Gerald Curatola (00:00.142) You
Josh Dech - CHN (00:01.416) I got you, ready?
Gerald Curatola (00:08.291) That's great!
Josh Dech - CHN (00:09.76) I'll do it. Yeah, it's a take the glasses off and suddenly it's a new personality. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. That's I understand. I get why like Clark Kent and Superman can differentiate now. It's the glasses. Totally.
Gerald Curatola (00:11.811) That's good. like it. Right. That's amazing.
You actually have really, really nice.
Gerald Curatola (00:25.046) Right, just take the glasses off. Yeah, you got a Clark Kent thing there. You do look like Superman here.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:31.97) Thank you, thank you. Do you think out of curiosity, I mean, if you can't tell Clark Kent apart from Superman because of his glasses, does his optometrist know his secret identity?
Gerald Curatola (00:44.298) good question. I never got into that. Should I do the glasses on? I'll do glasses on because you have glasses on.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:46.859) Something to ponder.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:51.874) There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate I feel supported by you now emotionally speaking. Jerry, we had some great chats. I want to give you a quick recap from last time. We went into a bit. sort of touched on regeneration of the teeth, oral microbiome, fluoride, about the saliva as well. We talked about that and the basics of alkalizing and nutrition. That's sort of where we got to and maybe touched in the future of dentistry. Did you get, I believe it was either Gwen or somebody may have sent you the list of questions.
Gerald Curatola (00:56.008) I'm
Gerald Curatola (01:01.465) Sure.
Gerald Curatola (01:15.854) Mm
Josh Dech - CHN (01:21.41) that I had from, you do, beautiful. Okay, well that's what I'd love to dive into with you today. I'm gonna release this as a part one and part two so we don't need any fancy introductions. I'll just give you a quick Dr. Curatolo welcome back to Reversible.
Gerald Curatola (01:22.146) I have it Yup.
Gerald Curatola (01:38.532) Great. Great.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:41.708) Now I'd love to get yourself sorted there and we'll just dive right into some of our questions.
Gerald Curatola (01:46.498) I'm here.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:48.469) All right, let's get right into this one. So I'd love to pick up where we left off from last time. It was just what two weeks ago when we had you in. So thrilled to release this as double feature because it's something again topics that I know are lingering from listeners who have wrote in about our previous bio dentists and I really want to learn more about this stuff Jerry because I was just fascinated from our first conversation. So let's jump across a little bit here.
Gerald Curatola (01:56.825) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (02:17.537) We talked more, you mentioned nutrition, you mentioned some things about alkaline. Can we pick the conversation up from there and sort of give me what do you eat in your diet as a holistic bio dentist? What are some of the things that you consume?
Gerald Curatola (02:32.839) Well, that's a really good question because I was just speaking to a patient today who was suffering with Candida and Candida infections, which is a fungal infection. And it was in his mouth and it's affecting other parts of his body. you know, his physician is giving him antifungal medications when in actuality, really Candida is an overgrowth of fungal organisms that are really fed
by carbohydrates and sugar. So really you're to see someone with a high carbohydrate diet very prone to having a fungal infection and treating the symptoms and not the root cause. The root cause is what's going on in your mouth, what's going on in your gut. So for example, this guy had areas in his mouth where his wisdom teeth were removed. And I know we're going to talk about that a little bit, but those areas where his wisdom teeth were removed formed
these unhealed holes in the jaw, which we call cavitations. And so what's the significance of the significance of cavitations are that they are these warm, dark, moist areas that lots of pathogens can accumulate and grow in. And among them are Candida organisms, mycotoxins, parasites, mold.
and you have lots of interesting areas in the body where your diet feeds, it's like your diet feeds the organism or does the organism, there's this bi -direction, what came first, the chicken or the egg, where you could have a candida infection which is fed by your diet being rich in sugars and carbohydrates.
Or, you know, the reason why you crave those carbohydrates and sugars in the first place could be that these organisms are demanding it. So it's like the microbes run us, we don't run them.
Josh Dech - CHN (04:34.059) Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (04:38.124) Right, gotcha, gotcha. And so what you're saying, I suppose in a roundabout way is that the diet you're selecting for oral health in general is gonna also be largely dependent on the microbes that you have living in the mouth or in the gut and how they respond. Okay.
Gerald Curatola (04:52.711) Exactly. Exactly. You summed it up perfectly. Is that when there's dysbiosis in the mouth or dysbiosis in the gut, it's usually now you have a terrain that is altered, you know, asking for things like, you know, I found myself, you know, why am I craving sweets right now? Well, I'm craving sweets because my Candida in my mouth and my digestive tract are, you know, are
know, that's what they party on. so it is an uphill, it's a bit of an uphill battle to break that vicious cycle. And that's why in my book, The Mouth -Body Connection, I go into this alkalizing anti -inflammatory antioxidant -rich diet, not just for your gut, but especially for your mouth.
Josh Dech - CHN (05:45.712) Interesting. Now out of curiosity, because this is something I've struggled with for a long time, because it's hard to find some data. So I'd love to see your experience. Obviously, dental industry in the US versus Canada is very different in terms of regulations in terms of schooling and requirements. So I've had my wisdom teeth removed when I was young, of course, right around that age, my bottom teeth started to crowd, they decided to go in there and pull them out.
What percentage of people you mentioned cavitations what percentage of people who are getting these wisdom teeth removed do you find end up having these cavitations where they grow these candida or bacterial infections that are really affecting their body without knowing it?
Gerald Curatola (06:27.714) That's a great question because the answer is we're finding now over 80 % of people that have wisdom teeth removed the conventional way, the bone never really heals. So we used to think like when you take a tooth out, you know, the gums grow over and the bone fills in like I like to say. And what we know now because of the advance of these 3D technologies, 3D cone beam.
And with 3D comb beam, we see things we couldn't see with 2D radiographs. We used to have panoramic x -rays and little, you know, periapical x -rays of the teeth. But with 3D, we're finding that, wow, these people, all these people who had their wisdom teeth out, and by the way, crowding on the lower front teeth is not a reason to take your wisdom teeth out. You know, and there's a lot of...
conflicting schools of thought about whether your wisdom teeth are putting pressure on the teeth in front, causing lower front teeth to crowd. Now we're knowing that now we understand that there's lots of ways to cause expansion and alignment. Removable alignment therapy is very popular that even with your wisdom teeth out, Josh, your lower front teeth can still get crowded because there is a movement as we get older. The movement is for our lower front teeth.
Josh Dech - CHN (07:28.565) Mm.
Gerald Curatola (07:51.117) to, for the movement of teeth to be down and forward. And so you get very, very commonly, your teeth could be perfectly aligned when you finish braces. And when you're an adult, they're crowded and you don't have any wisdom teeth. So I really hate to hear about people getting their wisdom teeth out because the dentist said, this will help with that crowding down there. And, because it's another reason why a lot of wisdom teeth get extracted that do not have to be. And
There are times, you know, there's some severely malposition wisdom teeth do require, you know, extraction and removal, and they need removal properly. And properly means that more important than getting the tooth out of the head is how do you treat the remaining bone so that it regenerates and heals and you don't end up with these holes called the cavitation. like for example, in our office, what we do
And I'm just gonna, let me just turn my notifications off. I'm sorry about that. Perfect. Okay. I just did that. What's really important now is when that tooth is extracted, what we do in our office is we, first of all, decorticate the remaining bone. Make sure we remove all the periodontal ligament center there.
Josh Dech - CHN (08:52.455) Yeah, no problem. You're all right. That's what I got editing for.
Gerald Curatola (09:16.517) because those periodontal ligaments can signal the surrounding bone to stop growing. So it actually halts the resolution or regeneration of the bone. Second thing we do is we, you know, thoroughly disinfect the area, of course, with ozone and the laser itself has an attachment and a setting to disinfect the bony socket where the tooth was removed. And then finally, what we do is we create a rich
Josh Dech - CHN (09:21.586) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (09:44.044) scaffold and I use the word scaffold because what we've learned is that in the areas where a tooth is extracted, bone needs a scaffold to be able to regenerate and heal because many times there is a big open hole and the cells that make new bone need to be supported. They're called osteoblasts and they secrete hydroxyapatite for the area to regenerate and if that
support is not there. If that scaffold is not there, they'll grow a little bit and just stop. So what we do is we take blood from your arm. We use platelet -rich fibrin. We use a bone mineral graft and we create that scaffold where the tooth was removed. And then the osteoblast with B, they make new bone and the osteoclast with a C, they are the cells in bone that re - resorb
the graft. So the graft resorbs and all you're left with is your body's own bone.
Josh Dech - CHN (10:48.989) So it sounds like it's actually a very involved process. mean, we know, like you've mentioned in a previous episode as well, the oral microbiome has a direct reflect inside of your gut. One can lead to the other, they can be reflective of each other, but it sounds like it's a very involved process. So...
Gerald Curatola (10:58.268) Ahem.
Josh Dech - CHN (11:06.383) Maybe I'd be safe to assume, in my case, and anyone listening can say, I've had my wisdom teeth removed. I wasn't aware about bone grafts and all these different things and detoxing and cleansing and cleaning and ozone. So there's probably a good chance I've got some sort of even low grade infection impacting my immune system inside my mouth where these cavitations exist. Would it be as simple as going in and getting ozone injections into any existing pockets? Is that something that needs reopening surgery? How do you go and correct these things that protect your gut?
Gerald Curatola (11:36.604) Yeah, by the way, I can't believe how knowledgeable you are in this. It's really and the question is so good because a lot of people who are listening to us, you know, can really get some actionable information. The answer to your question is it depends and it depends on how large the defect is. So sometimes we'll see a small pocket of what we call osteonecrosis or a cavitation. So it's funny the word cavitation was made up.
Josh Dech - CHN (11:40.264) you.
Gerald Curatola (12:05.897) by an orthopedic surgeon in 1931. He was dissecting the human jaw and he found these areas where there were holes, know, actual necrotic areas of bone, dead necrotic means dead, dead areas of bone where, you know, there may have been a tooth extracted as we're speaking about now. And he had to come up with a word for it. And cavity was a word referring to a hole in a tooth. So he invented the word cavitation.
Josh Dech - CHN (12:34.832) You
Gerald Curatola (12:35.891) for a hole in the jaw. And the reality is that they vary in size. Some people, like my daughter Grace, they healed completely. She was one of the lucky ones, in the minority by the way, who had her wisdom teeth out and I did a 3D cone beam, which by the way, I read them every day. And if anyone listening wants to know whether they have cavitations, the gold standard is this 3D cone beam.
which they can send digitally to me or my office and I read them all day long. I've become, you know, really it's been a, I'm actually teaching other dentists how to read them because most dentists don't even know. There's so much information on a 3D cone beam that you don't see on a regular X -ray that even dentists who traditionally, you know, have
The cone beam has only been around, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years that it's been commonplace in dental practices. Many dental practices still don't have it. Most oral surgery offices or dental offices where dentists do implants, these these cone beam machines are used to see if there's room for a dental implant or to look for various landmarks like the sinus on the upper jaw or the
major nerve canal on the bottle called the inferior alveolar canal, which has the major nerve to your lower jaw. You don't want to put an implant near that. So these 3D condoms are getting more popular, but they do let us know if you have a cavitation, how large your cavitation is, is your cavitation impinging on other areas, and how complicated would it be to resolve. Going back to your question,
Can you inject ozone in a small cavitation? Yes. In a large cavitation, ozone is like using nose spray on a sinus infection. It'll kill everything there, but you'll get a rebound effect because the defect is not resolved. Ozone will not resolve the defect. It'll only kill pathogens that are in the defect. And if you don't get rid of the defect, just like you get a rebound of sinus congestion from nose spray,
Gerald Curatola (14:53.93) you're going to get a rebound in the cavitation of all the pathogenic activity that was there before you used the ozone in the first place.
Josh Dech - CHN (15:01.743) Hmm. Gotcha. Okay. So ozone can be beneficial, but maybe is not as perfect as one would hope. it would work. There may still be some risk of recurrence of infection. Gotcha.
Gerald Curatola (15:15.999) Right, right. And you know, the root cause is eliminate the defect because it is a defect in the jaw that's warm, it's dark, it's moist, and there usually isn't a good blood supply. So you can have your immune system working to clean up the stuff that's there, the junk that's there. So you have a cave or what I call a petri dish for pathogens.
Josh Dech - CHN (15:40.105) Unfortunately, I talked about our immune system sort of being like an octopus. It's only got so many tentacles to balance so many things. And that's just one more arm.
being used to clean out or constantly manage in your jaw. And so if you get sick and other things, you need all these extra arms are going to be short, which means you're more prone to getting chronic illness, chronic disease, even autoimmune conditions because it's filling your glass. And so I love that. It's very helpful. Now out of curiosity, I do want to move off of wisdom teeth, but the questions keep coming up because so many of us have had them removed. You know, Jerry, last time we spoke, we had a chance to talk about our teeth and how they sort of connect to other organs.
Gerald Curatola (15:50.067) Cough
Gerald Curatola (15:54.294) threat.
Gerald Curatola (16:03.07) Exactly. Absolutely.
Gerald Curatola (16:11.55) Yeah
Josh Dech - CHN (16:19.448) and I believe it was I forget which episode maybe episode 9 with Michelle Jorgensen she's another bio dentist and she had mentioned in her practice she very rarely will see any woman who's ever had a root canal I don't know if it's the canines of the ones next to them who has a root canal there and did not let me correct myself
Gerald Curatola (16:27.499) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (16:39.846) it was states of breast cancer and it was something like 90 something percent, if not 100 % of women who had breast cancer had root canals in these teeth. And so we're looking at the correlations between organs and the rest of our systems. sort of touched on it a little bit last time, but I'd love to dive into your experience in teeth and organs. Now, to preface, I do have a theory. You know, we look at acupuncture.
Gerald Curatola (16:48.982) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (17:04.496) We look at acupressure, these meridian lines. We look at yoga as massaging of the nervous system. I have this running theory with no dental knowledge, but that chewing your food is actually a neurological response back to organs to massage and stimulate certain responses. Can you prove or disprove that or elaborate on the role of our teeth, particularly teeth like wisdom teeth or other ones and how they connect to our organs and our digestive system?
Gerald Curatola (17:31.512) Absolutely. I love these questions, by the way. And I'm really, really impressed with your depth of knowledge. I have to tell you that I do a lot of interviews and all. for lack of a better word, your dental IQ is so high that I'm enjoying this.
Josh Dech - CHN (17:35.433) thank you.
Josh Dech - CHN (17:53.54) thank you. It's mere inquisition. Very inquisitive.
Gerald Curatola (18:00.624) Your question actually gets to the point of how absurd root canals are to start with, because the philosophy behind doing a root canal, and by the way, you're talking about the upper first molars, the upper molars right behind the bicuspids are energetically on a meridian for your breast, for your thyroid, for your stomach, and on the upper right it's the pancreas and on the upper left it's the spleen.
So you have like Grand Central Station of organ meridians that are connected to the upper back molars. And you're right, not the third mole, not the wisdom teeth, but the first and second molars. But you're absolutely right. Dr. Jorgensen, what she was saying is that I often see people, I had a woman today, I had a woman with breast cancer on her left breast. She had one root canal in her mouth, guess where?
Josh Dech - CHN (18:55.876) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (18:56.121) right on the upper left molar, which is connected on the breast meridian for the left breast. And it was infected. And it was infected. So the whole theory behind root canal is root canal, teeth are these inner organs, know, inner things, know, like inner pieces of bone, harder bone, right, your teeth are harder than your bones. But it's it's inner and we just take the guts out.
Josh Dech - CHN (19:02.18) Come on.
Gerald Curatola (19:24.592) You know, we do taxidermy or what I call embalming the tooth. When I came out of dental school, they were actually using a material that had formaldehyde in it to stick it in teeth. was called Sergenti paste and people were getting sick. then the FDA here and I think the FDA in Canada banned it. And so now we have gut aperture and, you know, and other materials. But the absurdity is thinking of a tooth as an extension of bone that has a nerve and a blood vessel. Well, no.
Josh Dech - CHN (19:35.277) Gerald Curatola (19:53.702) There's an entire circulatory system, lymphatic system, nervous system, skeletal system. It's almost like, and there's dental tubules that have fluid flow that affect that very, very essential, this dental fluid flow and all this stuff that make your teeth living, breathing organs. Each one is like an organ unto itself. And now you have these.
Micro organs connected to macro organs with meridian flow and all this stuff. So the idea that you can take all the guts out and fill it with, you know, whatever you're bombing, know, some people call it taxidermy on teeth and all that. One thing is for sure, it is the only procedure in the history of medicine where we keep something dead inside you and we think it's OK.
We do not do root canal on your gallbladder, on your appendix, on your, you know, we do this root canal therapy and modern root canal, by the way, has only been around since the end of World War II. But we do this on these living breathing organs called teeth that actually even have psycho -emotional connections with the rest of the body, which I only but the there's a book called The Secret Lives of Teeth.
Josh Dech - CHN (20:49.953) Mm
Gerald Curatola (21:18.908) And it would be an interesting book to read talking about how your teeth are actually even connected to emotions, emotional, know, psycho -emotional component. So you have, you know, microbial, biochemical, energetic, psycho -emotional, and then the highest level that the body regulates and heals is, of course, the spiritual level. And so we're mind, body, spirit.
not just in our bodies on a macro level, but in a micro level in these little organs called teeth. So when you understand that and you realize that root canal therapy, which has been taught, and there's over, I don't know, 40 to 50 million root canals done a year globally. And in the United States and Canada, a good portion of them, that these
Josh Dech - CHN (21:50.53) Wow.
Gerald Curatola (22:13.311) procedures of keeping something dead. It's just like a dead body, you know, for the first few years it doesn't necrosis very much. But then when necrosis kicks in, you start to see these teeth literally decomposing in the human jaw. They turn brown and black, disgusting black. You know, I often take these teeth out, there are cysts attached to them. They are gross, just like, you know, a zombie.
We call them zombie teeth. And my friends who are root canal specialists, they're like, Jerry, give me a break. I'm like, guys, really the future is not in embalming teeth. The future is in regeneration, pulpal regenerative, with stem cell therapy or regrowing a tooth with stem cells. This is the future. This is where we are. So, I love the title of your
Josh Dech - CHN (22:43.928) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (23:11.243) your podcast reversible is really, you know, that's what we want to do. Our bodies have a divine ability to self -regulate and heal, to reverse chronic illness, to reverse disease. And the key is to going for, the root causes, no pun intended, the root causes are toxicity and chronic unchecked inflammation, chronic low -grade inflammation.
Josh Dech - CHN (23:40.003) Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. You know, we start looking at this, I can break it down in where I specialize, which is gut. But I mean, we have inherited dysbiosis, right? We get that say great, great grandmother had 1000 microbes, then great grandmother gets
800 then grandma gets six and mom gets four then you get two you have dysbiosis which allows other toxins and things to come in more readily more opportunistic microbes and now we all have dysbiosis plus for toxic plus our world is toxic plus root canals and now here we are and our whole body can't really regenerate itself because we've lost most of the tools we used to have but no longer do
And last time, Jerry, we were here, we were talking a bit about regeneration. We sort of got into the topic of oral health and regenerating your teeth. I'd love to dive into some tangible steps with you here because this is one of the most.
For me, one of the most fascinating topics about the future of dentistry is the human body regenerating what we thought were these dead bricks inside of our mouth made for chewing food. But they are connected to everything. The meridians, the organs, the emotions. There's so much more and I can't imagine pulling this necrotic tooth out. That what it's doing to your body, your immune system, it's getting into your bloodstream. It's interacting with the microbes in your gut. You're swallowing this up. Like no wonder we're so sick. So
Gerald Curatola (24:42.199) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (25:01.959) Ultimately, the future of dentistry is also the future of gut health because this is the start of your gut is the mouth. So talk to me about regenerating teeth. You mentioned stem cell therapy. We sort of danced around the concept of peptides last time. Let's use a tangible example. I've got a few cavities. Now this is from a couple different things. One, it's been
Gerald Curatola (25:08.788) Absolutely
Josh Dech - CHN (25:24.317) oral microbiome over the years not been optimized. I've got a lot of gut issues I've dealt with over the years and now we got this. Number two, I had a parasite infection which actually led to grinding of my teeth. They cause neurological irritation and now my molars off the back, these little what should be peaks are flat but because they had hollow points, I'm down to those hollow points. I actually get like seeds, blackberries and stuff stuck inside I have to pick out. So I've got cupping.
Gerald Curatola (25:35.0) Exactly.
Gerald Curatola (25:44.973) Mm
Gerald Curatola (25:48.472) It's called cupping in the dentin. Yeah, cupping.
Josh Dech - CHN (25:51.454) Okay, so I've got cupping and I've got cavities. I had a tooth extracted so I was like, I'm not doing a root canal. I do actually have a root canal and a crown on left side that I want to get implanted. So there's three things we can tackle. Cavities, worn down teeth and cupping, and steps for root canals. Where would you like to start on regeneration in the best process as possible? And this is like a whole weekend seminar.
Gerald Curatola (26:11.114) Well, I'm going to dive right in. I'm just going to dive in the deep end of the pool right now. So, and what's amazing is, you you said something just a minute ago about how I had parasites and was grinding, right? Most patients who are grinding would go to a general dentist and the dentist would say, you know, Josh, you need a night guard. You're grinding. But
Josh Dech - CHN (26:18.741) Please no floaties.
Gerald Curatola (26:40.621) without looking at the root cause, right? And the root cause for you is parasitic, which by the way, it's very telling. And often people who have cavitations, jaw cavitations, they're loaded with parasites. As a matter of fact, I have a report right here. Yep, that is loaded with parasites. And what happens is those parasites go from that area, trigger this whole
Josh Dech - CHN (26:53.643) Hmm. So the cavitation is loaded with parasites? Wow.
Gerald Curatola (27:09.852) neurophysical response, grinding. Another thing, another root cause of grinding, by the way, is also a compromised airway. So if you are choking in your sleep, you will be a grinder or a clencher. And again, you my point is, that dentists look at the symptoms and not the root cause and we need to be
One of the things I love about biologic dentistry for those that understand it and understand this connection to biologic medicine is the ability to get to the root cause. So parasites in the mouth can create a lot of havoc and not just grinding and wearing of your teeth or clenching and gnashing of teeth, it is obviously this dysbiosis is contributing to a host of other problems, including
You have two issues in the gut, of course. So the oral microbiome contributes and we used to think the hydrochloric acid in the stomach creates pathogens, prevents pathogens from the mouth from getting into the digestive tract and that's been proven false. Believe it or not, there are pathogens that can sustain and especially people who have gut dysbiosis already and are taking protonics
Josh Dech - CHN (28:22.229) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (28:32.548) which are, you know, Prilosec and Zantac and all this other garbage to decrease their stomach acid. These pathogens are now getting into the small intestine and large intestine and you have bacteria, know, oral bacteria like Klebsiella pneumonia contributing to Crohn's and ulcerative colitis from microbes that have gone from the mouth
into the large intestine, small intestine, lots of connections there. But there's something really, really important for homeostasis or balance in the mouth of oral health. It's called the dento -cyalo -microbial complex. Dento, teeth, cyalo, saliva, microbial microbes, your oral microbiome. So teeth,
saliva and your oral microbiome work as this magnificent system. And by the way, this was one of the biggest aha moments I had in my 40 year career as a dentist. And it was that your saliva is rich in ionic minerals, that your oral microbiome is an intelligent semi -permeable membrane.
that transports ionic minerals to the surfaces of the enamel of your teeth for your teeth to remineralize. So when your microbiome is in a state of balance or health, and by the way, I 20 years of my dental career developing formulations to promote microbial homeostasis in mouth, one of them is this Ravitan product. And Ravitan is a prebiotic formula
that's loaded with ionic minerals, vitamin C, D, E, K, and coenzyme Q10. And the idea is, you know, feed your smile, you know, right? So really what I'm doing is I'm helping to support the dento -sial microbial complex. We're going to talk about nanohydroxyapatite in a minute too. But when it's in balance,
Gerald Curatola (30:53.114) your oral microbiome transports minerals to your teeth from your saliva like calcium and phosphorus. It also transports molecular oxygen from your breathing in from the environment in your mouth, transports molecular oxygen to the surface of your gums to keep your gums rich and healthy and it takes ionic oxygen or free radicals away. So there is this
magnificent self -healing metabolism in your mouth that works for your body to heal itself. Like people say, can your teeth heal? And the answer is yes, can heal, enamel can remineralize when you get into the organic part of the tooth, which by the way is at the base of where you're cupping the little
you know, kind of inverted little erosions on the top of your teeth. When you're into dentin, what we find is that that's more difficult. The organic part of your tooth doesn't remineralize as well as the inorganic part of your tooth, which is really a lot of acid base reactions take place in the inorganic part. But the organic part, that becomes a little trickier. So when decay passes what we call the dento,
the enamel dental, the enamel dento enamel junction, DEJ, that's where, you know, remineralization starts to become more compromised. But a balanced oral microbiome heals your teeth, keeps your gums well, you know, healthy and oxygenated when it, when it is at a balance. So when the, when that oral microbiome is at a balance or what we were referring to as a dysbiotic state,
Then it does the opposite. That's when you get gum inflammation. That's when you get demineralization of your teeth. So your teeth will actually, you know, erode and you get demineralization in an unbalanced microbiome, remineralization, healthy mineralization in a balanced environment. That's the part that really fascinated me. You know, we're here with 75 years of fluoridation, a toxic halide chemical.
Josh Dech - CHN (33:18.075) Mm -hmm.
Gerald Curatola (33:18.079) You know that, you know, and it was really interesting. It was the US Army that did these. It was the Grand Rapids studies that found, when you introduce this chemical called fluorine, which fluoride is a made up word, fluorine is the element on the periodic table. It's the most highly charged non -radioactive element on the periodic table. So it's so negatively charged that when you introduce fluorine, it knocks out hydroxy out of hydroxyapatite and it makes it
floor appetite. And what a lot of people don't know, and they don't know this, floor appetite is very, very hard, like this glass that I'm holding. Can't scratch it very, very hard. But if I drop this, the tensile strength, if I drop this on a hard floor, it'll break in a million pieces. Well, teeth and bones do the same thing that a floor did. It's very high hardness, but about 33 % lower tensile strength.
Gerald Curatola (34:22.915) Since about 33 % lower tensile strength, you could edit out that first part. Edit out the part where my voice is cracking.
Josh Dech - CHN (34:28.718) That's what editing's for, you're alright. It's like third puberty, you're fine.
Josh Dech - CHN (34:36.527) So question four. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Jerry. Finish up. Sure. So out of curiosity, obviously, I'd love to actually get to a step by step tangible, like what can we do to start regrowing? But I want to know what's possible. How far is too far gone? Like we talked about, say, my teeth where I've got this cupping, where I've ground them down. We've got cavities. Is it after you've already broken down to the pulp? Is it after you've broken down, now the nerves are irritated and inflamed? Like how far is too far gone?
Gerald Curatola (34:36.983) So sure, go right ahead. No, go right ahead.
Josh Dech - CHN (35:05.456) to begin repairing teeth.
Gerald Curatola (35:08.388) The dentin, the dentin. mean, remineralization of teeth, remineralization of teeth is really more effective in the enamel than in the dentin. So when you've already made it through the enamel and you're into dentin, you're not really going to remineralize there. But what you will do a lot of times like you, for example, your teeth may not be sensitive, but you have all these erosions on the top from grinding and all that.
Josh Dech - CHN (35:12.068) And what is a dentin?
Gerald Curatola (35:37.508) The reality is that your teeth probably aren't even sensitive because you get pulpal recession and the dentin kind of gets a glassy finish. So the tubules are sealed. It's a glassy finish but you are going to be prone to additional wear because the dentin is an organic part of the tooth that's very soft.
Josh Dech - CHN (35:59.057) Gotcha. Okay, so it's soft. It's not it's not going to you over time. It's not going to have the same resiliency as teeth that are diamond hard. So someone who's in the enamel in the dentin, how would we know for to the dentin besides seeing a dentist?
Gerald Curatola (36:07.437) Exactly.
Gerald Curatola (36:14.789) It's really interesting because people whose teeth look really yellow, know, especially as you get older, the teeth look yellower. That's because the enamel is thinning because dentin is a very kind of yellowish tooth structure. The dentin is yellowish. The people who have super white teeth, they either have very thick enamel on their teeth or their enamel is very opaque like frosted glass instead of transparent.
translucent glass. So the dentin is yellow. You can usually see it by there. You will usually have faster wear like you have. You have the dentin wearing now you've won through the enamel. The dentin is wearing faster than the surrounding enamel. And and so now you have these inverted, you know, kind of what I called cupping in the surfaces of your teeth from that wear.
Josh Dech - CHN (37:06.544) Hmm.
So I do have some yellowing on my teeth. I've noticed that. I've actually got a whitener that I use. It's this little pen that I put on and I actually will put some in my retainer, which I use because my dentist said protect your teeth. And so that's what I've got. So.
I'm going to pick up some of your writing. I've actually it's how I found you a year or two ago when I first got onto your trail and what you were doing. I saw you doing a video on social media with if I'm not mistaken, it might have been Warren Phillips, non toxic dad. It was somebody and you were in your office talking about this toothpaste that you had and I just I loved it. I thought it was amazing. Did some research. I thought I'd like to speak to him. So here we are now all this time later and I've used your toothpaste. I like the orange personally was my favorite but
Gerald Curatola (37:37.84) Thank you.
Gerald Curatola (37:52.834) Right. Well, we have a mint and there's a new branding, too. I mean, it'd be the free. You'll be one of the first to see this. So these are the this is the new branding. That's the citrus. We wanted to give it a more organic feel. the mint really interesting. This is a new formula. A lot of people ask for men. And they were like, why didn't you make a toothpaste when you started this? Because it was like the this was the Model T. OK, so you know, as Henry Ford said, you know, you have any color car as long as it's black.
Josh Dech - CHN (37:56.91) I noticed that.
Josh Dech - CHN (38:06.255) Mm
Josh Dech - CHN (38:16.837) Sure, yeah, yeah.
Gerald Curatola (38:22.087) This was like Ravitan. You can have any flavor you want as long as it's citrus. But then there were people like, please, please make mint. Why don't you make mint? Well, a lot of people don't understand. There's a lot of oral care products have very strong peppermint oil in them and all. Peppermint is very disturbing to the microbiome. They used to put it in to cover up the bitterness of the soap, sodium lauryl sulfate.
Josh Dech - CHN (38:26.373) Sure, that's very fair. Citrus is easy.
Josh Dech - CHN (38:44.045) Yeah.
Gerald Curatola (38:48.776) and it also covered up the bitterness of fluoride. So these were chemicals in toothpaste that were very bitter and so they put extra peppermint in which burns your mouth which is like, wow, my mouth must be clean and it feels fresh and it was like a Mollytuff cocktail on the microbiome. So now I just wanted to say we created a mint that is very gentle, that doesn't disturb. It actually has
Josh Dech - CHN (39:00.217) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (39:03.744) Minty fresh, sure. Yeah, burnin' things up. So, wow. So, I mean, that's very telling.
Gerald Curatola (39:18.137) organic spearmint oil and a little organic vanilla, just soft enough to get a nice clean fresh mint flavor without, you know, nuking your microbiome.
Josh Dech - CHN (39:29.924) Totally. I love that. Let's walk through in our few minutes that we got left here, Jerry. Can we walk through, because I'm sure there's a lot of people in my situation, they got some cavities, they got some yellowing, some thinning, or they're told, you know, your thin enamel is just genetic or whatever it might be.
Walk, can you walk me through whether it's a three step or five step process? Are we addressing the oral microbiome? Is it nutritional? Is it the toothpaste? Feel free to promote your toothpaste. I'm a big fan of it. I'm actually trying to get more. It's hard to get in Canada. So can you walk me through this process?
Gerald Curatola (39:56.004) Hahaha!
Well, you know what, it'll be a lot easier to get in Canada. We actually have an Amazon wholesaler who distributes in Canada now. So it'll be a lot easier. I know it's so crazy, you know, we're like cousins, you know, across the border from each other. But it really, you know, we should have. I actually like the idea when there was no border between Canada, the US and Mexico.
Josh Dech - CHN (40:14.948) Yeah, yeah.
Gerald Curatola (40:24.424) that NAFTA, you know, but now it's, we're putting walls up and I've always had a kinship and I have family on both sides of the border and everything else. The, you know, when you, in summing up, do you want me to talk about the process of looking at how I look at a patient? Or what would
Josh Dech - CHN (40:29.636) Sorry, sorry.
Josh Dech - CHN (40:47.182) Yeah, so let's say I was a patient sitting in your chair. I've got some cavities that are forming. My oral microbiome is clearly not super perfect. My diet is really good.
but for some reason, I just, my oral health could be better, my breath's not the greatest, besides Listerine -ing the crap out of my mouth and nuking everything once again. What would be the steps, maybe you go one, two, three, four, five, are you doing a microbiome test? Are you looking at nutrition first? Like what are the steps and the orders that we can take away as a tangible from this?
Gerald Curatola (41:18.423) There are three of the top steps or three of the, let me rephrase that and we'll edit that out, but three of the top tests that I know, and I'm getting good at this. Three of the top tests that I recommend for every patient who comes in are number one, a cone beam. A cone beam gives us the lay of the land of what's going on.
Josh Dech - CHN (41:28.589) Yep.
Josh Dech - CHN (41:32.514) You
Gerald Curatola (41:46.698) You know, it's almost made conventional x -rays obsolete. We still do use conventional x -rays. I'll do like four bite wings and take a cone beam. That cone beam is going to show me, know, if you have root canals, are there cavitations around your root canals? Do you have cavitations where your third molars were removed? Do you have any problems in your sinuses? Are there any other abnormalities in the
in the joint, you know, in the condyles of the mandible, they imbalanced? Do you have anything irregular in your joint? And also, the cone beam we have can even show your airway. Are you airway compromised? Do you have upper airway resistance? You know, we can even see tongue tied, believe it or not, on a cone beam without even looking at the soft tissue in the mouth, just by how the tongue appears and, you know, and where it is positioned in the mouth. So,
tone beam is an invaluable aid in the diagnosis of a patient. The second thing is, and I want everyone to do this at least once, is a home sleep study because obstructive sleep apnea is affecting over a billion people on the planet. It puts you at risk of everything from, by the way, ADHD and bedwetting and children to adults.
Josh Dech - CHN (42:48.557) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (43:10.638) who are at risk of blood sugar dysregulation, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, early dementia, Alzheimer's, and high blood pressure. That's another really crazy one with obstructive sleep apnea. So in addition to drowsiness, sleeping in a higher vehicle accidents, yada, yada, yada. So a home sleep study
is really important. Why is it important with the mouth? Because over 80 % of obstructive sleep apnea has to do with upper airway resistance and it has to do with the architecture of your mouth. Do you have a narrow arch? Do you have a high vaulted palate which impinges on your ability to breathe through your nose? Which by the way, when you breathe through your nose, you produce nitric oxide, essential
Josh Dech - CHN (43:52.045) Hmm.
Gerald Curatola (44:05.061) for cardiovascular health, immune system health, and a host of other things. In addition to using antimicrobial products in your mouth, like alcohol mouth washes or chemical mouth washes, the old Listerine, kill everything, kill germs on contact, well, you're also killing your ability to make nitric oxide. So the cone beam, the home sleep study. And then the third one would be a...
I like to use RNA microbiome testing. A company that I work with very close with is Viome. And the Viome, you know, oral health kit can actually tell you your risk of developing oral cancer as well as the level of dysbiosis. But there's like five now genetic testing in the mouth.
Josh Dech - CHN (44:39.489) Mm.
Gerald Curatola (45:02.05) microbial testing, genetic testing in the mouth is very popular. Now I have one proviso about that. They've become very popular, but it is a screening device because a lot of them use saliva to test the pathogens in your mouth. And saliva is the one area that where you have a lot of transient organisms, what we call planktonic organisms, planktonic bacteria.
which very often are pathogens. The basal microbiome could be healthy, but the planktonic organisms that are spewing off very often are pathogens. So it may give a skewed picture of how bad your mouth is. And I see some biologic dentists using this testing, you know, as a scare technique. In the 1970s, we used to have where you can take a swab of your plaque, put it on a slide and put it under a microscope.
and you see all these bugs swimming around and everybody's like, kill the bacteria in my mouth, kill it, kill it. And that if we were successful in killing plaque, that's the last thing I could leave you with. If we were successful in killing plaque, we would unleash ecological Armageddon because what we've learned is that the microbiome of our mouth is it runs us, it regulates and
Josh Dech - CHN (46:04.097) Mm
Gerald Curatola (46:27.694) It actually compartmentalizes and stratifies our immune system. It's an intricate part of the metabolism of keeping our mouths and bodies healthy. So we do not want to kill it. Think of the oral microbiome like a coral reef protecting an island. You don't want to nuke it. And I have three microbiome commandments. Number one, we're made of microbes. That could be
By the way, that could be another old podcast in itself. You know, we're made of microbes. And literally, there's even a theory that our human cells have mitochondria, which are the same shape of a bacterium. They divide the same. They hold all the genetic information. So the wonder is, and I was once lecturing to biologic dentists in Austin, Texas, and talked about how
Josh Dech - CHN (47:00.843) Yes.
Gerald Curatola (47:24.553) you know, in that verse in Genesis chapter two, verse seven, where it says, God took from the dust of the earth and he breathed his spirit and we became mind, body, spirit. And I was like, dust? You know, the stuff my mother used to clean off the bookcases in the den. And this man came up to me who was a Hebrew scholar, studied scripture, knew the Aramaic, and he said, the translation is not dust. It's more like slime. And I was like, that's it.
The earth was covered with microbial slime before we even existed on this planet. So whether you're a creationist or an evolutionist, really, you know, those bacteria may have been engulfed in a cytoplasm into cells and tissues and organs and were wondrously made. But we know now that there are 10 times the number of bacteria in and on our bodies and our own human cells and that our human cells may have evolved or been created.
from those very bacteria. So one, we're made of microbes, essentially. You know, the genetic information from the microbes in and on our bodies is a hundred times that of our human cells. So the number of them is 10 times, it varies, but generally accepted about 10 times. So microbiome commandments are we're made of microbes. Number two, the microbes run us.
we do not run them. It's very Copernican shift in our understanding of the relationship between man and microbe that goes back to the beginning. And that relationship is one where the microbes run the show. every time, and you know, my third commandment, well, actually there's four, I forgot. Third commandment is if you go to war with your microbes, you're gonna lose.
So we've been in the antibiotic race and we've created superbugs all over the place. MRSA being the most well -known, methicillin -resistant staph aureus, bacteria, MRSA can shut down a gymnasium or a school or whatever. The reality is that there's many more MRSA type superbugs that exist. I test pathogens in cavitations and I routinely see...
Josh Dech - CHN (49:34.261) Mm
Gerald Curatola (49:45.873) antibiotic resistant bacteria of the scariest type, tuberculin bacteria that are antibiotic resistant. How about that? And we have people sitting in hospitals right now who are resistant to the most, the biggest guns we have, vancomycin resistant bacteria and all this stuff. So what, and the reason for that is these microbes, which paid a high evolutionary price to be there. And we're on this planet before we were, they exchanged genetic information.
and they flip a switch and they can literally go from benign, what we call a probiotic bacteria. That same bacteria has a pleomorphic capability to go from benign to pathogen just by flipping a switch. So if you go to war with your microbes, you're going to lose. And the final commandment I have is we have to learn to make peace with our microbes. Make peace with your microbes.
They keep us love and peace, not war. Make peace, not war with our microbes. And when you understand that after 25 years of microbiome research, I even made a clinical research wing at New York University for translational research in the oral microbiome. So I'd been at this a very long time. Ruvitan was the brainchild of the microbiome science that I was studying.
and understanding how to make peace with our microbes. So I created a formula in Ravitan that promotes balance or what we call microbial homeostasis. And when we do that, dramatic things happen. We were observing inflammation, puffiness of the gums and all that goes down by over 80 % in two weeks. Gums stop bleeding in a weekend. And I can't say those things because those are structure function claims.
Josh Dech - CHN (51:40.083) Wow.
Gerald Curatola (51:44.056) which you know toothpaste is regulated as a cosmetic in the United States and Canada. But when you use it and the biggest thing people would say is you know I wake up in the morning my mouth feels clean like I just went to the dentist like I don't have the sweaters on your teeth you know that slimy feel of I call them mohair sweaters on your teeth and and they don't have that and the reason is is because when the oral microbiome is in balance
Josh Dech - CHN (51:59.39) Mm
Josh Dech - CHN (52:02.92) That fuzzy stuff, yeah.
Gerald Curatola (52:12.17) It is a thin, clear, odorless film, not a thick, sticky, smelly film, which is a sign of dysbiosis. the science of the microbiome has changed everything. The human microbiome project of the whole body has been called the Copernican Revolution in science, just as big as when Copernicus said, the Earth is in the center of the universe. We revolve around this fiery ball called the sun.
A lot of people didn't understand it, but still in oral care, we have major consumer product companies pushing this kill germs, kill plaque, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. And it's time for doctors to get out of the chemical business.
Josh Dech - CHN (52:50.75) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (52:56.648) Hmm. Yeah, no kidding. So.
I guess that really answers the question in a very extensive way. mean, our our three step process really is microbiome testing, doing a sleep study or mouth open, mouth closed. Any infections that will tell you what's going on that may be contributing to your airways, which tells us back to the teeth, the comb being scanned to visualize any pockets which will contribute to your oral microbiome. And then through this way, using things like your Avitan toothpaste, which again, I'm a huge fan, we can then begin to give our body what it needs. These ionized minerals, these
Gerald Curatola (53:03.68) Yeah
Josh Dech - CHN (53:30.229) very bioavailable minerals to begin remineralizing that top level. And of course, anything deeper, seek help. Seek help. That's what I was trying to say. Go see Dr. Curatola. I love it. Jerry, it's been brilliant. Not long enough, obviously. There's so much more we could get into.
Gerald Curatola (53:40.238) Hahaha!
Gerald Curatola (53:46.842) Well, you and I, let's stay in good contact with each other. You do a wonderful job of making very complex science understandable to the everyday person. And I try to do the same thing. I mean, my favorite thing that I tell patients, no matter how bad their mouths are, no matter how much disease they have in their mouth, know, the biologic medicine.
of which biologic dentistry is a subset has taught me these two words, you're fixable. No one is hopeless. You're fixable. And there people that have been through a lot in their lives, in their mouth, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and they're a mess and, you know, they've gone to 20 dentists and all that. And, you know, when they come in, they're almost in tears. And I let them know you're fixable. You have a divine capacity to self -regulate and heal on multiple levels.
Josh Dech - CHN (54:42.503) Yes.
Gerald Curatola (54:44.816) and the highest level that kind of keeps the Tesla plugged in the wall to charge it is being connected spiritually. And that's through meditation, prayer, mindfulness. That's how you feed that life force. You feed that life force to be energized, download that energy, that divine energy to be able to regulate and heal on all the other levels, psycho -emotional, energetic, biochemical and microbial.
All of those are different levels of this divine capacity we have because of the life force we've been given. Now the life force that inhabits this tent of the body is what gives us the capacity to self -regulate and heal. And that's what makes disease reversible. To tie it to your podcast.
Josh Dech - CHN (55:30.32) Yeah, I love that.
Josh Dech - CHN (55:37.202) love that I had this one liner waiting in the back of my head this entire time like he stole my thunder but totally reversible love it well Jerry thank you so much
Gerald Curatola (55:42.557) Hahaha!
You are reversible. That's why I loved it. I loved your...
Gerald Curatola (55:52.349) My pleasure, Josh.
Josh Dech - CHN (55:52.374) It's been a mind blowing experience. I thought it was gonna be a much shorter podcast, but it was just so good. And you've been so generous with your time. I really hope people find you. As a quick reminder, I know you mentioned last time, we'll link everything again. Where can people find you? Your clinic that they want. I know people fly from all over the world to come and see you. Whereabouts can they get a hold of you?
Gerald Curatola (56:06.951) Yeah.
Gerald Curatola (56:11.239) Sure, sure. Well, the first thing is I'm always putting out information on my IG, Instagram, at Dr. Jerry Curie. Jerry is a G, so it's D -R -G -E -R -R -Y, C -U -R -A -T -O -L -A. And my office is Rejuvenation Dentistry. And you can go to, or Rejuve Health, R -E -J -U -V, I think we can put that handle up, Rejuve Health.
There's a hyphen between rejuven health and there's great, fantastic.
Josh Dech - CHN (56:40.775) I'll put all those inside the show notes. People can click for sure.
Josh Dech - CHN (56:47.108) And what else was there?
Gerald Curatola (56:49.042) No, no, I was going to say also, I'm, know, in New York City at www .rejuve -health .com. We actually have an office in East Hampton and soon we will have an office in Barbados where many American Canadian friends like to go in the winter.
Josh Dech - CHN (57:13.219) I love that. Take a trip to New York in the summer, go to Barbados in the winter, have a vacation. That's what I meant. I live in Canada. It's always winter. You go on vacation and go see Jerry at the same time. I love it. Dr. Kiritola, it's been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to being in touch and just following along what you're doing. And I'm to get my hands on some of that toothpaste. It's been a pleasure.
Gerald Curatola (57:17.617) Winter go to Barbados.
Gerald Curatola (57:23.357) Hahaha!
Gerald Curatola (57:35.101) Right on. Same here.