Dentist's Plot to Poison the World Foiled!

Toothsmith

From the BBC site today.

For 150 years we've been trying to wipe out humanity by filling their teeth with poison. Now it's revealed we've been wasting our time as it doesn't cause any harm at all!

(Just hope no-one looks at what's in white filling! )

Fran

What excuse have I got for my bad er my lack of er memory now? :rolleyes:

Undisputedtruth

A quote from the same BBC article

"No deterioration was measured, although researchers did find those with sliver fillings had slightly higher levels of mercury in their urine."

It would not surprise me if another report came out to suggest that Mercury fillings is bad for you.

It would be interesting if the research was carried out over a twenty to thirty year period to establish the long term effects of Mercury in relation to fibromyalgia & ME.

I'm not sure whether Toothsmith agrees with me but I think there is a link to good dental health with general good health.

Undisputedtruth

Toothsmith

Undisputedtruth wrote:

A quote from the same BBC article

"No deterioration was measured, although researchers did find those with sliver fillings had slightly higher levels of mercury in their urine."

It would not surprise me if another report came out to suggest that Mercury fillings is bad for you.

It would be interesting if the research was carried out over a twenty to thirty year period to establish the long term effects of Mercury in relation to fibromyalgia & ME.

I'm not sure whether Toothsmith agrees with me but I think there is a link to good dental health with general good health.

Undisputedtruth

Some good points!

You are right that it is a study over a relatively short term and nothing particularly has been done over the longer term, Apart from the fact the material has been around for 150 years.

I am no champion of amalgam. It's horrible looking stuff and I try to avoid using it whenever I can.

There are situations though (Filling big holes in kids/adults with no interest in listening to preventative advice, and who will go on glugging Coke down their necks like it's going out of style) where it really is the best filling material. I'm glad it's been shown not to do noticeable harm.

The problem for me though is that I'm not convinced of the 'safety' of anything else we have! White filling, as I've said on other posts has a resin in it called BiS GMA which is a nasty little chemical, and Glass Ionomer has lead in it.

None of the materials we have has been shown to cause any problems with the levels of 'nasty' chemicals within them. Including amalgam. Whether any of them may cause the odd problem with a minority of the population is indeed a possibility, but it is as likely to happen with white filling as amalgam.

We are recommended to have staff of childbearing age tested occasionally for mercury exposure. I've never had it done, as I've no staff of that age, but colleagues I've spoken to have never had any readings come back higher than any other member of the general population.

The bit about dental health and general health is again a good point.

Posibly due to people with good health have a good lifestyle & diet, which will also lead to good dental health. Rather than keeping your teeth good will make you healthy. There have been studies that correlate gum disease and heart disease. Whether this is a cause & effect, or just that someone prone to one is also prone to the other is still doubtful though.

There have also been rumours of chronic dental infections causing problems in other parts of the body. These 'focal sepsis' theories were very popular at the turn of the 20th century, but fell out of favor as root-fillings became more successful. recently though, the whole theory has been looked at again, and there may be something to it, but no good work has been published yet.

Ted_Hutchinson

More information about these new research findings Here Medpage today There are links to the research papers also at the bottom of that page.

Toothsmith

For any real insomniacs, the full articles can be found HERE and HERE

Get_Real_2

But the report found no evidence of harm in the study of more than 1,000 children in the US and Portugal.

Er,

Just one proviso here


Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence

Hee hee, good post though ! Cheers

:T