I always in when I'm doing an intake patient, I'm always like, We got to take 2 minutes, give me the brand name. I got to go online. I got to look at the ingredients. And like nine times out of ten, it's got SSL fame, it's got erythritol, it's got, you know, it's got. Maltodextrin, you know, I mean, I do reality check that if you got one of my kids had and I was like, Oh, this is good, you know?

And it was like a healthy chip with all healthy ingredients and then I got down to Maltodextrin. Yeah, you got to read labels and you got, you know. Yeah, that's so that is such a good point. I'm not sure how we got that from teeth. But it's. So I. Want to know you were talking and you you're talking about oral care products and some of the crap ingredients. Yes. So so the. Then don't brush your teeth with abrasive charcoal. Everything is that, you know, there have been actual, you know, organizations that are completely underwritten by xylitol companies.

So it's a multibillion dollar like the I think it's Australia or Asia. And I never joined because once I saw who was underwriting it, I was like, Oh, let's make this credible. Because they don't they, they know that all the xylitol companies are on are on display. They're but, you know, my my opinion, xylitol will eventually and I know DuPont probably wants to take me out because that's the ones that the majority of xylitol is owned by DuPont subsidiary Tenaska in Europe is the one that first extracted it.

Then they did the studies in Finland, the ones that called junk science, just the one big, you know. And it wasn't just that they were looking at alcohol's ability to disrupt the adherence, to interfere with aspects of the microbiome and its activity in the mouth. That's you know, and I told this when I said, look, strep mutations lives in your mouth. You know, and it is a commensal bacteria until you piss it off and then it flips the pathogenic switch and it becomes a bad bug. So good. But there's no such thing as, you know, we went from the germ theory where all bugs are bad, all bacteria are bad to the good guy, bad guy, you know, the probiotic combined with the probiotic pathogen.

So the good guys, we call it probiotics, the bad guys we call pathogens. And then you have the human microbiome project that changed the game and play more understanding of autism, understanding quorum sensing and what that means and understanding how good guys become bad guys when you pissed them off. Just like in ghettos and in in our society, right. Yeah. Yeah. The nice person is. Someone. Who is at all bad, right? Defund the police. Got it. And now you have like, you know, you know, gangs on the street.

Yeah, we are. Violent on the job. You know. We live in a, you know, externally there's a microbiome. Internally there's a microbiome. We have the external terrain, the internal terrain. And so, yeah, it's good. And until provoked to become bad and it's, you know, it's still it's still innately good. It's just going down the, you know, you got to bring it down the wrong path like a teenager got just real it in. So and when you were talking about xylitol and you know all the companies and people are invested in and you have this product line that's about xylitol and you hear this, you know, it made me think about mercury because mercury, you know, dentists were so invested in mercury.

And it's kind of a hard thing. Like you've been put in mercury, amalgam, silver fillings and patients mouth and then you learn it's bad and like that's just talk about cognitive dissonance. So I would love for you to just kind of because one of the things that makes me the saddest in clinical practice is when a patient comes in and this happens to frequently and they're like, I did a good thing. I removed my mercury and I'm like, okay, the million dollar question, did you do it with a biological dentist?

Did you. Go. Do you protect it? And, you know, it's like a crap shot. You know, sometimes they were sometimes go. Oh, no, I have a very good dentist. So what could you tell the listeners? Like, what are just some things like if you're looking for someone because it is an important thing to get your amalgams out, like what do you want your dentist? You know, is it enough that they're smart, trained? Are there certain things you should look for? Like, what are some tips so they can? That's a really that's a really, really good question.

And first of all, anyone with you know, so let's talk about methylmercury for a minute. Right. And truthfully, I was say that was that was one of the things like I was sitting in dental school going, wait a minute, wait a minute. I have a question like why are we putting mercury to inches from people's brains? You know? And I'm like, no, no, no, what? It's in the tooth. It's the mercury is magically locked in. You know, there's nothing. Don't worry, it's safe. Meanwhile, I'm like, Excuse me, then why can't we touch it with our fingers?

And why? Why is like if a thermometer breaks in a room, you know, you got to close the floor or the building, you know, and nothing was adding up. And I was like, I don't believe in this. I will never do an amalgam. And truthfully, I have never placed that amalgam since I came out of dental school. Wow. I didn't know that. Ever, ever. And I'm okay. You're ready. This is my 40th year as a dentist, but me graduated June 2nd, 1983. I am this my 40th year. I was like Doogie Howser. I was 12 years old. Then I got I really gave it away.

I talked about being 60, the yak years to the end, years. You know. You will never not be young. You have like a gender. Take your manifest is what we believe. So here's the most important thing for everyone to know about mercury, dental, mercury. The greatest amount of mercury is when they're first put in and when they're removed and when they're removed is as much or sometimes even more, because they're removed with an aerosol producing high speed dental drill. Okay. And the thing is, if you don't have them removed safely, you're getting wickedly exposed.

And when I was on the doctor show back in 2011 and I was the first dentist biologic get us to get us to do a piece on toxic. And the American Dental Association went crazy but I said on the on the show was was then you can actually see segments if you if you type my name and put toxic fillings Dr. Oz show you can see the segments because the first words out of my mouth is, you know, Oz is like he's in the in the on the stage. And he goes, you know, ladies and gentlemen, if if I drop this thermometer, we will have to evacuate the studio yet.

You know, you're walking around with more mercury in your teeth than this thermometer, and it's off gassing every day. And then he demonstrated with a mercury vapor analyzer what happens even with a toothbrush, hot liquids and how there's that there's there's a vapor. So one of the interesting things is that he demonstrated that the mercury is not locked in, that it is leaching out. And we did a 40 minute taping of safe removal. How I do say for mobile the proportions that are in the room, the alternate air supply on the patient, how the both the assistant and the entire room is protected.

The in all of the air in the room, positive pressure air in the room has a mercury vapor analyzer. And we showed how the mercury vapor actually goes on a screen and accumulates from the removal of an amalgam. So safe removal of amalgam is the most important thing in my opinion. Second most important thing is making sure that you don't put something worse. So there were what happened on the Dr. Oz Show, which was really upsetting, is that they cut out the whole segment on safe removal. So they just scared the hell out of everybody with their amalgams.

And everybody ran to their desk and got their amalgams ripped out of their mouths, which you may you want to do a few at a time. You want to just you don't want to, like, rip out wobbly amalgams of your teeth because you don't have that much time and you want to. And the dentist said he could do it all in one day. No way. And don't cross. Oh, do a quadrant at a time. That's acceptable. Okay. Make sure you find a good dentist, not just a biologic that this, but a good biologic dentist. And everybody know that you found a good biological dentist is there.

And because that is such a. That's a really tough one. Yeah. And I you know, I know you know, some of them I get asked all the time, I am about to create a training program because there are a lot of biologic dentists that aren't good and a lot of good dentist that aren't biologic. And I find that it's easier to find a good dentist with good hands, good head, good heart the three ages and and make that person biologic. I have a wonderful woman in my practice. Jean Dr. Jeannie Greco. She's amazing and her hands are beautiful and she's totally in tune with practicing biologically.

She's also a young mommy and she does mommy blogging and all that stuff. She is so cool and you got to have her on. She would she be great and she's so spunky. Is she really with it? And and she protects herself because she wants to protect her child. Some of my sickest patients over the years were dentists or dental assistant. Yes. Like very people don't realize who who are pregnant. If you have mercury in your mouth when you're pregnant, it will cross the placenta and it will affect the fetus.

Yeah, I do that in my fertility prep for, you know, if women come like I love when they come in, they're like, I want to get healthy before I conceive. You know, we strengthen the adrenals, we look at the thyroid, we look at progesterone, and we always do the detoxing because once you're pregnant, you can't detox. And it's just kind of fall away and you can't detox. You can't detox from heavy metals if you have amalgams in your teeth. No. And you can't do and you can't do heavy metal if you have amalgams, don't let anyone heavy metal test you.

So like when someone comes to me,I send them to someone who, like Gerry, who knows what they're doing, removes the amalgams, and then a piece that I see missed is like, you have to come back to your doctor, like me or whoever your doctor is and make sure they do pre and post heavy metal testing again because you've gotten the out and I think sometimes you think, okay, I'm done now

Wrap-Up on Oral Health for Healthy Aging 47:40

but you got to remember those amalgams where like a faucet, drip, drip, drip into your body and you your body burn. A great analogy. Yeah. And so that's exactly what goes on. And we demonstrated that on the Dr. Oz Show and then the American Dental Association. So everyone should know. The American Dental Association was founded in the late 1800s by the pro amalgam pro mercury dentists. There was something called the amalgam wars. In the late 1800s. There was a dentist that refused to use it and then dentist that used it, and the ones that refused to use it lost to the ones that used it. Why?

Why was amalgams so popular? Why do more than 50% of dentists still placed dental mercury fillings? By the way, they're not silver fillings. There are 26% silver alloy and 51 to 52% mercury. More than half of that filling is mercury. So for your dentist to say, I'm going to ask Susie, I'm going to place a little silver filling in the back. You're not going to see it. What would you do? Hey, Susie, I'm going to place a little mercury filling in the back, and I'm going to see it because for him to call it a silver filling is a fraudulent misrepresentation.

Mm hmm. It is a mercury filling. And mercury has terrible implications for female hormonal health. It has terrible implications for menopause. Terrible implications for pregnancy, terrible implications and neurotoxin. And it you know, you can they took thyroid cells and, you know, put mercury into the thyroid cells in the petri disk and that dish. And that's what creates the antibodies. So one of the foundational causes of Hashimoto's is often mercury and yeah, it's not if you have to get them removed, but then you have to follow up because you want to make sure your body's cleaned out.

So I'm just looking at the clock and I'm like, as always, all right, we're out of time. Unfortunately. Look at that. We've probably gone over it, but this is really important stuff. So I just kind of want to recap like we learn that every tooth is corrected to a meridian and a problem in the tooth can most certainly affect the organ. It's not necessarily, you know, maybe 100% of the time. It's not always, but it is. You know, in 21 years of practice, he's been practicing 40 years. I see it time and time again.

So you want your physician you want your dentist to be thinking about that because it's an important thing. We learned what kind of toothpaste you should and shouldn't use. We learned our microbes are our friends. We learned about cavities and surgeries and you need to have a cone beam. We learned about mercury and having it removed safely and smartly and finding someone good to do that and not giving up because, you know, just because you didn't find the right dentist the first time, don't give up.

But when you're going to do something like mercury removal, you really want to do your homework and you really want to make sure someone's doing the right thing. Absolutely. We talked about. I forgot one thing, the meridians for women's reproductive health are your front teeth. Lot of people who have accidents when they're young and they have a root canal on a front teeth or a lower front teeth or an upper front in your front incisors for incisors, upper portion sizes, lower or connected to your reproductive organs and your urinary system.

Bladder, canal. Urinary system are for upper and for a lower in the front and and the last thing I wanted to say, which is apropos to, you know, this entire program on menopause, is that you you will not be able to regulate if there is oral disease. So one of the most important test is what you just said, the CBC Day and I am doing for your menopausal subscribers. I normally do a $600 console fee to read the club, read the entire content, and we had a special for $269 for you for a limited time when this airs to give you that I will also.

I that thank you very muscles. Is a guide a equity guide that you'll learn a. Yes I mean I tell all my patients like you got to get a comb beam and then if you're your dentist, read it. You still have to have Gerri read it because it's so many things. Ms.. That I know I'm doing sports, I'm teaching dentistry to read. Can't be because 90% of them don't know how to read it. I'm going to come to them so I can start helping read my history. You know, you're more than welcome to I would love to do so.

So I hope the take home message you all walk away with is that like your oral microbiome and the things that, you know, we didn't even touch upon implants and, you know, you shouldn't have titanium implants. They need to be ceramic, they need to be zirconia. The materials that go in your mouth, if you put composites in, they need to be BPA free. Like there's so many things that are important and we are just, you know, out of time. Unfortunately. Follow Gerry that is a very. Dr. Gerry Curatola. And if you DM me,I will send you these guides on cavitation and the top ten sources of chronic inflammation and toxicity in your mouth.

So DM Dr. Gerry Curatola. Asks and that's a very generous offer. I didn't know you were going to do that about the cone beam. So that's like. I want to do that. And, you know, I did that for another recent talk and it was really helpful because it was like a no brainer. You know, it's it's the best test and you'll get more information that you probably never heard of before from what's being read on that on that scan. Yeah, I think the cone beam and then the thermography that I do, which looks at regulation of teeth and what's going on in the body when you have a cone beam and a CRT thermography, you've got like you've got and then you've got someone who understands what they're doing.

You really have a good handle on what does or doesn't need to be done. So take home messages on your hormonal journey. Your mouth is so important because we're not just going through menopause and balancing hormones. We have a whole body, we have a whole terrain. And so that's why I love to take this time. Like, we're pausing and we're evaluating. And even I like before I went over to Switzerland, like I just kind of grew up thinking the dentist, you know, I like you'd go and get like they'd clean your teeth and then they'd give you candy.

They like it's not that. That's why. It's good for repeat business, but I just. That's why I did this. I did this book because I was like, you know, and you want to know something? I wrote this book for the lay person, you know, for the guy, you know, on the drive thru Burger King. But but, you know, I it really I give it to dentists. I gave it to two dentists today that were visiting. And there is so much information here that even dentists will read for the first time. So I actually get this on Amazon or whatever, but mouth body connection is a good primer if you really want more of it.

It really is. You know, I like so even when I first started medical school, I wasn't thinking about, you know, I was thinking the teeth. You just go get them cleaned. If you have a cavity, you get a filled. But when I learned from my regular, I was like it just was like micdrop and it just changed everything. And so that's why I wanted to have this important conversation today. Thanks for sharing with us and going all over the place and thank you, Gerry, as always,for being here and your generosity and just for moving the profession forward and helping, you know, thousands and thousands of patients. So.

All right, ladies. So, you know, when I do my Q&A is if you have more questions about teeth, because I know we kind of covered a lot and went all over, you know, we're here and we're here to support you. But this is such a foundational part of how you age gracefully. And you can be hanging out with meand Gerry when we're 120. We'll be back with another one, another interview.