Biting into Healthcare with Dr Miguel Stanley Miguel Stanley, DDS

In this episode, I discuss the need to distinguish between individuals with good oral health and minimal dental work, and those with extensive dental treatments, which may contribute to systemic health issues. Not all dental care is created equal, and there are significant gaps in diagnostic techniques within the field. Many patients may be unaware of chronic inflammation in their mouths, which can go undetected for years due to these gaps and a lack of standardized diagnostic tools in dentistry.

It's crucial to shift our perspective on the oral biome and the connection between oral health and overall health. Educating the public is essential; people with healthy teeth and minimal dental work generally face lower health risks. However, those with poor dental health and extensive treatments may need a comprehensive diagnostic overhaul, utilizing advanced techniques like 3D CBCT scans.

For this reason, we developed an artificial intelligence tool that scans panoramic x-rays to detect hidden inflammation (see more at https://www.missinglink.ai/). This innovation aims to identify issues that, once confirmed by CBCT scans, can lead to the necessary medical interventions.

It's important to note that chronic oral inflammation is directly linked to over 22 noncommunicable diseases that can severely affect our lives. Awareness and education about these connections are vital to improving health outcomes.

Root canals have been round for hundreds of years, and are incredibly effective way to remove pain and to salvage the tooth structure. However,  when poorly executed, can lead to some complications. The definition of poorly executed can vary a lot, but its not always possible to get the treatment 100% and this can lead to many health issues in the long run. One of the basic and many times overlooked and very important steps, is setting up a dental or rubber dam to isolate the tooth against saliva contamination. If this was not done, then the likelihood that things can go wrong is very high. Also, the use of sterilised instruments and making sure that all canals even the hidden ones have been properly treated  and cleaned, for if not, the possibility of inflammation and even the formation of a cyst around the tooth in the long run is quite high. This is not good for systemic heath.
  The use of CBCT to make sure there is no ongoing inflammation is imperative and we must remember that no treatment last forever. If you have systemic illness, you might want to look into alternatives however, I believe that went well performed by a trained Endodontist using state of the art protocols and instruments, it can be a very effective treatment to help patients with tooth ache as opposed to extraction, but must always be done under optimal conditions. 
So, no! Not all root canals are bad, just the poorly executed ones. Always make informed decisions about your health. 

I have been following the evolution of Artificial intelligence in dentistry for quite some time, and I think that there are a lot of amazing companies out there doing incredible things. The foundation of all of these developments is to ensure better diagnostics, treatment planning and to help Dentists and dental teams around the world improve the quality of care. Or is it? Could it be that some companies will try and utilise artificial intelligence to enhance volume of sales and not quality of care? We have seen some examples in the industry where companies are incredibly focused on sales alone and not quality of care. As such, I think we need to ensure that different artificial intelligence organisations within healthcare do different things, and there should most certainly be organisations that focus on ethics and quality of care alone, ensuring that patients get exactly what they are paying for and what is sold to them. 
 I think with augmented reality and wearable cameras, it's going to be a very interesting time moving forward , is there will be a lot more information to monitor and control, and I trust that we can all work together ensuring that at the end of the day we can create healthy ecosystems where diagnostics are improved dramatically, treatment planning is the best possible, execution is gold standard and everyone can win and be profitable at the end of the day.
Ive been saying in my lectures for quite some time, "it's a very good time to start practising ethical gold standard dentistry"

For the past 20 years an incredible technology called cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) has been around in the world of Dentistry that uses x-ray technology but create a 3-D scan of the mouth and skull. Modern versions can actually do a reconstruction of the data allowing surgeons in Dentists to see intimate details that you simply cannot see in a two-dimensional film x-ray. Unfortunately this technology is still not mainstream and not available in the larger portion of dental clinics around the globe, and with the growing number of people suffering from chronic diseases looking for more answers about their health and trying to connect more dots, they are looking to the dentist to see if it could be coming from failed dental treatments. The only non invasive way to diagnose this is with the 3-D CBCT. Dr Stanley talks briefly on why this technology needs to be more mainstream why patients should demand this simple diagnostic test prior to engaging in any complicated surgery, implant treatment or orthodontic movement. There is much that can be overlooked in a simple two dimensional film x-ray, a technology that is almost 100 years old. In all other areas of medicine, diagnostic technologies have evolved immensely, why is it acceptable to still have 2-D x-ray as the primary tool of diagnostics? Time for a change! 

In this episode of Biting into Healthcare, Dr Miguel Stanley interviews his colleague, Dr Dirk Duddek from Germany, who founded the clean implant foundation. This nonprofit organisation tests dental implants for impurities on the surface that were left over during the manufacturing and packaging process. Sometimes his findings are startling and worrying! We are led to believe that our dental implants that have FDA and or CE approval are sterilised and as such are clean. Using electronic scanning microscope and a very highly regulated testing system that is unbiased, the Clean Implant Foundation has found some shocking results as well as some very good ones. In this discussion we ask some interesting questions such as, "could the surface contaminants be responsible for the spike in autoimmune diseases around the world  ?"
Would you be surprised if some companies learn that they have "dirty"  implants , meaning leftover particles from the manufacturing and cleaning process such as plastic, cobalt, and other metals, and do nothing about it? 
I really enjoyed this discussion with a doctor/scientist  who really wants to do a lot of good and answer questions not  every dental implant company is interested in answering. 
Find out more at www.cleanimplant.org

The link between healthcare and your mouth is more complex than most people realise. There is mounting evidence that poorly executed dental treatments and natural occurring cysts  can lead to serious health issues. We can link the inflammation in the jawbone caused by these problems to a large array of systemic illnesses: Fibromyalgia, Breast Cancer (link), Depression, Chronic Fatigue , Rheumatoid Arthritis and many more. 
The way dentistry is being practiced in many clinics around the world has not evolved to be able to properly diagnose these issues, and 2D film Xray and clinical observation during check ups, that sometimes take 15 minutes,  is still the norm.
  We need to disrupt this method of clinical evaluation in 2022 and ensure that dentists, or at least those that really care about connecting dots between oral issues and systemic issues, start asking more questions and using better technology to diagnose, such as 3D-CBCT (Cone Beam Computer Tomography) and also blood tests looking for RANTES\CCL5 cytokines produced when there is inflammation present in the jawbone. 
We can objectively trace the source of the inflammation back to the origin during oral surgery through biopsies and with a proper clinical protocol dramatically reduce the inflammation with immediate health benefits to the patients.  
We can no longer sit back and look at teeth as simple mechanical structures separate from our immune system and neurological network. Getting this right can save lives if not seriously improve them for millions of sick people desperate for answers but not getting them, as their dentists are telling them, "all is good", based on outdated diagnostic tools. 
This is the foundation on Biological , Functional and Integrative Dentistry .  I like to call it Immune Dentistry .