Autoimmune Disease: the Oral Health Connection

Guest: Amy Myers, MD

The following presentation is for informational purposes

only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure your
condition or to be a substitute for advice from your
physician or other healthcare professional.

Jonathan: Welcome to the Holistic Oral Health Summit!

I’m your host Jonathan Landsman. Did you know that 80 percent of disease
symptoms are related to problems in the mouth? As a health and fitness
consultant for nearly 30 years, I believe this is one of the most overlooked
problems within conventional and integrative medicine. That’s why I created
this summit to help you identify, prevent, and eliminate the roots of disease.

Our show today, Autoimmune Disease: the Oral Health Connection. Our
guest, Dr. Amy Myers is a New York Times bestselling author of The
Autoimmune Solution. Her career as a specialist in autoimmune diseases was
set in motion by her own experience dealing with autoimmune issues. Dr.
Myers graduated cum laude from the Honors College at the University of
South Carolina, attended medical school at Louisiana State University Health
Sciences Center, and completed her residency in emergency medicine at the
University of Maryland. She founded the nationally-renowned functional
medicine center, Austin UltraHealth, and currently serves as its medical
director.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Amy Myers! Dr. Myers, welcome!

Dr. Myers: Hi! Thanks for having me!

Jonathan: Dr. Myers, it seems like more and more people are suffering with
autoimmune disorders. Some say it’s getting out of control. What’s happening
here? And what do the numbers actually tell us?

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Dr. Myers: Well, the numbers are telling us that autoimmune diseases have
increased three-fold over the last 50 years. That they’re between 50 and 75
million Americans and nearly 250 million people worldwide with
autoimmunity. And those are the people who’ve actually been diagnosed and
that we know about. So the statistics are likely much higher. And I think it’s
really, at this point, the perfect storm that’s going on, which, I talk about in
my book The Autoimmune Solution.

I talk about the four pillars or five different factors that are contributing to
autoimmunity. And that is the fact that we are eating a diet that is highly
processed. It’s genetically modified. It’s full of pesticides. We have what’s
called leaky gut, which I’m sure you’ve had some people talking about on your
summit thus far. We have lots and lots of toxins, over 80,000 toxins out in the
environment, many of which haven’t been tested for more than three weeks,
and often just by the companies whose producing the chemical. We have very,
very stressful lives that we’re leading. And there’s a number of infections that
are implicated in autoimmunity, as well.

You put all those things together, and we’re in this perfect storm right now
that is creating this high, high rate of autoimmune diseases and frankly, just
a lot of inflammatory conditions.

Jonathan: So, Dr. Myers, since we’re focusing on oral health, what are some
of the limitations of conventional dentistry?

Dr. Myers: Well, conventional dentistry, I always like to tell people it’s the
difference between going to a conventional doctor versus a functional medicine
doctor when you’re seeing a conventional dentist versus a biological dentist.
We’ll speak about one of the things I talk about in my book, which is heavy
metals, which particularly mercury, has been implicated in autoimmunity.

And so you can go to your conventional dentist and get your silver or mercury
fillings removed by them. And they obviously know how to do that. They were
trained very competently to do that in dental school just like if you go to your
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doctor, they know how to run tests on you. But they may not know how to do
that safely and properly. And so that’s one of the biggest failures is that when
they are removing these heavy metals or removing the mercury from your
mouth, they’re not doing it safely in a way to protect you, as also in a way to
protect the dentist or the healthcare worker that’s doing that.

I think probably one of the biggest failures or differences about conventional

dentistry is perhaps that most dentists—I’m not going to say all—but many
certainly don’t believe that the mercury is harmful to you. And if someone
doesn’t believe that something’s going to be of harm to you, then they’re not
going to take precautions to be careful. And that’s probably the biggest, I
think, misconception and dangers.

And I could go on and on about root canals, as well, about putting root canals
and how that can be a large source of inflammation for people with or without
autoimmune diseases. So they’re really looking at dentistry the way that a
conventional doctor looks at medicine in a much more narrow view thinking
perhaps that what they’re doing may or may not be harmful: it’s only dealing
with your mouth. It doesn’t have any effect on the rest of your body. And we
know simply that that’s not true.

Jonathan: Dr. Myers, I know you were conventionally trained as a medical

doctor. And it might seem like a side note. But we have a lot of healthcare
providers that are listening to this program. And I just wanted to get your
opinion on this.

One of the things that I’ve publicly said so much that I feel is one of the
dangers of conventional dentistry is not so much what they do, but what you
already alluded to already, this attitude that, “Well, hey, if they weren’t trained
that way, then they don’t want to listen to anything else. They’re not
interested.”

And that quick decision not to be open-minded seems to be a very dangerous

thing for a healthcare provider to have. But also, the fact that if they were
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presented with some very scientifically-grounded evidence that something is
wrong here, and to not look at that, it just seems like it’s wrong. What’s your
take on this, especially directing your message to the healthcare providers out
there?

Dr. Myers: Well, I’m not going to blame people. People are going off what
they’ve learned in school and what they’ve done for years. The estimate is that
when new research comes out, it takes 18 years in order to get into clinical
practice. So often what I might think of right now the term “leaky gut” and
talking about biomes and gut bacteria and oral health might seem extremely
mainstream and very obvious in my world.

It’s relatively new research. So it’s really just beginning to penetrate into the
medical community. And so I don’t fault anybody or think that they’re wrong.
When you’ve done something in a particular way for many, many years and
new research comes out, it’s sometimes hard to really adopt that until it’s so
in your face that you can’t help but do that.

And we can get into all other issues surrounding the healthcare system and
drug companies and insurance companies and Big Pharma and their
influence. But I’ll just leave it at the research, which is where the question
was asked, that it takes, again, about 18 years once we “discover” something
for it to become mainstream and taught in medical schools and used
throughout the medical community.

I would just urge people to be open-minded. I, even in what I do, learn things
every day. Or maybe I should say, in particularly, in what I do learn things
every day. I treat my relationship with my patients as a partnership and
remain open-minded to new ways of doing things or information that someone
has found on their particular case because I don’t have time to research every
individual thing all day long. I’m seeing patients and keeping up with my
education and providing information on places like this summit.

Jonathan: So in talking about biological dentistry, can you please explain

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what do they do that’s so different than a conventional dentist?

Dr. Myers: Well, I’m not a dentist. So I don’t know that I’m the best person to
speak of that. I certainly see a biological dentist myself and refer people to
biologist dentists.

The main thing that I think of when I think of a biological dentist is that
they’re open-minded. They do believe that the mouth can be a large source of
inflammation and toxins for many people, whether, it’s spirochetes or different
infections in the mouth to the inflammation from a root canal, which also
stems from an infection, to the heavy metals, and even other toxins in the
materials being used in dentistry.

So they’re really looking, not just at the mouth, but its effect on the entire
body. Or they’re open-minded in believing that these substances can have an
effect. And then they’re looking at the safety of when they’re pulling out heavy
metal fillings.

And then also in their dealings with certain infections, I know that at least the
biological dentist that I refer patients to, rather than simply putting people on
antibiotics very quickly or standardly after or before surgery, they’re unlikely
to do that unless there actually is a true infection that brews because they
understand that connection between the oral health and the gut health and
the effect of the gut health on the entire body and immune system.

Jonathan: I know your expertise is in autoimmune disorders. But just as a

side note, I know how important biological dentists are. For example, with a
clinic outside the United States that’s treating cancer patients, before they
touch these cancer patients in any therapy at all, the first thing they look at is
cleaning up issues in the mouth before getting to other cancer therapy.

So I ask you, Dr. Myers, as a medical doctor, your area of expertise, when is it
important to get help from a biological dentist? How do you look at it?

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Dr. Myers: Well, I have about a 30-page intake form that I have patients fill
out prior to seeing me that I review. And then I spend 80 minutes talking with
the patient. So I ask about dental health and have a whole section on my
intake form regarding that. And then we discuss it at the appointment.
Certainly, anyone who has root canals or silver fillings in their mouths or caps
or even different types of metals in their mouths, I advise them to see a
biological dentist just for general overall health.

Now, whether someone, I urge them that that’s the next appointment that they
have really depends on what I’m hearing. Someone who tells me 6 months
after having a root canal that they had a rheumatoid arthritis flare for the first
time in their life, someone who maybe has a mouthful of silver fillings—and I
know the relationship between that and other autoimmune diseases, and
they’ve had them for 40 or 50 years and we’ve done a SNP test on them with
MTHFR and they have two or more mutations at that SNP—then I highly
recommend people are getting that done sooner, rather than later.

So for me, it’s always something that’s discussed. This information that I’m
getting is something that I recommend people do. And depending on what I
hear and read on the intake form, depends on how quickly or how we
prioritize their need to go see the biological dentist. For some people, it’s
literally I say, “Run, don’t walk.” And other people, I say, “Well, let’s put that
on the back burner right now. We have other, what I perceive to be pressing
issues to deal with prior to going to the biological dentist.”

Jonathan: So let’s focus our attention on heavy metals, Dr. Myers. Do they
actually trigger autoimmune disorders? What’s your take on all this?

Dr. Myers: Well, I certainly, as I mentioned, talk about five different factors in
my book. And toxins certainly can be a factor for those with autoimmunity.
When I see a patient with rheumatoid arthritis or if I see two or three people
with rheumatoid arthritis, they could all obviously have the same diagnosis.
But their reason for having that diagnosis…That’s what I do in functional
medicine. I’m finding the root cause. And that root cause for each one of those
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three people could be different. For one, it could be heavy metals. For another,
it could be gluten. For another, it could be just leaky gut.

Now, I tell them that by the time they’ve gotten in my office, it’s usually not
just one factor. It’s usually actually some part of all five factors. On the
Autoimmune Summit that I hosted, I had a pie chart and had these color-
coded with these five different factors. And one piece of that pie could be
bigger than another for any one of those people.

So certainly, there is a lot of research showing that heavy metals, particularly

mercury and lead, have been implicated in autoimmune diseases in some,
more than others. Like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and MS have highering
degrees of lead and mercury.

However, it’s not the only thing I think about. I’m thinking about all five of
these factors in every person that I see, and then prioritizing from there, which
factor is the one that we need to deal with more pressingly. Which is the more
significant factor likely here and going from there. And if it solves the problem,
it solves it. And if it doesn’t reverse your autoimmune disease, then branching
out and looking at all five of those pieces.

Jonathan: So, Dr. Myers, as I’m listening to you speak, I just think about how
important it is that someone who’s suffering with autoimmune disorders or
any other serious chronic health problem, you’ve really got to find someone
like you who appreciates all of these things. Just like you’re stressing with
biological dentists out there who take more of a holistic point of view.

What I mean by that, Dr. Myers is here it is somebody’s going to hear this
information. And then they’re going to go to their conventionally-trained
dentist. And they’re going to say, “Do the mercury fillings in my mouth, do you
think they’re actually causing a problem—my skin or my chronic fatigue, my
autoimmune condition?” Most of the conventionally-trained dentists are just
going to roll their eyes and give that patient a feeling like, “That’s a crazy
thing.”
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And the Food and Drug Administration, they’re saying that mercury is not an
issue at all when you place it in the mouth. You must shake your head at this
every single day.

Dr. Myers: I’m trying to solve problems rather than point fingers. But, yes, I
hear those stories frequently that many doctors don’t believe that anything
other than genetics is causing their autoimmunity or their chronic fatigue or
any of their problems.

And in conventional medicine, we’re geared towards treating symptoms, not

finding root causes. So, yes, I hear these stories every day from my patients,
which is why they’re seeing me because they just see the road that they’re
going down of drugs after drugs after drugs, many of which have side effects.

So, yes, I don’t recommend that people go back to a traditional dentist, unless
they really believe that mercury is a problem and then that they can safely
remove it. So again, I’m not a dentist. So I don’t know in terms of if a
conventional dentist can learn how to safely remove those without being
classified as a biological dentist. But, certainly, you want someone who is
putting a dam.

First of all, you want someone who believes that mercury is a problem and
that it is unsafe because that’s the first question I tell people to ask their
dentist because if they don’t believe that, then they’re not going to take
precautions. And when you’re removing the mercury that can be very harmful
because you are opening it back up. And you can swallow it and inhale it. And
that can be very, very unsafe because you’re suddenly getting a large dose of
mercury into your system.

So you really, really want to go to someone who safely can do that and knows
the precautions that need to be had such as a dam, such as suction and
precautions for both of you all in removing those silver fillings or mercury
fillings.

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Jonathan: Dr. Myers, let’s talk about your personal journey in dealing with an
autoimmune condition called Graves’ disease. And the program you created
called The Myers Way to overcome this health issue. Tell us about it.

Dr. Myers: So my second year of medical school, I started getting panic

attacks and tremors and was losing weight and had insomnia and was really
losing it my second year of medical school. And when I finally got these
tremors that my friends were seeing, they convinced me to go to a doctor. And
I went to a doctor. And she told me that I was essentially just experiencing
stress from medical school and was thinking that I had every disease that I
was learning and that there was nothing wrong with me.

And I knew that I had done some pretty stressful things in my lifetime, been in
the Peace Corps. My mother had passed away from pancreatic cancer the year
before. And I’d never responded to stress this way. So I really frankly
demanded a full workup and said, “This isn’t stress. Something’s wrong with
me.”

And she called me back about a week later and apologized and said, “You’re
right. You have an autoimmune disease. It’s called Graves’. Your thyroid is
attacking itself and it’s overactive.” Most people are more familiar with the
Hashimoto’s, which is the underactive thyroid. But mine was overactive,
which is why I was losing weight and had insomnia and was having these
panic attacks and tremors.

And in conventional medicine, the way to deal with that is either to give you
strong medication to shut down your thyroid, to ablate your thyroid or blow it
up with Iodine-131, a radioactive iodine, or to surgically remove your thyroid.
And at first, none of those sounded great to me.

Backing up, I had been raised by parents who were very holistically-minded
and open-minded. And I had actually entered medical school thinking that I
would do what I’m doing now. I just didn’t know how to get here. And I was
the president of the Complementary and Alternative Interest Group in my med
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school. And I had taken all of my electives in complementary and alternative
medicine. And so even though I was in medical school, I had this broad view
and knew I wanted to do what I’m doing now.

And so these three options didn’t really sound good to me. So I tried some
other alternative things. And they didn’t end up working for me. So I took the
medication and ended up with toxic hepatitis where my liver was starting to
fail from the medication and ultimately had to have my thyroid ablated. So I
don’t have a thyroid now.

And it’s bittersweet. I’ve helped many women, usually women. But I’ve helped
many people with Graves’ disease, actually now in my practice, practicing
functional medicine and getting down to the root of why they have it. And I’ve
spared them from having to do any of the options that I was given. Sometimes
they’ve come in on medication. But we’ve gotten them off the medication
without them having to go to the extreme that I did.

Their thyroid is functioning perfectly normal now. And they’re not on any type
of medication. And their antibodies have gone away. So it’s the perfect
example of using functional medicine to get to the root of an illness and to
actually reverse autoimmunity.

Jonathan: So you talk about these eight myths that are related to
autoimmune diseases. This should be very interesting to discuss, including
the claim that autoimmune disorders can never be reversed. Can we really
reverse these conditions, Dr. Myers?

Dr. Myers: Well, yes, it’s the example that I just gave. So I don’t say that I can
cure anything. I talk about in my book being on an autoimmune spectrum.
And if you’re lucky, you have no inflammatory symptoms whatsoever. And
you’re very low on the spectrum. If you’re somebody who maybe has asthma
or eczema or one of the inflammatory conditions, you’re higher up on that
spectrum. And then certainly at the top of the spectrum is full-blown
autoimmune disease.
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And I view it somewhat like cancer that once you’re on this spectrum and have
been diagnosed with autoimmunity, we can reverse it and put you back down
the spectrum. But it’s always your weak link. And it will be there for you in
some regard or you just need to have it in the back of your mind.

And so when I say “reverse,” I mean can we get you down on the spectrum?
And that means can we get you symptom-free? And the answer to that is often
yes. Can we get you medication-free? And the answer to that often is yes. And
can we get your antibodies to be lowered or even go away? And the answer to
that is often yes, as I was illustrating in the example of the people that I’ve
helped with Graves’ disease. The same disease that I had that I had to do
something very extreme in order to “solve.”

So by working through the four principles that I talk about in my book or the
four pillars, by healing the gut and getting rid of gluten, grains, and legumes,
taming the toxins, and then healing the infections and relieving stress, if you
work through those four pillars, yes, this is very, very attainable. And there
are people literally around the world that have followed my program. And we
get success stories every day of people who’ve been helped and their
autoimmune has been reversed.

Jonathan: Well, it seems it’s just a great attitude to also be reminded about
trying to foster and appreciate, which is what you’re talking about in terms of
whether we cure something or we’re just taking care of our human condition
the right way.

What I’m referring to is even, let’s just say somebody has cancer.
Conventionally, they’re diagnosed with it. Or conventionally, they’re diagnosed
with some autoimmune condition. They have all kinds of symptoms to just
technically, maybe they still have cancer or the autoimmune condition, but
they’re feeling so much better. And they have no risks of these toxic side
effects of conventional medications.

I suppose we could talk a little bit for a moment about the success that you’ve
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seen with people that you’ve worked with because in my mind that’s very
successful to be actually living with something with a whole lot less
symptoms. In the end, what’s really the difference? You’re having a better
quality of life. You’re enjoying things. You’re feeling so much better. Isn’t that
what this is all about?

Dr. Myers: In terms of successful stories, I certainly have many of them

written in my book. The last chapter of my book is “Finding Hope.” And it’s all
stories of successful patients. We have a Facebook page that people are
sharing stories day in and day out.

Since this is a topic of biological industry, I’ll give you one that correlates with
this very well, which is I had someone with Hashimoto’s. And we briefly put
them on some thyroid medicine. They were able to get off of it. Their
antibodies were coming down by following the diet that I recommend and,
particularly getting off of gluten. We fixed their gut, got rid of some infections
and some yeast.

But their TPO or their thyroid peroxidase antibodies were not coming down or
had come down and plateaued at a certain level and weren’t continuing to
come down. And the person had had a root canal. And she went and got her
root canal removed. And literally within days, the antibodies started to come
back down again. So that was a very specific one-to-one correlation.

I’ve many, many people with rheumatoid arthritis that followed the same
program, and then, of course, checked them for heavy metals. They had their
silver fillings removed, had high levels of heavy metals. I do that through a
chelation challenge test—a urine test using DMPF—and high levels of
mercury. And then went through a three-month trial of chelation, just oral
chelation with DMFA and removed the mercury from their system or from
their bones. And rheumatoid arthritis reversed.

So I have many, many examples. But those are ones that I can think of that
really highlight the need for biological dentistry in this particular situation.
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I have another woman, who—she didn’t have autoimmunity—but was having
this buzzing, tingling sensation, had been to doctors, essentially just told that
she was crazy and given antidepressants and came to see me. And she had I
think some…Well, she obviously had mercury in her mouth. But I believe she
also had gold. And so I’m sure some people have talked about this on your
summit—the difference in metals creating different ions and flows and electric
currents in the mouth.

And that’s what was happening with her, creating this buzzing, tingling
sensation all over her body. And she is somebody who I sent immediately to a
biological dentist. Of course, still followed the diet and things like that. But
that was someone who immediately I recognized as this really sounds like a
problem in her mouth.

And she went actually to Dr. Nunnally. I’m very fortunate to have him very
close by. And he’s who I send most of my patients to, along with Griffin Cole,
as well. But the very, very complex ones, I’m sending them to Dr. Nunnally.
And she went there. And he removed various metals in her mouth. And
literally, by the time she had woken up from the conscious sedation, she told
me that 50 percent of the problem had resolved.

And I actually never saw her again in my clinic because things had resolved.
But I ran into her on the airplane. And we sat next to each other on an
airplane one time. And she told me that everything had completely resolved for
her. And she thanked for giving her a quality of life back.

Jonathan: So, Dr. Myers, we talked about your book and your program. Can
you talk a little bit more deeply about the four pillars that you have in dealing
with somebody that has autoimmune conditions?

Dr. Myers: Sure. So I walk through these four pillars in my book. And it’s
really how I approach a patient when they come to see me. So if you hear me
speak or you get the book, this is exactly what I do with my patients. And the
first thing I’m doing is I’m having them get rid of gluten, grains, and legumes,
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and a couple of other foods. So I have everyone go on a very comprehensive
elimination diet. And I’m having people remove gluten because there is a lot of
research surrounding autoimmunity, leaky gut, and gluten, that leaky gut
must be a factor in order to have autoimmunity. And gluten, the research of
gluten and leaky gut is enormous through Dr. Alessio Fasano, through
Harvard celiac research group, has done a lot of research surrounding leaky
gut and gluten.

I then have people also get rid of grains and legumes because of certain
properties in them that can also irritate the gut. Lectins, agglutin, these are
things that are meant to be part of the seed of a plant. When an animal eats a
plant, it goes and poops. And the plant buries into the ground. And the life
cycle repeats.

We as humans also were not meant to digest these seeds. And so they can be
irritating to the gut for a lot of people. I break down the foods into
inflammatory foods and then toxic foods. So these are some of the
inflammatory foods, along with dairy and eggs that we’re getting out of the diet
for at least 30 days.

And then toxic foods would be things like sugar and caffeine and alcohol and
processed oils and chemicals in food or food coloring, things like that,
preservatives that we want to get out. So I do this for 30 days. And that’s the
absolute first step that I do for people is really to change the diet.

Then, I’m looking at the gut. And these two things really go hand in hand. The
second pillar in the book is to heal the gut. And in healing the gut, I follow
something called the 4R program. And the first step of that 4R program is to
remove. And so we’re removing foods, these foods that we’re eating that are
either toxic or inflammatory to us. And then, we’re also removing infections.

And so in my clinic, I do very sophisticated stool testing to see if there are any
infections like small bowel bacteria overgrowth or yeast overgrowth in the gut.
In my book, I give you some quizzes that you can do to look for symptoms that
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go along with these and determine if you likely have one of these infections.

So the other 3Rs are then to replace what’s missing. So most people probably
need a good digestive enzyme. Certainly, in my clinic, we’re doing stool testing
and finding out what else might be missing. But I advocate that most people
get started a digestive enzyme. We’re going to repair the gut with some L-
glutamine, aloe, things that help really build back up the mucous in the gut
and seal back up the leaky gut.

So most people don’t realize that nearly 80 percent of our immune system is in
our gut. And if you have an autoimmune disease, you’ve got to think about the
gut. Even if you don’t have any digestive issues. So the cells in the gut are
only one cell layer thick. And then right below that is your immune system. So
you really have to look at the gut with anybody that has an autoimmune
disease.

But the really great thing about this is that these cells turn over or create new
cells about every 24 to 48 hours. And so it’s pretty easy to help heal this leaky
gut if you can identify the problems that someone’s having. And that is, again,
the first step, removing those irritating and toxic foods and then looking for
these infections, and then going in and simply putting in and repairing the gut
with this L-glutamine and reinoculating with some good high-quality
probiotics.

So those are the first two steps or the first two pillars in the book. And really, I
treat those at the same time. You can’t heal the gut without changing the diet.
So those really go hand in hand.

And then I have taming the toxins. And that’s where we’re looking at these
toxins in our environment. We’re looking at the toxins potentially in your
mouth. We’re looking at toxins in foods we’re eating, toxins in the air we’re
breathing. So if you think about how do toxins get into our body, they get into
our body because we either are breathing them in, we’re ingesting them, or
they’re getting in through our skin. And so I talk about each of these areas
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and ways to really help prevent this.

When we look at breathing, looking at the air quality in your home, often the
air quality in somebody’s home is 10 to 100 times more toxic than the outside
quality of air because of our homes are new. Furniture is made with
formaldehydes. And there’s all kinds of chemicals or toxins in our furniture
that are getting off-gassed. We’re not using natural woods and things like that
anymore. We’re using compressed particle board. These off gas. Then our
homes are so tightly made now, it gets trapped in the home. So the air we’re
breathing.

And then I’ve also heard studies just about—anybody who’s a dentist listening
to this—that if you’re working in conventional dentistry and you’re working
with mercury, those mercury dusts get into the air. It gets on the floor. It gets
on your clothes. It gets on your shoe. And the mercury components in
dentists’ homes are 10 to 100 times higher than someone who’s not working
in that area. And then if you’re a dentist that has a small child, and they’re
walking around or crawling around on the ground, they could be getting the
mercury, potentially.

And so I want to look at the air. I recommend people get a HEPA air filter. I
want to look at what you’re eating. So I recommend to the best of your ability
getting organic foods. And if you can’t, looking at the Environmental Working
Group at their list of the Clean 13 and the Dirty Dozen.

And then I want people to be worrying about the water that they’re using. Of
course, a water filter to drink and cook your food with. But most people don’t
really think about a shower filter. There’s mercury and heavy metals and
chlorine and all kinds of chemicals in our water. And how do you get that in
your body? From showering, as well, and bathing. And many of these things
can be vaporized. And when you’re in a hot shower, not only are you
absorbing it through your skin, you can actually be breathing in many of
these toxins, as well. So I recommend water filters throughout the home if you
can do that.
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And then your skin, looking at your body products, the cleaning products in
your home. Again, many of these products, the chemicals are tested by the
FDA in three weeks or less. They rely on the chemical companies to test them
themselves. And they’re looking at these chemicals in isolation, rather than
these chemicals in a unit.

I’m not trying to get on Windex. It’s just the thing that comes to mind. If
there’s six ingredients, they’re testing one of those ingredients alone. They
don’t test all six together. And then nobody’s using just one cleaning product
to clean their house. Likewise, when you’re using body products, nobody’s
using one body product. They’re using multiple.

In studies done by the Environmental Working Agency, it’s estimated that ten
body products are used before you’ve even left the house. And that’s only one
application, one shower. If you go to the gym and shower again, these things
get reapplied throughout the day. So definitely looking at the toxins.

And then, of course, the toxins coming from heavy metals and other sources
in your mouth. So I’m definitely, as we’ve already discussed on this Podcast,
looking at these toxins in people’s mouths and referring them to biological
dentists to have a look and to assess for that. Again, I know you’ve interviewed

Dr. Nunnally, who I use mostly for patients because I’m so close to him. He
does the Clifford test and will even test to see, before he puts anything in your
mouth, to see if you respond or have an inflammatory response to any of the
hundreds of different types of dental material that’s used in your mouth. We’re
very focused on the heavy metals and mercury. But I’m sure he spoke about
all the other types of chemicals that are used in the mouth for fillings and
caps and all the other things.

Then the last pillar, the fourth pillar, is healing infections and relieving your
stress. And I put these two hand-in-hand because infections can cause more
stress. And then stress can cause infections to come out through this cyclical
response sometimes.
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So there’s certain infections like Epstein-Barr and the herpes virus and many
of the viruses that have been implicated in various autoimmune diseases.
There’s a chart in my book of some bacterial infections that have been very
implicated in certain autoimmune diseases, as well.

So I certainly recommend people review that. Even a conventional doctor can

test for many of those. And that is widely out in the literature. And so they can
treat you for those, as well. And I’ve had some good results with certain
infections being treated and helping reverse autoimmune diseases.

Of course, we also need to think about root canals in someone’s mouth

because that inherently, by the way that a root canal is performed, that
ligament or the ligaments are left in the mouth when a root canal is
performed. And many, many bacteria are sitting on those ligaments.

And then we close up the root canal. And it creates this perfect scenario for an
anaerobic bacterial infection to be brewing and an abscess to form down
there. And that infection can be very, very inflammatory for people in general,
but particularly those with autoimmune diseases.

And that’s why in the example that I gave earlier in our talk about the patient
that I had that had her thyroid antibodies were coming down, but not
completely gone with all the work that we had done. And then she had that
root canal removed. She had an abscess or infection there that was causing
inflammation for her and keeping those antibodies elevated. And when she
removed that infection, then those antibodies came down. And that was a
pretty one-to-one correlation. And I’ve seen that before.

And then I’m looking at stress. We are living in a very, very stressful time.
We’re working long hours. We’re eating processed food. We have all these
toxins in our environment that are stressing us. We have 24/7 access to
pretty much anything. I just got back from Europe. I was there for a quick trip
for a weekend just to give a talk.

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We can travel to different continents literally in hours. We have cell phones
available to us at all times. People are expecting an immediate response to
that email or that phone call. And so it’s a perfect storm when it comes to
stress, as well. It used to be that we were living in a day where we were
hunter-gatherers. And our only stress might be where are we going to get
some food tonight or the sabre tooth tiger chasing us. And we had that stress.
And it went away.

But it’s really these low-level chronic stressors that are really affecting us. And
we never get a relief. We’re, “Where’s that text? I need to do this email. I have
the kids to get here. I’ve got this trip here. Someone hasn’t gotten back to me.
I need this information immediately.” And so it’s a chronic stress that we have
going on.

And I don’t want to judge people’s stresses. I have them, as well. But some of
them are really these perceived stresses of that email wasn’t…I mean, I have
to put myself in check and in line all the time about things aren’t happening
in my clinic or business as quickly as I want them to. And I need to put myself
in check. Back in the day, we didn’t have things that could happen as quickly
as they can now. And so we have this expectation of instant gratification and
things happening super quickly.

And so we know through a lot of research first with the toxins or with some
research done out of the University of Arkansas Children’s Hospital with Dr.
Gilbert that it’s the low-level toxins that are creating inflammation and can
create autoimmunity for people. And likewise, it’s this low-level of stress—
chronic stress—that seems to be implicated, as well.

And again, the reason I put that with the infections is that these stressful
situations can cause infection. So it’s that perfect example of you’re studying
for your exams. You stayed up two nights in a row. You aced your exams.

You’re heading home for the holidays. And you can’t believe it. You’re on cloud
9. And you had all this energy after staying up for 48 hours straight. You get
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on the plane. And suddenly you get a scratchy throat. And by the time you get
home, you have strep throat. And it’s because this low-level stress releases
cortisol, which is there for that fight or flight. But over time, cortisol
suppresses the immune system, which is why steroids work in autoimmune
diseases. It suppresses that immune system.

And then we get sick, which is also why people who are on cortisol and
prednisone for autoimmune diseases, it suppresses the entire immune
system, and why they need to be careful around people with infections and
why they’re at higher rates to get things like cancer and infections from being
on these immunosuppressive drugs because they’re doing their job.

When you put all four of those pillars together, then we’ve left no stone
unturned. I talk about some other infections like Lyme. I talk about molds and
mycotoxins in the environment, also in the book, and some other things like
EMF that we don’t have time to discuss here. But when you walk through
those four pillars, you’re leaving no stone unturned.

And if you’re really able to get through all four of those, some people can stop
at pillar one and two. And they don’t need to go to pillar three and four
because their autoimmunity has been reversed or the condition has been
reversed. But other people need to go to three and four and even likely see a
biological dentist or a functional medicine practitioner in order to reverse their
autoimmunity.

Jonathan: Dr. Myers, what a beautiful picture you just painted in closing this
program out. The four pillars really address everything. And it also highlights
the whole point why I created this summit, the most overlooked problem in
conventional and integrative medicine being problems in the mouth.

And I’ll get your final comments as we close out the show. But the idea that
with your pillars talking about diet and gut issues and toxins, and, of course,
healing infections, it’s so easy to look at a really poor diet. And if we just fix
the diet, “Well, wow! Maybe that will help me with my autoimmune
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conditions.”

But, hey, problems in the mouth, mercury toxicity, all of these things, actually
make it harder to absorb nutrients. Gut issues, we could have problems in the
mouth that are polluting the gut. And that’s something that people don’t
consider, perhaps, in some people. Taming toxins, to say that we’re toxic
within the body with all kinds of chemicals, that doesn’t sound good. But yet a
lot of people don’t consider the toxins in the mouth that could be polluting the
whole body giving you skin issues, things like this.

And, of course, like you say healing infections, to consider that a root canal-
treated tooth is a dead tooth and could be infected. And you don’t even know
it. And that’s pouring into your body and triggering your autoimmune
conditions. This is all something that is so easily overlooked in conventional
medicine. That’s why I appreciate all the things that you’re saying, Dr. Myers.

Dr. Myers: Yeah. Absolutely. When you have one of these chronic conditions,
conventional medicine only offers you treatment for your symptoms. And if
you really want to reverse or get out of the boat of having a chronic condition,
functional medicine is a place to go to really help you get to the root and
reverse that condition.

Jonathan: Dr. Myers, I want to thank you so much for your time. And I want
to thank our listeners for joining us today! If you’d like a copy of this program,
plus all the other presentations inside the Holistic Oral Health Summit, simply
click the banner you see on this page.

Thanks again for attending the Holistic Oral Health Summit! Talk to you soon.
Take care!

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