Once upon a time, the American Association of Endodontists - root canal specialists - had what they called their annual “Root Canal Awareness Week.” Maybe they finally realized how unappealing that can sound to many, as they’ve since rebranded it and made it a...
Once upon a time, if you said that conditions in the mouth could have any kind of impact on whole body health, folks might have looked at you funny. Because of the historic divide between dentistry and medicine, the mouth was long treated almost as if it didn’t...
As the pandemic continues, some folks remain nervous about visiting the dentist. Yet there are still no documented cases of patients becoming infected through dental care. In the US, less than 1% of dentists have found to be COVID-positive. More, international...
There are more than a few reasons you might give for why water fluoridation is bad policy. For one, any benefit it gives comes from applying it directly to the teeth, not swallowing it. You might also note the lack of rigorous evidence in support of the practice or...
While 2020 is a year that a good many of us would probably prefer to forget, there are also things that make it worth remembering. For one, it’s the year that the FDA changed its tune on mercury amalgam, recommending against its use in about 60% of the US...
When it comes to your health and well-being, what you eat matters, as a recent study in PLOS Medicine reminds. The research team set out to answer two basic questions: 1) Can a healthy diet offset the effects of obesity on mortality?, and 2) Can normal weight...
Oxygen. Food. Water. Sleep. These are non-negotiable. Sure, we can exist for a certain amount of time without them, but after a point, you run into trouble. Stop breathing, say, for more than a few minutes, and brain damage starts to occur. Similarly, you need...
One of the things that surprises some folks when they first visit a biological dentist is how much time the dentist typically spends getting to know them. The dental exam and evaluations are important, of course, but the mouth doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s...
We’ve looked before at some of the ways your own microbiome affects your health, but this week, we’re shifting to the amazing apple microbiome. Yes, just like humans have microbial colonies in our mouths and guts, even plants have their own little worlds of...
If you’re a patient, you may already be familiar with Dr. Simon Yu, a brilliant integrative physcian who practices here in St. Louis. In fact, he may even have referred you to Dr. Rehme to evaluate and, as needed, treat any dental conditions that may have been...
One of the big challenges of gum disease is that it’s easy to overlook symptoms until the disease has progressed quite a bit. There’s typically no pain, and even tell-tale signs such as puffy gums or blood when you brush and floss aren’t apparent in every case....
Dr. Rehme offers a quick definition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSvJjLvdls8 To learn more about the tooth-body relationship, check out Dr. Rehme’s article An Integrative Health Care Approach to Biological Dentistry and our previous post 6 Foundational...
We’ve been hearing a lot lately from folks who have seen the new documentary Root Cause and are wondering about their own root canal teeth or sharing what happened to their health after root canal treatment. Many are learning about biological dentistry for the...
One thing we are deeply grateful for this Thanksgiving is our patients. We appreciate the trust they place in us. We’re honored that they’ve chosen our office out of many to provide for their oral health care needs. So to our patients, we say thank you. Each and...
While it’s one thing to talk about the science that shows how root canal teeth can become harbors of infection that can damage overall health, it’s quite another to understand the journey from health to illness and back again. One man’s story is the subject of a...
The link between gum disease and other inflammatory conditions is well established. Those systemic health problems include heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and some cancers. Consider breast cancer, for instance. A while back, we looked at a 2011 study out of...
Chances are, you already know that good oral health is essential to overall health. But did you know that gum disease is more common in heart attack patients than in healthy individuals? Not only are both conditions marked by chronic inflammation; many of the...
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you how gum disease can affect your overall health – and how evidence suggests that treating it may ease the symptoms of chronic conditions such as diabetes. Now, new research suggests periodontal therapy may help control...
For more than 50 years, the American Dental Association has published a book they call Fluoridation Facts. The newest edition just dropped. Like earlier versions, it justifies and endorses the fluoridation of public water supplies, while dismissing any cause for...
Your oral health and overall health are linked. We’ve looked at this before, along with the well-established connections between gum disease and systemic problems such as heart disease and diabetes. Now, new research shows that, in fact, serious oral health...