Toxicity in Your Mouth - Dental Appliances and Amalgam Fillings

Holistic Dental Association

Before beginning the following discussions regarding dental appliances and amalgam fillings, I want to give you a link where you can find a holistic dentist.

Contact the Holistic Dental Association at holisticdental.org, and then click on 'Find a Holistic Dentist' - either in the U.S. or abroad. The list may not be up-to-date, so if you don't find a holistic dentist near you, contact the association directly for updates.

Detoxification begins in your mouth

Many of today's illnesses may be derived, in large part, from heavy metal body burden, and one of the most prevalent sources for toxins in our bodies comes from dental appliances and amalgam fillings.

The purpose of this section is:

• to give you a brief summary about dental amalgams (i.e. tooth cracking/splitting, and  oral electrical currents
• mercury vaporization, and toxic in utero transference
• to spur you on to further investigation and reading. There are plenty of books and scientific papers which will give you a more in-depth education
• to encourage you to have your dental amalgams removed. Study the subject for yourself, consult with a qualified health practitioner, and make the appropriate decisions for your health, and
• to make you more aware of mercury in your immediate environment

Why is this subject so important?

The World Health Organization reports that toxic metals are the cause of 82% of all chronic degenerative disease. Dental amalgams, and their associated, accumulated toxins, damage the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, thyroid gland, pituitary gland, adrenal glands, blood cells, and damage enzymes and hormones. Dental amalgams damage the central nervous system, the immune system and adversely affect the circulatory system. Dental amalgams are primary culprits in ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s disease, periodontal disease (periodontitis), dementia, autism, multiple sclerosis (MS), scleroderma, depression, lupus, asthma, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, learning disorders, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, digestive problems, neurological problems such as extremity numbness and tingling, tinnitus, and blood pressure and heartbeat irregularities. If you now suffer from any of these illnesses, any attempt at improving your health will be ineffectual until you have dramatically lessened mercury in your body. If you now do not suffer from any of the above illnesses, you had better make an attempt at getting the mercury out of your body so you don’t become ill in the future. Mercury means cell death, and cell death leads to disease. You can never be well as long as you have dental amalgams.

Facts about the dangers in your mouth

Fact #1:  Your dental amalgams (“silver” looking fillings) can crack your teeth, forcing you to get “caps.”

Fact #2:  Your dental amalgams create harmful electrical currents within your mouth causing brain and neurological damage.

Fact #3:  Your dental amalgams leach toxic heavy metals (like mercury) into your entire body contributing to a myriad of diseases.

Fact #4:  Whether you are male or female, your dental amalgams will affect your yet-to-be-born child.

Fact #5:  There are also other sources of mercury to be concerned about.

Fact #6:  Mercury continues to be harmful as long as it is in your body.

Fact #1:  Amalgam and Tooth Cracking

“I was only biting into a soft sandwich when the tooth broke and the pain came.”

Dental amalgams (“silver” fillings) can pit, expand, crack, and then crack or split your teeth, forcing you to get “caps.” The problem often escalates over time. Some amalgams, after being in place for several years, expand under bite loading to crack teeth. Sometimes the amalgams just fracture and fall out. www.smile-team.com states, “We see cracks in 75-80% of teeth containing old amalgams."

In a report produced by the University of Michigan, School of Dentistry. Osama Younis, Kamal Asgar, and John M. Powers found that the amount of force necessary to initiate a crack in dental amalgam alloys was dependent on the age of the amalgam. - Initiation of Cracks in Dental Amalgam j Dent Res Nov-Dec 1975 pg 1133

In a paper entitled The Cracked Tooth Syndrome, Christopher D. Lynch, BDS, MFDRCSI and Robert J. McConnell, BDS, PhD, FFDRCSI say: “Excessive condensation pressures, expansion of certain poorer quality amalgam alloys when contaminated with moisture, placement of retentive pins, and extensive composite restorations placed without due care for incremental technique (resulting in tensile forces in the tooth structure due to polymerization contraction) predispose to fracture formation.” [470-5 September 2002, Vol. 68, No. 8 Journal of the Canadian Dental Association]

Fact #2:  Electrical Currents in Your Mouth

Dissimilar metals used in braces, night appliances, implants, crown bases, and dental amalgam fillings, cause oral galvanism, a deleterious electrical current which leads to damage to your brain and central nervous system. Human saliva conducts electricity, so the dissimilar metals need not be in contact with one another to produce the adverse current. The problem can occur between separate fillings within your mouth, and it can occur between dissimilar metals within the same tooth.

William Rasmussen, M.A. in his book Natural Mercury Detoxification says: “The highest electrical currents are generated by a close proximity of silver amalgam and gold. Unfortunately, most gold crowns have a silver amalgam post or base to support them and as a result generate a high electric charge. Acid saliva increases the electric currents generated by metals in the mouth. Most regular dentists are totally unaware of the existence of these electric currents in the mouth. Biological dentists are fully trained in their importance and most have a meter for accurately accessing the magnitude of the currents being generated.”

He goes on to say, “Clinical observation soon taught me that most people with severe cases of MS, epilepsy, or emotional disease had lots of negative-current fillings.”

Dr. Myron Wentz, in A Mouth Full of Poison says: “Around 1990, dentists began replacing the traditional amalgam material with the nongamma-2 amalgam material, which contains more copper. The new amalgam mixture was created to reduce oxidation of the filling surface and make it more resistant to fractures. However, the addition of copper did far more than make the filling stronger: it also generated a greater galvanic current, a common occurrence when two or more metals of differing electrochemical potentials are brought into contact.”

There are literally hundreds of study articles on the medical dangers of electrical current in the mouth due to fillings - especially using gold in the same mouth with amalgam. Has your dentist mentioned anything like this to you?

This oral electric current directly contributes to amalgam mercury release - the next fact on our list.

Fact #3:  Mercury Vaporization

Dental amalgams contain as much as 50% mercury. Mercury is as toxic as arsenic and lead. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers discarded dental amalgams to be toxic waste.

(a) It is possible for microscopic particles of mercury-containing dental amalgams break off (especially during initial amalgam placement or upon extraction), be swallowed, and enter your digestive system. Then they can pass through your intestinal membrane where your bloodstream distributes them to cell/tissue receptor sites throughout your body. This stored mercury has disastrous results on your body’s cells, and could be the very basis for almost all chronic disease and affliction.

(b) There are studies to show that, over time, mercury simply leaches out of amalgams.

(c) Each and every time you drink hot liquids, chew foods (or chewing gum), clench or grind your teeth, brush your teeth, or have your amalgam-containing teeth cleaned at the dentist’s office, mercury vapor is released from your dental amalgams. The vaporization can last as much as one and one half hours after you have stopped drinking / chewing / brushing / cleaning. Mercury vapor enters your lungs, your bloodstream, your body tissues, your central nervous system, and even your brain. If mercury vapor mixes with the food in your mouth it can enter your bloodstream via your digestive system. It can adversely effect every cell, tissue, organ, gland and system in your body. This continual, constant vaporization affects your health for years.

Ask your dentist to let you see the container that your amalgam materials were in when they were delivered to his or her office. I bet the container is labeled “hazardous-materials.” While you’re at it, ask your dentist, to show you the amalgam manufacturer’s materials precautionary list. Even the manufacturer expresses warnings (to the dentist).

Fact #4:  Male or Female: The Mercury In Your Body Is Passed To Your Child

Mercury toxicity from a mother’s dental fillings (or from a father’s dental fillings via his sperm) can cross the placental barrier and produce birth defects in a newly conceived child. Dr. Hal A. Huggins in his book It’s All In Your

Head says, “In addition to mercury, which I expected, I was surprised to find that copper, tin, and zinc [all major components of dental amalgams] could also produce birth defects.”

In Mercury Detoxification: The Natural Way to Remove Mercury from Your Body, Tom McGuire, DDS says: “A child’s first exposure to mercury from amalgam fillings can occur at the moment of conception. Think of that and the implications it holds! At first glance it may sound like a crazy idea and easy to dismiss, but it is absolutely true and cannot be discarded. If the mother has mercury amalgam silver fillings in her teeth the fetus will not only be exposed to mercury released from her fillings at the moment of its conception, but throughout the entire gestation period. It is being exposed to elemental mercury from dental fillings before it even has a tooth!

However, the bad news doesn’t end there. If a mother has amalgam fillings while she nurses her baby, it will also be exposed to mercury released from her fillings - for as long as the child is being nursed.”

Citing a study from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. McGuire says, “Seven million women throughout the United States have so much mercury in their systems that pregnancy would pose a serious threat to the developing fetus.”

In A Mouth Full of Poison, Dr. Myron Wentz says: “Of all the sources of mercury exposure a growing child will face, by far the greatest body burden - 87 percent - will come from the elemental mercury released from the mother’s amalgams during gestation.”

WARNING TO WOMEN: Having your dental amalgams removed while you are pregnant or nursing is not recommended. Either have them removed preconception or post-nursing.

Fact #5:  Other Sources of Mercury

In addition to amalgam dental fillings, mercury toxicity is also caused by other things which have most probably affected you throughout your lifetime. [That’s bad news - because the damage is slowly cumulative.] Environmental exposure comes through water, air, soil and therefore, food. Sea and groundwater get contaminated via air. Air sources include everything from exhaust from coal-fired power plants to volcanic eruptions. Food sources include both fresh and salt water fish (especially the larger fish like sailfish, shark and tuna, and the bottom dwellers like catfish), shellfish (like crab, lobster, shrimp, and oysters), and mushrooms. Eat these foods and you are taking in mercury.

Other mercury exposures include childhood and adult vaccinations, playing with liquid mercury from broken thermometers, and using Mercurochrome as an antiseptic for cuts and scrapes. Mercury is a common preservative in drugs and vaccines (like thiomersal), in contact lens solutions, in cosmetics like hair dyes, waterproof mascaras and eye shadows, and in fabric softeners and antistatic clothes drier sheets.

Other sources of mercury include medications like first-aid ointments, vaginal douches, hair tonics, psoriasis and acne preparations, eye and ear drops, skin bleaching creams, nasal sprays, throat lozenges, hemorrhoidal ointments and suppositories. On the farm and in the garden, mercury is found in herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and disinfectants. Mercury is an ingredient in some household cleaning products.

There are also so many mercury-containing industrial processes that I’m not even going to attempt to list them here. The bottom line is, that to protect yourself and your family, make every possible effort to avoid mercury

contamination.

Alert!!! - According to the Star Tibune, mercury contamination has turned up in many foods not previously known to be sources of mercury, including Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Quaker Oatmeal to go bars, Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, Yoplait Strawberry yogurt, Market Pantry Grape Jelly and Coca-Cola.

Fact #6:  Mercury continues to be harmful as long as it is in your body.

“The insidious thing about mercury poisoning is that it is a “retention toxicity,” meaning that its effects are progressive and cumulative. Depending on the rate of assimilation in the tissues, its effects may not show up for years, perhaps decades. In addition, the symptoms mimic so many other disease processes that a definitive diagnosis is exceedingly difficult to obtain.” - Dr. Myron Wentz

“So why am I sick and tired all the time?”

Again, Dr. Hal A. Huggins explains the dangers of mercury toxicity: “Mercury kills cells by interfering with their ability to exchange oxygen, nutrients, and waste products through the cell membrane. Inside the cell, mercury destroys our genetic code, DNA, leaving us without the ability to reproduce that cell ever again. Immunologically, mercury embeds itself in a cell membrane, giving that cell the appearance of being “nonself,” which is the trigger for the immune system to destroy that specific cell. With mercury in your cell membranes, the immune system will start destroying your own tissues, thus the term autoimmune disease. Examples of these are diabetes, multiple sclerosis (MS), scleroderma, and lupus.”

"There are also neurological diseases like MS and epilepsy, hormonal deficiencies, emotional disturbances, gum disease, and chronic fatigue directly attributable to mercury toxicity. Amalgams are culprits in ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s disease, autism, depression, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, digestive problems, and blood pressure and heartbeat irregularities."

"If I had to explain autoimmune disease to a five-year-old, here’s what I’d say:

Imagine that you are a teeny, tiny, little thing living way down deep inside your right arm. You live there in a community of other teeny, tiny, little things (cells). Your community has a bodyguard to protect all of you from anything bad (your immune system). This bodyguard travels around in your arm making sure everything is healthy. It attacks anything bad.

A little speck of bad stuff (mercury) comes along and sticks itself onto your skin. You can’t shake it off. You have trouble getting food or air in, and you have trouble getting waste out. The bad stuff just covers you up and makes you look like bad stuff too.

The bodyguard comes along, sees the bad stuff and doesn’t know you’re inside it. The bodyguard begins to do its job of attacking and killing the bad stuff. You (the cell) get squashed away in the attack.

The bad stuff gets swept away to someplace else in your body where it is stored in a protective sack so it can’t get out again. Over time a lot of bad stuff gets stored up. Over time your bodyguard gets exhausted trying to keep up with the bad stuff."

(For you adults, the result is an autoimmune disease enabled by genetic predisposition.)

“I don’t have any metal in my mouth because I don’t have any teeth in my mouth... I wear dentures!”

Dr. Hal A. Huggins explains: "Strangely, it was Alzheimer's that taught me about coloring agents in dentures. Several patients in a row had dentures, and I decided to investigate the coloring agents in denture acrylic. It turns out that the pink coloring agents are cadmium sulfate and mercury sulfate." (Doug's note: both cadmium and mercury are toxic.)

The more I studied the subjects of dental amalgams and mercury toxicity, the more I began to realize how much outright deceit - bordering on fraud - has been perpetrated on the unsuspecting public by the American Medical and Dental Associations (AMA and ADA).

There have been serious questions raised about the safety of dental amalgams for over a hundred years. You read that right. Dedicated, individual doctors and dentists have long-known that there is a serious risk associated with the use of amalgam materials (especially mercury), but any risk to the patient has taken a back seat to the demands of the medical and dental associations. Dentists who buck the system may wake up to find their licensing (and livelihoods) revoked.

They clearly have a lot to lose. Dr. Myron Wentz, in his fine book A Mouth Full of Poison, refers to a comment made by Dr. Jordan Davis, co-director of the Toxic Studies Institute of Boca Raton, Florida: “... Dentists have pride, reputation, money, and liability on the line. To admit that they have mistakenly been using a harmful substance to treat tooth decay for many years is a very difficult confession to make - and it is fraught with extremely serious consequences.”

A minority of doctors and dentists have risked association ostracism by challenging the norm. These people understand the subjects of heavy metal burden, dental amalgams, and detoxification, and they are real unsung heroes. Some now devote their entire practice to the new way of thinking. I want to express my profound respect and gratitude to these heroes of medicine and dentistry, as well as to all others who have contributed to the truth related to dental amalgam poisoning. We are all in their debt.

You can’t always trust what government officials and professional associations tell you. They all spout data to support their own hidden agendas. When your dentist says “mercury is insignificant,” it’s time to get a second opinion. It’s time to be responsible for, and be the manager of, your own health.

My favorite line in all of my studies regarding dental amalgams is from Dr. Myron Wentz: “Let there be no doubt: there will be absolute hell to pay when the Boomers come to realize that they are running the risk of Alzheimer’s disease - and largely because the dental industry was too busy lining its pockets to worry about the health of a nation.”

I urge you to take this subject of heavy metal toxicity seriously and do something now to protect your future. Having your dental amalgams removed is only the first step in relieving the body of heavy metal toxicity. The next step is to detoxify your entire body and make it clean again.