How a Root Canal Can Severely Affect Your Health

By Hal A. Huggins, DDS, MS - Mercola.com

“You need a root canal!” “Why?”

Do you really “need” a root canal? What are the conventional reasons for performing root canals over the past century?

– Pain
– Deep decay that has invaded the nerve chamber
– Trauma (as in getting hit in the mouth with a baseball bat), and
– Discomfort of unknown reason

But…. What, exactly, are you getting for your money?

As recently as 1906, Mayo Clinic in conjunction with Weston Price DDS, MS as head of research for the dental association of that time, announced that root canals were a haven for disease-producing bacteria. Six PhDs working with Dr. Price for decades, and a team of microbiologists from Mayo Clinic identified these bacteria.

Dr. Price implanted root canal fragments under the skin of the belly of 60,000 rabbits. Results unequivocally proved that diseases of the humans, traveling in the root canaled teeth, could produce the same disease in the rabbit in a matter of weeks. Heart attacks could be transferred 100 percent percent of the time – implicating root canals as one of the primary causes of heart disease.

Root Canals are Breeding Grounds for Bacterial Toxins

Does it surprise you that dentistry has been able to keep this secret for over a century?

Consider the liability. Ask your dentist about this, and watch him/her run, hide, and “fire you as a patient.” Fear of license revocation prevents dentists from disclosing what they have been told does not exist. Dr. Price and Mayo identified dozens of diseases related to bacterial toxins created by bacteria in root canals. If one percent of the people with root canals and subsequent diseases sued their dentist, all the money in the world would be in the hands of lawyers.

Dentists are kept in the dark by conflicting reports by their own associations. Most dental associations say root canals are 97 percent successful, while not defining the term ‘successful.’ The American Association of Endodontists (AAE) says only 90 percent are successful. Back in 1925, Coolidge said 95 percent were successful. The Department of Health and Human Services said in 1984 that there is no way to evaluate the success of a root canal. Burket published that only 42 percent of root canaled teeth were “mechanically” correct in filling the canals. That was in the US. European journals on the topic reported about 30 percent.

Haden published that 87 percent of 1,500 teeth he studied microscopically were contaminated with bacteria. And Okabe published that 72.1 percent of the patients with root canals had bacteremia (i.e. bacteria in the blood that were identical to those found in the root canal tooth).

Most dentists will tell you that a front tooth has a single canal. Dr. Price showed that that same front tooth can have as many as 75 auxiliary canals running from the pulp chamber to the outside of the tooth. Clean and fill 75 canals? Yeah, sure. Especially if you’re not even aware they exist.

How Dental Practices Can Alter Your DNA and Promote Disease

So, how can anyone be sure who’s telling the truth?

DNA testing is currently recognized as being one of the most dependable methods of identifying anything that is living. Or dead, for that matter. Dinosaurs have had their DNA tested. That template is there, dead or alive.

Which brings up my primary concern. Toxins from these bacteria together with mercury from dental amalgam have the ability to alter your DNA. Deletions, substitutions, additions – lots of things can happen to your DNA molecules, or your RNA, which is the “carbon copy” of the original DNA. It’s the RNA that actually does the work of creating proteins that make up your body. Mess up the RNA, and you’re setting yourself up for disease. But, if you alter the DNA of a “germ cell,” that is sperm or egg, and your children – and grandchildren, as long as your family line continues to reproduce – will be forever altered. Alterations of this DNA are permanent. They cannot be reversed.

With DNA alterations readily available due to mercury and bacterial toxins, we now have the opportunity to create many new diseases, and/or birth defects. There are many popular diseases today that were not known a thousand years ago – or even 200 years ago. Sickle cell anemia, for example, was not around until 1910. Multiple sclerosis wasn’t known until (circa) 1832. Leukemia came close on its heels. Diabetes got a strong foot hold just after 1900. Heart disease was then becoming more prevalent – up to nearly 10 percent of the deaths in 1900. Today, it is given credit for being the number one killer! Multiple sclerosis went from an average 8,800 cases per year from 1970 through 1975, then suddenly skyrocketed to 123,000 in 1976.

Are there reasons for these dramatic increases?

Yes. Unfortunately, dental procedures can be implicated in all of these increases.

Are all root canals infected with bacteria? Today, non-invasive testing of the fluid around a root canal tooth by DNA can tell if pathological bacteria are growing along its root. After extraction of the tooth, pathological bacteria can be identified 100 percent of the time.

But, wait! There’s more… It was recently discovered that the bacteria are not confined to the tooth. We tested root fragments and found many bacteria, which is not too surprising. Then we tested the periodontal ligament – the attachment between tooth and bone – and found even more bacteria. There is no way to get to this area to sterilize it. An even more surprising discovery was that the blood surrounding the tooth also contained bacteria – as much as half an inch around the tooth is highly contaminated.

Unfortunately, surgical removal of the offending root canal tooth is not just a matter of yanking it out. There is a protocol that a few brave dentists – who defy the dictates of the dental associations – can perform to protect their patients and rid them of potential disease-producing condominiums called root canals.

What Kind of Diseases are Associated with Root Canals?

We have identified 28 bacteria that the literature reports are related to heart diseases, including heart attack, endocarditis, and heart valve infection. Neurological diseases are in second place with 23 bacteria reported to be causative or contributing factors. Liver function, kidney, breast cancer – the list becomes alarming, so it is time to inform the public what dentists cannot tell you out of fear of retribution from injured patients and their own association. The Dental Association would move from being one of the most respected professions to the least respected…

How many people are affected, and how?

While I cannot list every potential in this article, our figures indicate that over 90 percent of the patients seeking help for dental related problems suffer from chronic fatigue, and that’s just one example. How tiring can bacteria be? One group certainly can contribute. They are called “porins.” Few doctors and even fewer humans have ever heard of porins. The word comes from “pores.” These bacteria drill holes in red blood cells – pores – that allow hemoglobin to escape into the surrounding blood where the bacteria are lurking to suck up the iron. These bacteria, the porin producers, have a very high appetite for iron, and hemoglobin furnishes a never ending supply.

Once a red blood cell has a few pores punched in it – a sleeve is inserted as well, such that the red blood cell cannot heal – the red cell bleeds to death. Now the liver has to process all that hemoglobin scrap relieved of its iron, and calm the body from irritations due to the red cell contents being where they do not belong.

Another new kid on the block that may be dentally related is meningitis, which is a growing epidemic. When reading an article about the need for another meningitis vaccine, I recalled seeing meningitis listed as an effect of a few different bacteria that thrive in root canals and cavitations. Capnocytophaga ochnacea; Gemella morbillorum; Klebsiella oxytoca; Neisseria meningitidis; Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and a few more.

For explanation, cavitations and root canal bacteria are grouped together in our testing of over 400 samples, as both are eliminated simultaneously. Cavitations are bony holes almost always (4,999 out of a measured 5,000) left after extraction of wisdom teeth. The sockets rarely heal and become lined with pathogenic anaerobic bacteria. This newspaper said that we need to vaccinate teenagers because meningitis is a potentially fatal disease that comes on fast. With these bacteria occurring in the sockets of wisdom teeth, and wisdom tooth extractions being popular with teens, is there a connection?

Here, you have a choice: to vaccinate or prevent.

Cleaning out a cavitation is a tricky procedure, and in many states an oral surgeon who cleans one out will lose his license, for cavitations “do not exist.” Yeah. Try dropping into one that is two centimeters big and tell me it doesn’t exist! General dentists can do it without as much threat.

Another new one is the human papilloma virus (HPV). We just identified two bacteria associated with HPV in dental implants.

Beware: Antibiotics are NOT the Answer

Why not just give everyone lots of antibiotics? Because most antibiotics are what are called “bactericidal,” meaning they explode the bacteria, causing even more grief for your immune system. Instead of having one bacterium to destroy, now your system has a hundred little pieces called “endotoxins” to dispose of. Besides, there are other side effects to the use of massive antibiotics, such as the destruction of beneficial gut bacteria, which also dampens your immune system.

Check out our previous article: Oil Pulling To Prevent And Treat Damage To Teeth

It has been over 100 years since Mayo and Dr. Price announced their findings, but you do not have to wait another 100 years to protect yourself, your RNA, or the future DNA of the human race. This is a serious accusation. One that is very logical and provable by today’s DNA science. Scientists know it is possible. Now you do too.

Source: mercola.com

97% of Terminal Cancer Patients Previously had this One Dental Procedure

Mercola.com



Do you have a chronic degenerative disease? If so, have you been told, “It’s all in your head?”
Well, that might not be that far from the truth… the root cause of your illness may be in your mouth.
There is a common dental procedure that nearly every dentist will tell you is completely safe, despite the fact that scientists have been warning of its dangers for more than 100 years.

Every day in the United States alone, 41,000 of these dental procedures are performed on patients who believe they are safely and permanently fixing their problem.

What is this dental procedure?

The root canal.

More than 25 million root canals are performed every year in this country.

Root-canaled teeth are essentially “dead” teeth that can become silent incubators for highly toxic anaerobic bacteria that can, under certain conditions, make their way into your bloodstream to cause a number of serious medical conditions—many not appearing until decades later.

Most of these toxic teeth feel and look fine for many years, which make their role in systemic disease even harder to trace back.

Sadly, the vast majority of dentists are oblivious to the serious potential health risks they are exposing their patients to, risks that persist for the rest of their patients’ lives. The American Dental Association claims root canals have been proven safe, but they have NO published data or actual research to substantiate this claim.
Fortunately, I had some early mentors like Dr. Tom Stone and Dr. Douglas Cook, who educated me on this issue nearly 20 years ago. Were it not for a brilliant pioneering dentist who, more than a century ago, made the connection between root-canaled teeth and disease, this underlying cause of disease may have remained hidden to this day. The dentist’s name was Weston Price—regarded by many as the greatest dentist of all time.

Weston A. Price: World’s Greatest Dentist

Image: Raw For Beauty

Most dentists would be doing an enormous service to public health if they familiarized themselves with the work of Dr. Weston Pricei. Unfortunately, his work continues to be discounted and suppressed by medical and dental professionals alike.

Dr. Price was a dentist and researcher who traveled the world to study the teeth, bones, and diets of native populations living without the “benefit” of modern food. Around the year 1900, Price had been treating persistent root canal infections and became suspicious that root-canaled teeth always remained infected, in spite of treatments. Then one day, he recommended to a woman, wheelchair bound for six years, to have her root canal tooth extracted, even though it appeared to be fine.

She agreed, so he extracted her tooth and then implanted it under the skin of a rabbit. The rabbit amazingly developed the same crippling arthritis as the woman and died from the infection 10 days later. But the woman, now free of the toxic tooth, immediately recovered from her arthritis and could now walk without even the assistance of a cane.

Price discovered that it’s mechanically impossible to sterilize a root-canaled (e.g. root-filled) tooth.
He then went on to show that many chronic degenerative diseases originate from root-filled teeth—the most frequent being heart and circulatory diseases. He actually found 16 different causative bacterial agents for these conditions. But there were also strong correlations between root-filled teeth and diseases of the joints, brain and nervous system. Dr. Price went on to write two groundbreaking books in 1922 detailing his research into the link between dental pathology and chronic illness. Unfortunately, his work was deliberately buried for 70 years, until finally one endodontist named George Meinig recognized the importance of Price’s work and sought to expose the truth.

Dr. Meinig Advances the Work of Dr. Price

Dr. Meinig, a native of Chicago, was a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II before moving to Hollywood to become a dentist for the stars. He eventually became one of the founding members of the American Association of Endodontists (root canal specialists).

In the 1990s, he spent 18 months immersed in Dr. Price’s research. In June of 1993, Dr. Meinig published the book Root Canal Cover-Up, which continues to be the most comprehensive reference on this topic today. You can order your copy directly from the Price-Pottenger Foundationii.

What Dentists Don’t Know About the Anatomy of Your Teeth

Your teeth are made of the hardest substances in your body.

In the middle of each tooth is the pulp chamber, a soft living inner structure that houses blood vessels and nerves. Surrounding the pulp chamber is the dentin, which is made of living cells that secrete a hard mineral substance. The outermost and hardest layer of your tooth is the white enamel, which encases the dentin.
The roots of each tooth descend into your jawbone and are held in place by the periodontal ligament. In dental school, dentists are taught that each tooth has one to four major canals. However, there are accessory canals that are never mentioned. Literally miles of them!

Just as your body has large blood vessels that branch down into very small capillaries, each of your teeth has a maze of very tiny tubules that, if stretched out, would extend for three miles. Weston Price identified as many as 75 separate accessory canals in a single central incisor (front tooth). For a more detailed explanation, refer to an article by Hal Huggins, DDS, MS, on the Weston A. Price Foundation website.iii (These images are borrowed from the Huggins article.)

Microscopic organisms regularly move in and around these tubules, like gophers in underground tunnels.
When a dentist performs a root canal, he or she hollows out the tooth, then fills the hollow chamber with a substance (called guttapercha), which cuts off the tooth from its blood supply, so fluid can no longer circulate through the tooth. But the maze of tiny tubules remains. And bacteria, cut off from their food supply, hide out in these tunnels where they are remarkably safe from antibiotics and your own body’s immune defenses.
The Root Cause of Much Disease

Under the stresses of oxygen and nutrient deprivation, these formerly friendly organisms morph into stronger, more virulent anaerobes that produce a variety of potent toxins. What were once ordinary, friendly oral bacteria mutate into highly toxic pathogens lurking in the tubules of the dead tooth, just awaiting an opportunity to spread.

No amount of sterilization has been found effective in reaching these tubules—and just about every single root-canaled tooth has been found colonized by these bacteria, especially around the apex and in the periodontal ligament. Oftentimes, the infection extends down into the jawbone where it creates cavitations—areas of necrotic tissue in the jawbone itself.

Cavitations are areas of unhealed bone, often accompanied by pockets of infected tissue and gangrene. Sometimes they form after a tooth extraction (such as a wisdom tooth extraction), but they can also follow a root canal. According to Weston Price Foundation, in the records of 5,000 surgical cavitation cleanings, only two were found healed.

And all of this occurs with few, if any, accompanying symptoms. So you may have an abscessed dead tooth and not know it. This focal infection in the immediate area of the root-canaled tooth is bad enough, but the damage doesn’t stop there.

Root Canals Can Lead to Heart, Kidney, Bone, and Brain Disease

As long as your immune system remains strong, any bacteria that stray away from the infected tooth are captured and destroyed. But once your immune system is weakened by something like an accident or illness or other trauma, your immune system may be unable to keep the infection in check.

These bacteria can migrate out into surrounding tissues by hitching a ride into your blood stream, where they are transported to new locations to set up camp. The new location can be any organ or gland or tissue.
Dr. Price was able to transfer diseases harbored by humans to rabbits, by implanting fragments of root-canaled teeth, as mentioned above. He found that root canal fragments from a person who had suffered a heart attack, when implanted into a rabbit, would cause a heart attack in the rabbit within a few weeks.
He discovered he could transfer heart disease to the rabbit 100 percent of the time! Other diseases were more than 80 percent transferable by this method. Nearly every chronic degenerative disease has been linked with root canals, including:

Heart disease
Kidney disease
Arthritis, joint, and rheumatic diseases
Neurological diseases (including ALS and MS)
Autoimmune diseases (Lupus and more)

There may also be a cancer connection. Dr. Robert Jones, a researcher of therelationship between root canals and breast cancer, found an extremely high correlation between root canals and breast cancer. He claims to have found the following correlations in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases:

93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals
7 percent had other oral pathology
Tumors, in the majority of cases, occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal(s) or other oral pathology

Dr. Jones claims that toxins from the bacteria in an infected tooth or jawbone are able to inhibit the proteins that suppress tumor development. A German physician reported similar findings. Dr. Josef Issels reported that, in his 40 years of treating “terminal” cancer patients, 97 percent of his cancer patients had root canals. If these physicians are correct, the cure for cancer may be as simple as having a tooth pulled, then rebuilding your immune system.

Good Bugs Gone Bad

How are these mutant oral bacteria connected with heart disease or arthritis? The ADA and the AAE claim it’s a “myth” that the bacteria found in and around root-canaled teeth can cause diseasev. But they base that on the misguided assumption that the bacteria in these diseased teeth are the SAME as normal bacteria in your mouth—and that’s clearly not the case.

Today, bacteria can be identified using DNA analysis, whether they’re dead or alive, from their telltale DNA signatures.

In a continuation of Dr. Price’s work, the Toxic Element Research Foundation (TERF) used DNA analysis to examine root-canaled teeth, and they found bacterial contamination in 100 percent of the samples tested. They identified 42 different species of anaerobic bacteria in 43 root canal samples. In cavitations, 67 different bacteria were identified among the 85 samples tested, with individual samples housing between 19 to 53 types of bacteria each. The bacteria they found included the following types:

Capnocytophagaochracea
Fusobacteriumnucleatum
Gemellamorbillorum
Leptotrichiabuccalis
Porphyromonasgingivalis

Are these just benign, ordinary mouth bugs? Absolutely not. Four can affect your heart, three can affect your nerves, two can affect your kidneys, two can affect your brain, and one can infect your sinus cavities… so they are anything BUT friendly! (If you want see just how unfriendly they can be, I invite you to investigate the footnotes.)

Approximately 400 percent more bacteria were found in the blood surrounding the root canal tooth than were found in the tooth itself, suggesting the tooth is the incubatorand the periodontal ligament is the food supply. The bone surrounding root-canaled teeth was found even HIGHER in bacterial count… not surprising, since bone is virtual buffet of bacterial nutrients.

Since When is Leaving A Dead Body Part IN Your Body a Good Idea?

There is no other medical procedure that involves allowing a dead body part to remain in your body. When your appendix dies, it’s removed. If you get frostbite or gangrene on a finger or toe, it is amputated. If a baby dies in utero, the body typically initiates a miscarriage.

Your immune system doesn’t care for dead substances, and just the presence of dead tissue can cause your system to launch an attack, which is another reason to avoid root canals—they leave behind a dead tooth.
Infection, plus the autoimmune rejection reaction, causes more bacteria to collect around the dead tissue. In the case of a root canal, bacteria are given the opportunity to flush into your blood stream every time you bite down.

Why Dentists Cling to the Belief Root Canals are Safe

The ADA rejects Dr. Price’s evidence, claiming root canals are safe, yet they offer no published data or actual research to substantiate their claim. American Heart Association recommends a dose of antibiotics before many routine dental procedures to prevent infective endocarditis (IE) if you have certain heart conditions that predispose you to this type of infection.

So, on the one hand, the ADA acknowledges oral bacteria can make their way from your mouth to your heart and cause a life-threatening infection.

But at the same time, the industry vehemently denies any possibility that these same bacteria—toxic strains KNOWN to be pathogenic to humans—can hide out in your dead root-canaled tooth to be released into your blood stream every time you chew, where they can damage your health in a multitude of ways.
Is this really that large of a leap? Could there be another reason so many dentists, as well as the ADA and the AAE, refuse to admit root canals are dangerous? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Root canals are the most profitable procedure in dentistry.

What You Need to Know to AVOID a Root Canal

I strongly recommend never getting a root canal. Risking your health to preserve a tooth simply doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, there are many people who’ve already have one. If you have, you should seriously consider having the tooth removed, even if it looks and feels fine. Remember, as soon as your immune system is compromised, your risk of of developing a serious medical problem increases—and assaults on your immune system are far too frequent in today’s world.

If you have a tooth removed, there are a few options available to you.

Partial denture: This is a removable denture, often just called a “partial.” It’s the simplest and least expensive option.

Bridge: This is a more permanent fixture resembling a real tooth but is a bit more involved and expensive to build.

Implant: This is a permanent artificial tooth, typically titanium, implanted in your gums and jaw. There are some problems with these due to reactions to the metals used. Zirconium is a newer implant material that shows promise for fewer complications.

But just pulling the tooth and inserting some sort of artificial replacement isn’t enough.
Dentists are taught to remove the tooth but leave your periodontal ligament. But as you now know, this ligament can serve as a breeding ground for deadly bacteria. Most experts who’ve studied this recommend removing the ligament, along with one millimeter of the bony socket, in order to drastically reduce your risk of developing an infection from the bacterially infected tissues left behind.

I strongly recommend consulting a biological dentist because they are uniquely trained to do these extractions properly and safely, as well as being adept at removing mercury fillings, if necessary. Their approach to dental care is far more holistic and considers the impact on your entire body—not JUST your mouth.
If you need to find a biological dentist in your area, I recommend visiting toxicteeth.org, a resource sponsored by Consumers for Dental Choice. This organization, championed by Charlie Brown, is a highly reputable organization that has fought to protect and educate consumers so that they can make better-informed decisions about their dental care. The organization also heads up the Campaign for Mercury-Free Dentistry.

Source: MERCOLA.COM & Raw For Beauty

References:

• i Weston A. Price Foundation

• ii Price-Pottenger Foundation

• iii Weston A. Price Foundation June 25, 2010

• iv Quantum Cancer Management

• v American Association of Endodontists

• vi Journal of Clinical Microbiology February 2007

• vii Journal of Clinical Microbiology July 2003

• viii Clinical Infectious Diseases June 1996

• ix Science Daily January 4, 2011

• x The Wealthy Dentist July 12, 2011

• xi ToxicTeeth.org