Josh Dech - CHN (00:00.104) Intros post, no time wasted. Any questions for me before we dive right in?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (00:02.85) Perfect.
No, we're good. I'm good.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:07.173) Okay, beautiful. Well, we're recording we're running it and we'll get right into it and it is Kurt Hola.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (00:14.414) Kuretola like Kura Mola
Josh Dech - CHN (00:15.689) Kura Tola. I've never heard Kura Mola, so the reference means nothing to me. But we appreciate you being here. And Jerry, if you don't mind, sorry, just tossing that on silent as well so we don't shock our viewers' eardrums out. you're good.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (00:20.803) You
Dr. Gerry Curatola (00:31.39) so sorry, you're right. Nick!
Hang on one second. Sorry about that. should have been. All right. It's Nick's mother's birthday. Okay, you're on Do Not Disturb.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:38.921) So you're all right. Sometimes when people are listening in earbuds, it goes, bang, we can't change the volume. It'll make you very upset.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:48.284) Beautiful. Love it. Well in that case Jerry Curatola, welcome to reversible
Dr. Gerry Curatola (00:55.256) Thank you.
Josh Dech - CHN (00:57.481) I gotta tell ya, the conversation topics we have planned today, I'm 99 % sure that you're an actual wizard. You know, what we're getting into here covers some really interesting ground. We've had two biological dentists on in the past, but we've not covered any of the stuff you and I are talking about here, so I'm very excited about it. Right off the hop, first thing I wanna ask, and I wanna, we'll kinda see it into how we got here, but the first thing I wanna ask you, do you believe that teeth can be regrown post -cavities?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (01:14.83) Awesome.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (01:27.968) Absolutely. I believe in the bodies. know, it's funny, one of the foundational principles of biologic medicine is we believe that...
Each one of us has a divine life force. We call it the field in biologic medicine. But it gives us a really a supernatural capacity to self -regulate and heal and regenerate. So when you say can teeth regenerate, we can regenerate organs. Our liver regenerates. So you know, our brain regenerates. Our heart regenerates. We have this amazing capacity to regenerate and so
Josh Dech - CHN (01:41.309) Hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (02:08.24) You know, I think this is a very hot topic of research, regenerating teeth. And I routinely use a lot of regenerative materials in the procedures I do in my dental practice. So I will use, for example, platelet rich fibrin. Platelet rich fibrin comes from your blood. It's called a smart blood concentrate. And it has mesenchymal stem cells. The younger you are, the more they are. And those give us
the ability to really regenerate bone, regenerate gums, and now we are, and it's been successfully done in Japan and other places, to regenerate a tooth.
Before everyone gets too excited for those who are missing teeth, I think we're still a number of years off to where we can get a predictable result. But this is the leading edge. I think the future of health care is really going to be focused on regenerative therapies. That's a long answer, Josh.
Josh Dech - CHN (03:10.141) That's really interesting. No, that's a short answer. That's incredible. I mean, we're talking about Nobel Prize winning, world changing research that's never been seen or done before. I've read hypothetically that there may be peptides in the works that they can use for people who have lost teeth to re -stimulate the growth as if they were infants and new teeth can come in.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (03:33.526) It's so interesting. I'm in the middle right now of incorporating a lot of peptide therapy for procedures I do to help people heal. For example, there are these previously undiagnosed...
and really not even well taught in dental school, these areas of bone that is necrotic or dead after a tooth is extracted in the third molar areas where we used to think the gums grow over and the bone fills in like magically and now we know like.
bone regeneration bone needs a scaffold to heal. Otherwise you get some healing and it doesn't heal all the way and peptide therapy really enhances the regenerative capacity of bone.
Josh Dech - CHN (04:26.685) That's really amazing. You know, it almost feels like witchcraft. It's so cool the way we're seeing stuff. You know, it's like CRISPR technology where they can actually go into a developing fetus and change its eye color or hair color and make modifications. It's almost like we can do that now or we're developing this technology to be able to do this in grown adults who have been sick. Dr. David Sinclair, if you follow his work on anti -aging.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (04:52.245) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (04:52.359) was able to reverse the age of skin, tissues, eyes, and mice who were blind to make them see. And so we're creeping into this field now in dentistry. Am I getting that right?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (05:04.044) Yeah, no, dentistry is really evolving very quickly and dentistry needs to change. I've been on the front line of introducing a biologic philosophy in dentistry and everybody who called themselves a holistic dentist and when I was a younger dentist, I didn't really want to associate with the holistic dentist because even though I had done a lot of education, I did a program in complementary and alternative medicine at Harvard Medical School.
I went to Switzerland, I went to Germany and where the origins of biologic medicine came from. And one of the most influential doctors that I knew back then was a man by the name of Dr. Thomas Rau. I speak about all the time because he was the medical doctor who finally helped me understand what I call the mouth -body connection. We'll talk about the book. But that mouth -body connection, the mouth is a mirror and a gateway to what's going on in the body. Well, this man, Thomas Rau,
Well, if you had prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, autoimmune disease, any one of a number of serious chronic illnesses, the first thing that this man, a medical doctor, would do is say, open your mouth. And if you had...
Josh Dech - CHN (06:22.664) Hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (06:24.27) Infected root canals and heavy metals and mercury fillings, silver amalgam fillings. They're 52 % mercury. The number one source of toxicity and inflammation in the human body is in your mouth, starting with gum disease, really. Gum disease is the body's number one source of chronic low -grade inflammation. So this man really helped me understand that dentistry and medicine never
should have been separated. It never should have been, you want to study the body and, you know, heal people. You go to the medical school and but if you want to study this two by two cube that's stuck in the middle of your face called the mouth, then you go to dental school. And so it seemed illogical. What was even more illogical? I went to New York University College of Dentistry and graduated, you know, 41 years ago. The reality is that
Josh Dech - CHN (06:56.008) Hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (07:24.114) We were studying basic sciences, right, and medical sciences with a separate faculty five blocks away from the medical school where the medical students were learning the same thing with a separate faculty. And I always thought that was so illogical that medicine and dentistry was so divided like that. And really, like in Europe, that never happened. In many places in Europe, if you wanted to become a dentist, you went to medical school and then you sub -specialized.
in dentistry, cardiology, psychiatry, gynecology, you know, and so on and so forth. That is what always kind of confused me, like, you know, the dentists were these guys who just, you know, were mechanics of teeth. And I never saw myself as that.
Josh Dech - CHN (07:54.589) Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (08:16.893) I like that you said mechanics of teeth because we do have this very reductionist view of the human body in Western society where everything is segmented. The mouth is the mouth, the thyroid is the thyroid, the brain is the brain, but they're everything from your nails to your hair to your mouth. They're all interconnected, especially over my lifetime. I've had a history of biting my nails, so they're extra connected there. But we start to look at the rest of the body. It's really amazing how this starts in the mouth and gut health overall.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (08:22.061) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (08:45.265) Now we've had the pleasure of meeting with two biological dentists who spoke about sort of using the mouth like a crystal ball to be able to figure out what's going on inside the body to be able to predict disease. But you being the founder of the rejuvenation health and rejuvenation dentistry, I'd love to dive more into this rejuvenation process. So when somebody comes in, they've got cavities in their mouth. We know that it's not the sugar per se rotting out the mouth. It's the
bacteria eating the sugar producing byproducts like acetic or lactic acid that then erode the teeth. I've also been told that a robust microbiome in the mouth, contrary to the digestive system is a problem. You actually want more of a reductionist or less microbes in the mouth rather than a huge abundance in diversity. So talk to me one, is this right or wrong information I've got? Number two, how do you even begin?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (09:38.292) Thank
Josh Dech - CHN (09:40.722) testing or correcting the oral microbiome which is eroding your teeth no matter how much you brush.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (09:47.06) Alright, let me start by saying that everything, everything we knew about,
health and disease in the mouth has changed. Everything we've known about who we are as human beings has changed in the last 20 years. Actually, you know, about 20 years. The human microbiome project was referred to as a Copernican revolution in science. So Copernicus said, you know, the earth isn't the center of the universe. We revolve with other planets around this big ball called the sun. And, you know, the Pope, I think, put him in jail and,
and it was all, know, blasphemy and all that stuff. The reality is that, that...
Josh Dech - CHN (10:25.672) Of course. Heresy.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (10:33.358) And this was the aha moment for me in dentistry because I was mentored and I was in the midst when I came out of the Harvard program in complementary alternative medicine late nineties, there were these symposiums and complementary alternative medicine. I started saying, my goodness. And it was right around 1998 that the food and drug administration put a poison warning on toothpaste that had fluoride. And I was like, my goodness, you know, that well, they put a poison warning on toothpaste and kids are sticking it.
in their mouth, well, there was enough fluoride in a full -size tube of toothpaste to be fatal to two children under five years of age. You heard that right, that fluoride fatalities in children went up by something like 280 % because one of the major consumer products companies came out with a product that was fluorescent blue, bubble gum flavored.
and it sparkled, it was known as crust sparkles. now know the play, now the major consumer. Right, well, you know, I remember this toothpaste, it was delicious. And kids were eating the toothpaste and lo and behold.
Josh Dech - CHN (11:35.252) I do like things that sparkle
Josh Dech - CHN (11:40.913) You
Dr. Gerry Curatola (11:45.998) you know, were, lot of these children were being found, unfortunately, unconscious or dead and poisoned on the bathroom floor. And it took the FDA only 10 years, but they came out with a poison warning mandated on toothpaste that said, keep out of reach of children.
yet they're brushing with them. Keep out of reach of children if more than a pea -sized amount is swallowed called poison control right away. And that freaked me out. I was like, I never knew that toothpaste with fluoride is poisonous. So what the hell are we doing here? And not only that, the whole fluoride debacle public health experiment of the last 75 years is an utter failure, a complete utter failure. And they're still fluoridating municipal water supplies and all this other stuff.
So that started me on like, well, if toothpaste is now a poison, what's the deal? Well, and then I started looking and I said, you know, toothpaste was really developed by soap makers.
you know, a hundred years ago, you know, it was basically flavored detergent for your teeth. And then in the 1970s, we got into bug killers, 1960s, we got into, fluoride make teeth and bones stronger, you know. And it's funny, of hip fracture rates went up exponentially along with the fluoridation of municipal water supplies. People drinking fluoridated water, lots and lots and and lots of issues. However, I started thinking,
toothpaste should really be feeding your gums. know, there was a study from Japan that found that diseased gums were deficient in two key nutrients. One of them was vitamin C. We knew that from the work of Linus Pauling and vitamin C. you could, if there's one vitamin that, that if I only could keep one vitamin, every vitamin that'd be taken out of my pantry and I only could keep one, it would be vitamin C because vitamin C
Dr. Gerry Curatola (13:43.216) is so important for the body, important for the gums. We knew about scurvy with sailors on ships, they were deficient in vitamin C. That's how their gum issues, the bleeding gums and everything else. So vitamin C was the first one. The second one was another relatively unknown when I started my research on the oral microbiome, but it was called coenzyme Q10, which everybody sort of knows now.
Coenzyme Q10 is a key nutrient in the Krebs cycle for making ATP, which is the energy in the gas tank. So the more the metabolic need, your heart, your skin and your gums, the higher the metabolic need, the higher the need for Coenzyme Q10. So I patented CoQ10 and vitamin C in toothpaste. And then I started putting vitamin E and ionic minerals and I knew nothing about the oral microbiome.
I was starting this work just before the year 2000 in my research on the oral microbiome, which started in 2003, 2004, I realized, wow, everything we've been doing in oral care is wrong. This whole idea of like nuking everything, know, Listerine, kill germs on contact, know, kill plaque, kill plaque, you know, you know, Colgate came out with a product that they were putting trichloride
a non -biodegradable pesticide in toothpaste. That's an endocrine disruptor. And it was found to be a carcinogen and banned by the FDA again in 2015.
All of this craziness in oral care got me thinking, well, I should really develop something that is, you know, feeding and nutritionally restoring this very, very absorbable mucus membrane of the gums and of the gingiva and the soft tissue, what we call the mucosal tissue in the mouth. And we started experimenting with it and lo and behold, you know, people's gums stopped bleeding, inflammation of the gums went way down.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (15:48.464) And it was like, well, what are we onto here? And then I had a major professor in dental school, Dr. Steven Moss. He was an MD, TDS, PhD, and brilliant man. And he personally taught me. And I first started to understand that this film in the mouth, that sticky film on your teeth in the morning, which we call plaque, is actually, I'm getting balloons.
Josh Dech - CHN (16:16.877) I don't know why the video does that. I think it maybe thought you had a congratulations there.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (16:18.926) This is a major thing I'm about to say. So what we learned in the human microbiome project, specifically in the oral microbiome research, which Dr. Moss had pioneered and actually had
taken money, not taken money, was given money by Proctor and Gamble and by Colgate. He was actually a consultant for Colgate that gave him money to study how to kill plaque. What they found at the Bozeman campus of the University of Montana, what they found in the University of Birmingham in England and what they, and in other places is that this,
film on your teeth is an unhealthy expression of an essential ecology that you need to survive. And that's a big game changer from trying to kill bacteria. So like, you know, there's been products that have been developed that they go, it's really good for, you know, preventing cavities because it kills strep mutans bacteria. One of them was this.
chemical, which they say is natural, it's not a natural chemical, it's a synthetic that's made in a laboratory and even though that compound can exist naturally, it's called xylitol, right? And xylitol is supposed to be great, it's great and all the natural dentists got behind it and it's made from natural sugar. The organic raw material is xylan from the original came from GMO corn comps and stuff, but xylitol...
disturbs the microbiome, disturbs the oral microbiome and the gut microbiome. And I have so many dentists who have developed products with xylitol that are touting it as good for you and, you know, feed your good guys and all this other stuff. And the reality is they have no understanding of the oral microbiome science and they're touting.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (18:22.478) junk science that was done showing that it disrupts what we call strep mutans bacteria. You were referring to it like sugar, know, the bacteria feed off the sugar and this and that. Actually what causes tooth decay and what causes gum disease is an imbalance in this natural ecology. Strep mutans bacteria live in the mouth along with porphyromonas, gingivalis and all these other eight to 10 billion microbes and
they keep you alive. So I'm going to tie the first question you asked me along with the second question you asked me, said, can teeth regenerate? And then you were talking about how decay forms and things like that. And I want to tell you that there is something that we discovered.
It's called the dental -sci -alo -microbial complex. Fancy words. Dento means teeth, sci -alo -saliva, and microbial microbes, right? Teeth, saliva, and microbes work in unison. Okay.
Josh Dech - CHN (19:20.604) Thank you for breaking that down. That was a lot to digest. Yeah.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (19:30.858) And this dentocele and microbial complex is amazing for your teeth healing themselves, for regenerating enamel, for remineralization of teeth. You do not need fluoride everybody. You need to understand that you have an amazing capacity to self -regulate and heal. And the way it works is that when that oral microbiome is in balance, the microbes
transport, it's an intelligent semi -permeable membrane that transports ionic minerals from saliva to the surfaces of your teeth. And it transports molecular oxygen that you breathe in to the surfaces of the gums and it takes free radicals or what we say, know, reactive oxidative species or ionic oxygen away from the gums. So it has this amazing
self -regulating, self -healing capacity. This is the oral microbiome, the stuff we were trying to kill for 75 years.
Josh Dech - CHN (20:38.663) Hmm. Okay, I can tell you right now, Jerry, this interview's not gonna be long enough. I have so many questions. So, I appreciate that. I'd love to do a double feature. So let's talk about this oral microbiome. Number one, what is the role of nutrition? I'm gonna throw, this is a weekend symposium. I'm gonna throw a lot at you here. Number one, what is the role of nutrition? Number two,
Dr. Gerry Curatola (20:46.03) I'll come back. I'll come back again.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (21:01.56) Cheers.
Josh Dech - CHN (21:05.818) Saliva is obviously produced by our body, by the salivary glands in the mouth. What makes up that saliva production? And if we have a gut issue, can it compromise our saliva interrupting the salivary and oral connection?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (21:21.462) Right. The first thing I want to tell you and that everyone should understand is that the lifeblood of your mouth, the life of your mouth is saliva. Saliva is the oil in the engine with the piston. mean, you your engine runs out of oil. You're going to seize your if your mouth runs out of saliva, you will have
Josh Dech - CHN (21:48.357) Sleeping with your mouth open, for example.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (21:49.774) Which by the way, which by the way, yeah, mouth breathing at night is a problem. People have higher rates of decay and inflamed gums and all. And airway health, that's another whole big issue. And we could do an hour just on talking about airway health. And the fact that 80 to 90 % of obstructive sleep apnea is...
unhealthy airway space, meaning you may have a tongue tie, you may have had teeth pulled for orthodontics and you have too small a mouth. friend of mine wrote a book called Six -Foot Tiger, Three -Foot Cage, a Chinese biologic dentist. And I love the title of the book because it's very kind of, get it. The six -foot tiger's your tongue. It's a large, innovative organ in your mouth.
And the three foot cages, often people's mouths where they may have been bottle fed and not breastfed, they never got proper palatal development. So they have a high vaulted palate, a tongue tie, narrowness, which causes upper airway resistance and they are choking in their sleep. So, and they are mouth breathing, as you said, which is a problem for drying up saliva. What else dries up saliva? Stress. What else dries up saliva?
medications, you know, even drinking alcohol, you're get drunk, that's smoking. If you decrease salivary flow, you will have an imbalanced microbiome, you will have higher incidence of decay, and you will have higher incidence of periodontal disease or gum disease. So, saliva is the life of your teeth, is lifeblood for your teeth. The lifeblood for your bone is
Blob. And so when you don't have
Dr. Gerry Curatola (23:32.758) good vasculature in the bone. When the bone is anemic of blood, the bone dies. It becomes necrotic. Very often we see that where teeth are extracted, where there is a necrosis in that area and you have dead bone. So that prevents bone from regenerating. And of course, without saliva, your teeth can't regenerate. And it interrupts that whole dental -scielo -microbial complex that I was talking about that a lot of dentists don't understand.
And I have dentists, you know, they argue with me and fight with me about xylitol. No, xylitol is good for you because this research from Finland said that it kills strep mutans bacteria, keeps it from sticking to teeth. And I'm like, that's an imbalance in the microbiome.
when your microbiome is in balance, strep mutans bacteria are benign or even beneficial. They're part of this complex of six to 10 billion bacteria. I think dentists were indoctrinated in school and actually the major consumer product companies who know better still pushed junk science about killing germs. Like germs are invaders. So we went from the germ theory where everything's an invader to good
Josh Dech - CHN (24:43.944) Mm -hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (24:50.08) good guy bad guy theory, is the probiotic theory, right? And thanks to Dan and Yoghurt, made bacteria sound palatable, but they were talking about probiotic, probiotic, probiotic, and you got to throw more good guys in and take the bad guy. And that's also quite honestly bullshit. part of my French, what you really have to understand is that microbes in the oral microbiome, microbes behave like people.
Josh Dech - CHN (25:03.014) Mm -hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (25:18.607) You treat them well, they behave well. We call those probiotics. You treat those same bacteria badly.
They actually, you you try to kill them, right? You try to use the pesticide approach. You know, I said this on the Martha Stewart show and she was still a big, you know, national TV show in the States that, you know, you, know, she was asking me about my oral care research. I was doing 20 years of research on the oral microbiome. She was asking me, you know, you know, tell me about it. And I said, well, Martha, you know, you know, time for doctors to get out of the pesticide industry, you know, and, get in the pet, get out
pesticide business, kill kill kill. I said what I'm really promoting is organic gardening for the mouth and if you think of it that way that's how we have to treat ourselves. We need to do organic gardening not just in the environment around us but inside our mouths as well.
Josh Dech - CHN (26:12.038) Yeah, it's really interesting. It's almost as if everything in the body works just fine until those damn meddling humans get involved and start screwing everything up. You know, our oral microbiome works out great till you bottle feed instead of breastfeed because like you said, there's palate development, the actual shape of your face and nasal passages will change during development with breastfeeding with the whole breast in the mouth rather than a tiny nipple of a bottle. So much changes. And if we just stay out of our own way,
Dr. Gerry Curatola (26:20.172) you
Dr. Gerry Curatola (26:38.112) Yeah.
Josh Dech - CHN (26:40.763) and let ourselves live our lives as close to nature intended a thousand years ago. We can avoid half these things. So here's what I need to ask you. Because I'm just, blown away Jerry right now. I mean, like I said, we've covered some stuff before with biological dentists, but never quite like this. So somebody comes in and says, Hey, I'm dealing with some cavities. I've got really bad breath or halitosis. I've got these films on my tongue. I sleep with my mouth open.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (26:47.38) Exactly.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:07.772) What are the first steps we take? Is it nutritional intervention? Is it testing the microbiome? What are the steps that we need to take here?
Dr. Gerry Curatola (27:14.722) Well, you just, by the way, pardon the expression, you've just put out a mouthful. That's how we do it. Let me tell you how I approach this.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:19.624) Yes. I do love a good pun.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (27:26.098) And I wanted to say, I just wanted to finish the previous thought, because I wanted to say, when we treat bacteria well, they behave well, we call those probiotics. When we treat them badly, they actually vote and they flip a pathogenic switch. The vote is called quorum sensing. And they flip a pathogenic switch and those same good bacteria are now bad ass. Like Fusibacterium nucleatum, like porphyrmonic gingivalis, like strep mutans bacteria. They go from good to bad.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:30.097) Mm
Josh Dech - CHN (27:46.951) Hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (27:55.952) Yeah, they are.
kind of like behaving and doing well and then all of a sudden the bus, the wheels come off the bus and you now have a lot of pathogens swimming around. Now traditionally those pathogens are also known, they're free floaters, right? And the other interesting thing is like these bacteria are not outside and then fly in your mouth and set up shop. They are resident bacteria that are either
imbalance or out of balance. They are the behaving beneficially in a probiotic way or they are behaving in a pathogenic expression which is out of balance. With that said, it's really important to know that when you have halitosis, when you have a sticky film on your teeth, when you have bad breath, that is known as dysbiosis or imbalance.
imbalance of bacteria and so the objective here is not to camouflage it, not to treat the symptom, but to get to the root cause. The root cause is an imbalance or what we call dysbiosis of the oral microbiome.
When we get to balance or what we call homeostasis, microbial homeostasis, that's what we really have to aim for. So how do we get there? in this book, by the way, in this mouth -body connection book, and this came out in 2017, there's a sequel coming because I have a whole part on... And in this book, I just wanted people to know that your mouth is a mirror of what's going on in the body.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (29:43.47) you know, there's upwards of 80 to 85 % of infectious disease that has manifestations in the mouth. Lots of systemic illnesses have manifestations in the mouth, including cancer, HIV, diabetes. I mean, that could go on and on and on. So you really need to see the mouth as a mirror and understand the mouth as a mirror. And I wanted people to understand that it's also a gateway. So have this mirror and a gateway. It's a gateway to disease in the whole body. If you have gum disease, it will
lead to increased risk of everything from Alzheimer's to colorectal cancer.
or what I say, the brain to the drain. You are really at risk of pregnancy complications, preeclampsia and premature low weight baby birth, most often delivered with developmental issues, diabetes, type two diabetes, stroke, heart attack, seven times the cancer, by the way. You really...
Once you understand that, then we start to, you know, when you, when a patient comes into my office, the two key tests that I love more than, you know, everybody's into like, let's test the microbial flora and you know, da da da da da, let's see what the flora is doing. Well, a of these tests are looking at what are called planktonic bacteria. Those are the free floaters. Those are almost always going to be more pathogen rich. The pathogens are usually in the planktonic form floating around the mouth.
really want to look at the basal oral microbiome, there are some very sophisticated tests like confocal laser microscopy, fluorescent probes. And these are very sophisticated ways that we look at the basal oral microbiome without disturbing it, what we say in vivo.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (31:43.906) We've been able to do that with these new sophisticated tests like confocal laser microscopy, atomic microscopy, and fluorescent probes. But for the most part, what we really want, two of the best tests that every dentist should do with a patient is one, a cone beam, 3D cone beam, and two, a home sleep study.
company WatchPat has created this very, simple little kit. You wear it once, it's disposable, gives us seven pages of respiratory data.
because again, like I said, over 80 % of obstructive sleep apnea is related to upper airway resistance and the kinds of issues that I was just speaking about before. Those are two of the big tests. We use a test called Viome, which shows your risk of oral cancer, it also, besides oral cancer, which is the third largest cancer, by the way, it also shows, Viome shows,
what the state of your microbiome is and what types of nutritional steps you can take to correct it. So in the book, The Mouth -Body Connection, I actually go through four cornerstones, four cornerstones of oral health. And you brought up nutrition. So let's talk about that one first. I have a...
Monica that I use AAAA nutrition and the AAAA nutrition stands for alkalizing anti -inflammatory antioxidant rich. So whether you are vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, keto, whatever, aterian, you just got to remember you want to be alkalizing antioxidant rich and anti -inflammatory. There are inflammatory
Dr. Gerry Curatola (33:40.5) triggers that disturb the microbiome and it can differ for various people. For example, know, Darien gluten can wreak havoc for some people, you know, and a lot of people actually. lot of people are deficient in antioxidants. They don't understand that, you know, your mouth is constantly burning up antioxidants and they use products like whitening products that are oxidative that lower the antioxidant level even more.
And alkaline, we talked about alkaline and pH. pH plays a big factor in whether your microbiome is in balance or out of balance. So this AAA monica seemed to be easy because no matter what diet you have, what's almost more important is the three elements of...
what your mouth needs to stay healthy, alkalizing, anti -inflammatory, antioxidant -rich. The other things that I incorporate in the book, which is really interesting, that healthy exercise, healthy exercise, I'm not talking about marathoning and whatever, but I have a program with just resistance bands, for example, for 10 minutes.
exercise is not just good for your body but it improves you know circulatory function and immune system competence and things like that but it also enhances the production of short chain fatty acids which are anti -inflammatory anti -inflammatory. Inflammation and toxicity are the two things that will contribute to aging and degeneration.
and your mouth is a prime focus for that, which is why biologic dentistry, which I'm going to define because you told me you had two biologic dentists on before, and most of them are using the term biologic because they think it sounds holistic and cool. It's the new holistic approach. The reality is that biologic dentistry is really based on biologic medicine. It stems from
Dr. Gerry Curatola (35:53.964) biologic medicine which is by the way a philosophy of medicine and I could explain that in a little bit but I think I'm going on too long on this question.
Josh Dech - CHN (36:02.857) No, no, I think it's really interesting and I know we're actually wrapping up in a few minutes. I'm very much looking forward to having you back on for a second time to finish this conversation because you know, it comes to oral microbiome health. You're talking about your alkalizing anti -inflammatory antioxidant rich diets, which is the exact opposite of what 80 plus percent of the American diet is. Acronym standard American diet, ironically, sad is what we're doing to our bodies. And so we're doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (36:24.022) Hahaha.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (36:29.195) Do it.
Josh Dech - CHN (36:32.102) Now this is opening up a thread here, Jerry, for so much more in the ways of, you you talked about optimal materials, fillings and cavities. I want to get into more about nutrition and development of our teeth and oral health. Why some people have crooked teeth, why some people don't when they never used to be many years before. The role of wisdom teeth, what do they do? The connections between teeth and organs and all these different things that I'd love to dive into, but I know you have a patient you have to get to.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (36:57.94) Absolutely. I would love to as well. Now, we have a few minutes. There are two things I'd love to cover with you. The first is what biologic medicine believes and what are the, there are five levels of regulation and healing in biologic medicine.
And it's fascinating because it really does encompass, you know, as many other systems of medicine, mind, body and spirit. And it is a mind, body, spirit thing. But I'm always fascinated because I used to think spirit was woo woo and it's out there and all that until I met and studied with biologic medical doctors who were pioneering on the medical side. And so I started to say, biologic medicine believes
Josh Dech - CHN (37:32.167) Mm
Dr. Gerry Curatola (37:46.264) that you know we have a capacity to self -regulate and heal. It's based on this divine life force which we call the field. In biologic medicine we call it the field. In Ayurveda they call it prana. In Chinese medicine they call it chi. We call it the field and that field regulates and heals on five different levels. There's a microbial level right? We talked about that a lot in this podcast with dysbiosis and an
imbalance, an imbalance of this essential...
It's really even being looked at as an organ system. The oral microbiome is this intelligent semi -permeable membrane. And when it's in balance, by the way, it's not a thick, sticky, smelly film. You wake up in the morning and you feel like you don't have to brush. It's kind of the foundation of this toothpaste I developed called Ravitan, which is prebiotic. And I want to make sure I get this to you, by the way. And we could talk about that too, but the reason why that's so efficacious, and we've done tons of
double -blind and this has been 15 years in development. The hardest thing was getting these nutritional ingredients to act like a toothpaste. But what's really fascinating in our double -blind studies is the ability to restore the oral microbiome to very thin, clear, odorless film. So you wake up in the morning, your mouth feels clean because when the oral microbiome is in balance, it is not this thick, sticky, messy, smelly film that's giving you
bad breath and you can't kiss your significant other when you wake up in the morning because you got this gunk in your mouth. When you brush with Ravitan, honestly one of the biggest claims that people had when we did focus groups with different people is that your mouth feels clean when you wake up in the morning like you still went to you just went to the dentist. All that means is that your microbiome is returning to a state of balance. So we know the body regulates on this microbial level everywhere, right? Not just in your mouth but on your skin.
Josh Dech - CHN (39:27.911) Hmm.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (39:51.941) You know your hair your eyeballs your your urinary tract your respiratory tract yada yada yada
The second level of regulation and healing is this biochemical pathways. So we see a lot of things in the mouth that contribute to a dysregulation biochemically, including like your thyroid not functioning, could be the presence of heavy metals. Heavy metals in fillings, heavy metals in porcelain crowns that have metal thimbles. And so there's nickel and cadmium and lead and mercury and aluminum.
and all this garbage can disrupt your biochemical pathways. And thyroid is one of the chief, chief targets that is a problem when you have the stuff in your mouth. Very close there. It's a very, very sensitive organ. Third level of regulation and healing.
is the energetic pathways, understanding meridian flow and understanding blockages in meridian flow. And so what I have come to refer to are your teeth are like the circuit breakers for your energetic immune system. So if you have an infected root canal and an upper molar, that upper molar is connected to your breast on that side, it's connected to your thyroid, it's connected to your stomach, and it's connected to your spleen on the upper left and your
pancreas on the upper right, those are the upper molars, not the third molars, the first and second molars. And so these energetic meridians, which we know, we've actually found neurovascular bundles underneath your skin in what's called the fascia, that those are the energy channels where energy flows in the body and it's fascinating. So we have microbial, biochemical, energetic, the fourth level of regulation and healing and I'm getting to the good stuff. There's two more.
Josh Dech - CHN (41:48.961) it's all been good.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (41:49.258) level is psycho -emotional and I love to get into that because
There are so many people that like show up like the dentist is a mechanic, just fix me and you know, fix my cavities, fix my anti infection. And sometimes, you know, they've been sick a long time, they develop what's called stinking thinking. They don't believe they're going to get better or their head is in a very negative place. And your body listens to what you're speaking and what you're saying. There's a man who wrote a book, Bruce Lipton wrote a book, The Biology of Belief. And what you believe changes the way your cells express themselves.
What you believe can actually change genetics.
your epigenetic expression can change just by what you believe, just by your intention. That is the power of the mind. so biologic medicine recognizes that the psycho -emotional regulation is just as important as the microbial and the biochemical and the energetic. But the fifth level of regulation and healing, what kind of like gives me the goosebumps, is understanding that superseding the other four levels is the fifth level, which is the spiritual.
connection. That's feeding that life force. That is plugging the Tesla into the wall to recharge. And if you don't plug the Tesla in the wall to recharge. So how do we connect spiritually? Well, there's been a huge movement and an expansive movement as I believe more people are opening up their consciousness to understand meditation. Understand the value of that. The value of connecting to your
Dr. Gerry Curatola (43:35.084) higher self, the value of connecting to your life force. So here I am a dentist talking about spiritual things and it's funny because in Hinduism they call this top of your head the crown chakra and it connects to a source I call God and they call it the antahkarana bridge which I found really interesting. It means Christ consciousness and so no matter what your faith is, this is not a religious thing, this is just understanding that there
a bridge from here to there called Christ consciousness. In Christianity they call it the putting on the mind of Christ or the person Christ connecting you from here to there. In Hinduism they call it that bridge, that light. Christ is light, that light consciousness and that has a transformational effect. So I always encourage people, I ask people all the time who have problems, have a mouth full of cavities, do you meditate? Do you meditate?
And if they do, I'm encouraged because I know that they're at least.
that fifth level of regulation and healing respected and understood by biologic medicine, that patient is connected. Is that patient in a positive mindset before I do dental procedures, especially surgical procedures? I ask the patient if they think they're gonna get better. They have a cavitation, big infection. Do you believe you're gonna get better? And I wanna hear, yes, that's why I'm here. Not, don't know, went to eight dentists and I don't know if I'm gonna get better. So that is often where we
where you have a block and a dysregulation. that is, know, honestly, Josh, that is...
Dr. Gerry Curatola (45:18.442) one of the most important things to understand in biologic dentistry that it's more than just saying, I do safe mercury removal. I use all these products that are natural and that help you. No, no, no. Biologic dentistry is rooted in a philosophy that is very profound that brings mind, body, and spirit together. Or mind, mouth, body, and spirit.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:29.126) Mm -hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:42.779) It's so incredibly powerful and so connected.
And the longer we're here doing this, the more we're learning. think the world is starting to understand more and more. You know, I've done an episode on Rockefeller medicine and how we got to where we are and the takeover of the medical system and the bio to the FDA. And I've talked about this. And once we start realizing that everything that we're doing, every aspect of our lives, from our food to the air, to the water, to our sleep schedules, to being surrounded by electricity, I'm not saying go back to the stone age, but to mitigate the things that are artificial in our world over the last 150 years.
years to create 98 % of the diseases we have now that didn't exist 150 years ago. It's because of everything we're introducing and this is a whole can of worms and I'm very excited to have you back and talk more about this. I want to dive into the connection of the teeth and organs and more of this higher level holistic stuff about how we can begin healing the body and I'm glad you referenced Dr. Bruce Lipton. We're actually
Dr. Gerry Curatola (46:27.543) So.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (46:32.64) Absolutely.
Josh Dech - CHN (46:45.168) If you're listening right now, go back and listen to his episode. Absolutely brilliant. It's about an hour and half. There's a lot of info there, but Jerry, we're going to dive into some stuff. It's going to be interesting the next time we have you around.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (46:57.826) Fantastic. I'm happy to be there. I love to teach and I love to share this information. I feel like that's my mission at this stage of my life. mean, we have a wonderful practice and I have a...
five or six dentists who I've mentored that are in the group that are super talented and wonderful. And what I do all day long is I, besides tackling the really difficult cases, I also mentor and I love, I spend a lot of time with patients virtually and looking at cone beams and things and advising them and love doing that too. But what we're doing here together is something.
Josh Dech - CHN (47:24.562) Yeah.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (47:41.153) really magical because this information I think empowers people, it elevates them and it's part of their transformation as a human being into a higher level of consciousness.
Josh Dech - CHN (47:52.996) Undoubtedly. I'm very much looking forward to opening this whole can of consciousness with you moving forward. I know we're way over time from where you wanted to cut off. You got to get to a patient. And I do want to respect that. Jerry Curatola, it has been an absolute pleasure. And I'll make sure we get you scheduled for number two. We'll make this a back to back feature.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (47:58.883) Okay.
Dr. Gerry Curatola (48:11.394) Fantastic, Josh.