Non-Conventional Medicine has always made pathological relationships between the oral cavity and the rest of the body a workhorse, developing their own maps of the relationships between teeth and organs. Just think of electroacupuncture according to Voll, oral acupuncture by Gleditsch, chromopuncture by Peter Mandel, reflexology according to Anne Marquand.
Dr. Voll was the one who paved the way for this line of research: based on his knowledge of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture, he realized that by drilling individual teeth he obtained measurable, transient but repeatable bioelectrical modifications on some acupuncture points . And these points were always the same: that is to say that by drilling for example an incisor in different individuals the altered points were always the same. The same was true for canines, premolars and so on. And Voll, thanks to acupuncture, already knew the correspondences of these points. Continuing this research he came to put in relation the single teeth not only with the internal organs, but also with the different segments of the vertebral column, with the endocrine glands, with the articulations with the sense organs, thus arriving to elaborate a true and own complete map.
- But what is the position of Conventional Dentistry?
Since Koch proposed the theory of bacterial origin of diseases in 1876, the concept of a relationship between diseases of the mouth and diseases of the rest of the organism in conventional vision has experienced ups and downs, touching peaks of extremism in one direction and in the other. For example, around the 20s of the last century dentists were very frequent in the United States who warned their patients that they were "centopercentists": that is, they would have extracted all the teeth of the unfortunates, whether or not they were healthy, to prevent the eventuality that they could cause chronic degenerative diseases in other areas. From the 1950s on the other hand, the tendency to deny the existence of any pathological connection between the oral cavity and systemic diseases prevailed.
This went on until 1989, when a Finnish researcher, Mattila, published with his collaborators an article in the British Medical Journal, an article in which they noted that the patients who came to the emergency room for a heart attack suffered in great percentage of pathologies oral, such as gingivitis, periodontal disease and endodontic problems. This publication drew the attention of the dental world and started a new era in the study of the relationships between oral pathologies and systemic health, awakening a great interest in periodontal disease, seen not only as an event that concerns exclusively the oral cavity . Periodontal disease is an inflammatory disease that affects the supporting apparatus of the teeth (bone and gum). Its severity can range from simple inflammation of the gums to complete demolition of the bone, with mobility and loss of teeth.
Thus we begin to talk about periodontal medicine, meaning by this term the discipline that deals with studying the relationships between periodontal disease and systemic health and to investigate the mechanisms through which this interaction is realized.
Even a simple gingivitis can have unexpected consequences
In particular, a new interpretation has recently been given to the etiology and pathogenesis of pathological conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and complications in the course of pregnancy. All these situations, once considered independent of the inflammatory process, were associated with some components of inflammation and it was concluded that more or less asymptomatic chronic inflammations could favor their development. And certainly the gingivitis, the initial form of periodontal disease falls into this category: it is a chronic inflammation, which can run for a very long time without being diagnosed and without the patient giving too much weight.
Inflammation is a fundamental mechanism for human survival. It is an aspecific and immediate response, cellular and biochemical, which begins immediately after cellular damage, which may be due to trauma, chemical agents, microorganisms, genetic or immune defects, extreme temperatures, ionizing radiation, etc. For most of human history, the ability of inflammation to repel infections has weighed more than the drawbacks. Only in modern times did we start talking about inflammation as a factor involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases: nowadays we live longer, we move less, we eat too much, we are subjected to pollution, we smoke, and all this brings out the " dark side ”of inflammation, capable of triggering or favoring the progression of numerous chronic diseases.
And the list of systemic diseases related to inflammatory diseases of the oral cavity is only lengthening: rheumatoid arthritis, greater risk of dementia in the elderly who have lost teeth, even some forms of cancer.
How can this be explained? In the medical field, the vision of the human being as a complex system is increasingly affirmed, endowed with multiple subsystems that continually dialogue with each other and regulate each other with feedback mechanisms. An alteration to any level can therefore only reverberate on the whole system. We can say that our health is maintained by a regulatory network, in which every subsystem actively participates: it is a virtuous circle. The disease is an alteration of this regulatory system and creates a real network of "dysregulation": the pathological alteration of a subsystem involves everyone else and creates a vicious circle.
Dentists and other health professionals, whether or not they are lovers of non-conventional medicines, should be aware of the link between inflammation of the oral cavity and systemic diseases. It is necessary to transmit this knowledge to patients and to modify the protocols for diagnosis, prevention and therapy to improve the health of the mouth and of the entire body.
