An interview with Dr. Nammy Patel Nammy Patel, DDS focuses on total wellness at her dental practice in San Francisco. She is the author of Age With Style.
Chances are you're at least tangentially aware of the storm of controversy in the holistic health care world around the dangers of amalgam fillings. What are the issues with amalgam fillings, why does it matter whether or not you've got them, and what should you do if you have them?
What Is Amalgam?Dental amalgam is a mixture of metals. About half of its weight is made up of a powdered alloy of silver, tin, and copper, with the other 50 percent being elemental mercury. Sometimes small amounts of zinc, palladium, or indium are included too. Mercury is used because it keeps the other ingredients pliable long enough to press the compound into a tooth. Once it hardens, it's strong enough to withstand the forces put on it during biting and chewing.
There's no problem with mercury when it's just sitting there as part of the amalgam. The problem arises when you chew or brush your teeth. The abrasion creates heat and causes the mercury to emit gas. Chewing gum is especially bad for this. Even drinking a hot beverage releases mercury vapors in your mouth. Those vapors get swallowed and go into your body, where they're stored. That creates significant health hazards because we're talking about a known poison. This process is called bioaccumulation.
What Does Mercury Do?Mercury kills white blood cells as well as T-cells, which we need to fight off infection and bacteria. So, it lowers immunity. Once in the stomach, it deposits itself in the mesenchyme, the single-layer cell lining of body cavities. Bacteria exposed to mercury become resistant to antibiotics.
Common symptoms of mercury exposure range from fatigue, moodiness, and the inability to concentrate, to lack of confidence and depression. Some people will experience headaches; some will become arthritic, and others will develop more serious autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis. There is no such thing as a "safe" level of exposure; mercury is a poison, even in tiny doses.
The age at which any of these kinds of symptoms show up, and whether or not they do, depends on the individual, but youth isn't necessarily protection against the effects. Ari is a young man of twenty-four who came to me with a mouthful of amalgam fillings he'd had since he was a child and a litany of illnesses. His bones hurt, and he was getting arthritic. He suffered from chronic sinus infections and allergies. For someone his age, he was a mess, and I had to agree that at twenty-four, he shouldn't have been dealing with autoimmune diseases, poor health, and arthritis. He'd done some research on his own and suspected the problem might be mercury from his fillings, and he wanted them out. Could I do that?
I could and did. We removed all those amalgam fillings, and he began to see steady improvement. His arthritis is now cleared up, the allergy attacks have been reduced by about 80 percent, and he's getting back the kind of energy a guy his age should have.
If you've got amalgam fillings, please consider finding a dentist who is an expert at the SMART protocols to remove them (not all are) and replace them with safer, more aesthetic composite. Your smile will look better - and your health is less likely to be compromised.
Nammy Patel, DDS inspires total wellness through her holistic and functional dentistry practice, Green Dentistry, in San Francisco, and is the ForbesBooks author of the ...