The following is one of the best overviews I have read about where dentistry should be headed. I have placed it here in honour of one of the most couragous advocates of healthy dentistry. It is thanks for his great contribution to dentistry.

BIOLOGICAL DENTISTRY

     Edward Arana, D.D.S.

Biological Dentistry can be categorized as dentistry with a conscious. A consciousness of how the treatments of the teeth and jaws will affect the health of the individual and how it will affect the immune system. Will it be congruent and health enhancing or will the treatments be health stressors to the individual.

In the past only lip service was paid to the biocompatibility of materials used in dentistry. The material's compatibility was judged on a general basis and not on an individual basis that is required for biocompatibility.

The most tragic example of misstated biocompatibility is organized dentistry's position of advocating a known poison - MERCURY- in amalgam fillings just because it has been used for 150 years! In doing so, dentistry has been misled and the truth obfuscated concerning the fact that mercury does indeed cause ill effects when placed as an implant in the body even to the point of denying that a filling in a prepared tooth cavity is not an implant. Mercury and other heavy metals from dental fillings contribute to all chronic disease states as do multiple chemical sensitizing exposures. From environmentally ill patients there is clinical evidence that the heavy metals from dental fillings and multiple chemical exposures act synergistically to intoxicate and stress the patient, thus causing disease.

Biological Dentistry is an emerging new field of Probiotic dental medicine. It has been developing in Germany over the last 25 years. It is now being taught and practiced in the U.S., Austria, Germany, England, France, Switzerland, Australia, Taiwan, Sweden, and Colombia.

Biological Dentistry is aesthetic, relatively non-toxic and individually biocompatible. It utilizes thermographic, physiologic and electronic methods to locate chronic areas of disease that are difficult to locate by current standard methods. Incorporated in this field of biological dental medicine are the time proven healing methods of homeopathy, acupuncture, nutrition, physical therapy and herbology. The more modern sciences of neural therapy, hematology, immunology and electro-acupuncture are also incorporated.

These methods are in addition to the myriad of scientific disciplines which encompass the field of clinical dentistry. The curative measures of biological dentistry are applied in accordance with the patient's natural abilities of regulation, regeneration, adaptation and self cure. Biological dental treatment removes the stress burden that conventional treatment may induce.

The first area of concern in biological dentistry is the toxicity of metals and their release from the fillings and prostheses used in dentistry. These metal ions dissociate from their masses to diffuse, migrate and become absorbed in the tissuses altering the electrochemical character of the immune system concomitantly changing the ratios and populations of the blood cells and the cells of the immune system. In addition, these migrating metal ions stop or alter the function of the body's enzymes.

The next area of biological concern is the extent and character of the direct electrical currents generated by the disassociation of dissimilar metals in an electrolyte media (the human body). This is called "oral galvanism." These currents carry disruptive metal ions to the opposite poles in these oral galvanic batteries. How much oral galvanic power is necessary to change organic function, to change membrane permeability, to interfere with the power of thought or recall, or to initiate degenerative change? We just don't know! But we do know that it does change from electro-negative to electro-positive.

Is it possible that these metallic energy sinks are acting as blockades in the meridians or bioenergetic circuits associated with the teeth? Can these blockades cause dysfunction in their respective organs, endocrine systems, vertebrae, muscles nerves and nerve reflexes? It is and it does! Should we view current existing dental restorations as toxic scars? With mercury amalgam implanted in the teeth, most definitely. With gold and other metal restorations for again a certain percentage of people again most definitely and with composite cements on an individual basis, again most definitely. With just about any restorative material used in dentistry there will be blockades by the body if the immune system is still functional because the tooth is an open and dynamic living organ. Biological Dentistry is concerned with treatment and therapies that cause the least disturbance to the immune system.

The next area of concern in Biological Dentistry is that of hidden or residual infection to include areas of necrosis and chronic inflammation. Collectively these areas are called "Dental Interference Fields or Foci." This is dentistry's most ignored area for meaningful and effective therapeutic contributions in resolving chronic disease. A focus or dental interference field is a diseased change in the matrix (soft connective tissue) containing un-processable material causing the local and general defense reactions to be in a continuous state of active conflict. This can lead to pathological distant effects and is always of a chronic character.

N.I.C.O. (Neuralgia Inducing Cavitational Osteonecrosis) is a form of jawbone osteomyelitis. Removed NICO lesions have produced long term and permanent pain reduction in patients with these neuralgias.

Biological Dentists utilize materials reactivity testing to individualize the biocompatibility of dental materials used in the reparative and restorative aspects of dentistry. A materials reactivity test is made from the patient's blood serum. It is a qualitative antigen-antibody precipitin observation type test. It indicates what materials may be suitable for the patient to utilize in the restorative aspect of his dental treatment. This test was developed by W.J. Clifford, M.S. The other types of testing for the individual biocompatibility testing for suitable dental materials are electrodermal testing as advocated by Reinhold Voll, M.D. and Fritz Kramer, D.D.S. and Applied Kinesiology muscle testing as developed by George Goodheart, D.C.

After focal sanitation (the surgical resolution of areas of focal infection, the removal of infected root canaled and non-vital teeth with their attending periapical pathologies) and toxic metal residue stored in the neural, organ, muscle, connective and fatty tissues. The physiological elimination of the heavy metals is necessary because these metals interfere with the normal functioning and electrochemical dynamics of these organs and tissues. The metals placed in teeth corrode or disassociate into metallic ions which migrate into the tooth, the mouth, the root of the tooth, the bony and connective tissue of the jaw where they encounter the nerves and are transported along the nerves to ganglions and further along to the central nervous system where they reside unless something is done about it. Numbness, tingling, paralysis, tremors and pain are some of the symptoms of chronic metal intoxification. In the restoration of the teeth and missing teeth, biological dentists strive to conserve all possible viable tooth structure to the extent where fixed replacements are not the restoration of choice because many times you must sacrifice sound enamel and dentin of abutment teeth.

Using all the knowledge and skills of probiotic dental medicine, biological dentists strive to provide individual biocompatibility, aesthetic, comfortable, functional and enduring dental and prosthetic replacements. Biological dental treatment has the possibility of a stress reduction so great the patient loses all or many of their distressing chronic disease symptoms, this encompasses all pathology.

Biological Dentistry is the great contribution that Sir William Osler meant where he said, "The next great advancement in medicine will come from the dentists." Biological Dentistry will, out of necessity, become the dental medicine of the 21st Century.

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