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Welcome to the Wellness Dentist Podcast. Join biological and cosmetic dentist Dr. Katie Toe as she explores holistic wellness through trending ideas, real stories, and patient experiences. This podcast will inspire you to make healthy lifestyle choices and take charge of your dental wellness. And now your host, the Wellness Dentist, Dr. Katie Toe.

Good morning and welcome to the Wellness Dentist Podcast. podcast. We have one of the best and most exciting guests today that I've been wanting to bring to the show for so long. And I'm so glad that Dr. Al Dnenberg is here. Dr. Dnenberg, thank you so much for going on the show.

Katie, thanks for the opportunity. This is awesome. And I love this stuff. As you know, I'm sort of a ham.

Your passions and your dedications and your information that I would just saw you in person last month in Charleston for our meeting.

Yes, yes, it was a great meeting, yes.

IBDM meeting and you, the very first speaker came out and make everyone was looking at each other was like amazing. We want more information and I can't wait to share that with our listener what we learned in Charleston from your lecture. So Dr. Al, first our listener would love to know more about you. Can you share with us a bit of your And your background?

First of all, I'm 74 years old, so you got to understand that. I've been a periodontist for 44 years. I stopped clinical practice in September 2018 because I was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer, specifically multiple myeloma, with severe lytic lesions throughout my skeleton. That's kept me out of an office environment. And I was given three to six months to live. in September 2018. On that news, I rejected chemotherapy because if I only had three to six months to live, why would I destroy my body? And in addition, I knew that my immune system would be damaged because of my malignancy and chemotherapy would destroy it completely. And so I figured out what's now 10 unconventional cancer protocols to support my body's immune system, rejecting chemo. And I did very well. And in September or August of 2019, I had some severe fall. And it's kind of crazy the way this worked. I was brushing and flossing my teeth and I wanted to throw away the dental floss. Now, this is August of 2019, a year after my diagnosis and prognosis. I knew that I had weak bones and I had several little pathological fractures along the way. I'm standing on my ceramic floor in the bathroom. My feet are planted. I twisted to the left about 90 degrees because that's where the trash can was. I was throwing the dental floss away. When I twisted, my right femur snapped in half. I crashed to the floor. I broke several ribs and I broke my right humerus in half. So my big bones on the right side of my body were severed. And I knew that because when I looked what was happening, my leg and arm were in positions I could never bend them. Of course, there's a lot of pain. I'm screaming and calling for my wife. She comes in, lots of emotion. We get emergency services, takes me to the hospital. And what I knew was that I had already lived six months or so beyond my prognosis. And the few patients that I have had that have had hip fractures have died months, just several months after that. So I knew this was the end. I knew that I was gonna die and I wanted to die. I was ready to die. And I went to the hospital, they had to fix my right femur because my right femoral artery was going to perforate and I would have bled to death. They didn't want a patient dying in the emergency room, so they fixed that and they sent me to hospice to die. And I was actually in hospice in August of 2019. Now, strangely enough, in September 2019, there's a hurricane coming through Charleston where I live and the hospice hospitals nearby and it's threatening the hospital. It's moving at a mile an hour and 187 mile an hour winds The hospital is ordered to evacuate their patients. They don't know where to send me. My wife is a nurse. They send me to my home. I'm still under hospice. And now my wife gives me some tough love. And she says, look, you're not a victim. You are a survivor. Let's get you back on your unconventional cancer protocols. Let me get a therapist in. He gets the catheter out of me, and that was terrible. He gets me out of bed eventually, and off narcotics and everything. Eventually, I start walking with a walker. And in several months, I mean several weeks, I go back to my oncologist in October 2019, revoking hospice, and he's amazed that I'm alive. Fast forward to May of 2020, I tweak a few things in my cancer protocols, different diet type of tweak. And in May of 2020, my PET scan shows no active cancer cells. So I'm doing amazingly well. Along this way, I've created a method to support an immune system, and that's what I teach. I have Clients all over the world now, which is amazing. That's where I am now. An immune system is everything we need to stay healthy. The immune system not only begins with food that is absorbed by the body, but it begins with food that does not have anti-nutrients damaging the food and the gut microbiome. And the gut microbiome must be healthy. And if we can support all of that, we can prevent chronic diseases and have a robust immune system, which is everything that I do now.

Beautiful story. I hear that so many times, Dr. Al, but I always amazed of how not only you survive, but you make an impact out of that story. And not only you helping a lot of patients, you're helping so many dentists Because at that conference that we just had last month with the IBDM, you were speaking in front of all the biological dentists and hygienists. And we all blew away because we all thought we know nutrition. We all thought what our patients are doing is right. So you shared with us a lot of myths. And I would love for you to share with our listener, what are those favorite ones that you've been like, wow.

People always think this is-- well, you know, every time I talk about this, mouths drop, especially dentists, and they don't exactly like me for saying this, but dental plaque is healthy until it's not. So dental plaque is a unique structure. It is a healthy biofilm in the body. You don't want to remove dental plaque when it's healthy. And here's the interesting thing. If you look at the body and think about what structure pierces the epithelial tissue, buries itself in sterile tissue like bone, and the only thing I can think of is the tooth. If the tooth goes through epithelial tissue in the mouth and buried in the jawbone, which is basically sterile, if it didn't have a variety of protective methods, the bacteria in the mouth, which are loaded, we have over 700 species of bacteria in the mouth, maybe 200 or 300 species in dental plaque. 700 species, that bacteria can literally slide down that tooth like a sliding board. It's slipped, it's slick and it's wet and it's dark and it would go into the bone, it would necrose the bone, we would lose our jaw bone and our species would never have evolved over 2 and 12 million years. So that didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Well, there are a lot of structures under the gum in the periodontal ligament, in the bone, through the immune system to prevent that. But the superficial healthy biofilm that's the first line of defense is the dental plaque. And the dental plaque, like I said, is made up of two or 300 bacteria. Individual bacteria in that dental plaque is extremely pathogenic if it overgrew. But if it's not overgrowing and it's in a state of balance, it provides a variety of beneficial purposes, one of which is the family of the bacteria produce hydrogen peroxide, which is a natural killer of microbes. And when a microbe wants to get into the space between the gum and the tooth and slide down that tooth, it can't do that because the peroxide in the dental plaque, healthy dental plaque, kills it. It also, the dental plaque also has chemical buffers to actually maintain a pH of 5.5. And as most biological dentists know, you really can't get tooth decay unless the pH drops to a more acidic level over a period of time. So you'll develop the mineralization. So the dental plaque buffers that pH so it stays above 5.5. And additionally, it acts as a gatekeeper to allow nutrients going into the root structure to remineralize it as necessary. And the nutrients are not in a mouthwash, not in toothpaste. The nutrients come from the saliva. So the nutrients you eat get into the blood, eventually deposit into the salivary glands, and it's pouring into the mouth 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if you swish your mouth with a few nutrients for 10 seconds, it doesn't get into the root surface. So these mineralizing toothpaste are a joke. and mineralizing products that are supplements that you just rinse with are a joke. So dental plaque is healthy until it is not healthy. And here's another myth. How does dental plaque get unhealthy? It's not because you're not brushing or flossing correctly, maybe, but for the most part, it's not because you're brushing or flossing incorrectly. It's because you have something going on in your gut that's called gut dysbiosis. It's an imbalance of bacteria. Pathological species are overgrowing. You don't have enough variety of bacteria to keep them at bay. And when they start to do that, it creates inflammation in the gut. It causes the immune system to overreact. It causes the one cell lining of the gut to become more permeable and the junk leaks out of the gut. into the bloodstream, which is called a leaky gut, and that affects every organ system in the body, including the mouth, and that dysfunctional immune system now can't fight the fight, and the bacteria in the mouth allow the potentially pathogenic bacteria to overgrow. And when people are eating bad foods like sugars, grains, a variety of other seed oils that are very disruptive that will actually cause the pathogenic bacteria to overgrow, become unhealthy dental plaque, and now you have two nitis of infection, one in the gut, one in the mouth. Unfortunately, many biological dentists don't get it. They believe that the mouth is loaded with bacteria and we have to kill it. So they use chemicals like antimicrobial toothpaste, antimicrobial mouthwashes every day. They use xylitol that destroys the formation of the plaque, so it completely removes that superficial biofilm that's a protective biofilm. And they're destroying the mouth microbiome thinking they've stopped disease, but they never treated the gut. And even though the mouth becomes sterile, you have all the problems. Like for example, if you had a house that was on fire and the fire trucks came and they were trying to put out the fire, but you had a gas leak in the garage, the fire doesn't go out. You have to stop the stoking of the fire as well as the manifestation of the fire. So if you put the fire out in the mouth and you never put the fire out from its originating place, the gut, you'll never get healing. But in other situations, functional medicine guys that have no idea about dentistry, they want to put the fire out in the gut. They have no idea that the mouth is a significant factor. And the problem is, we have situations in the mouth. Iatrogenic dentistry, bad composite restorations that are leaking, that they are encouraging a localized infection. So you have this localized infection that could start in the mouth and the infection in the gut. And if you only put out one and not the other, you never get complete healing. So you have to treat the gut and the mouth appropriately. So those are two huge myths.

And, you know, the crazy thing is common sense, but it's not always common practice.

Right. But it's not common sense because we have been taught this theory that germs are bad and we have to kill them. And if it's a germ, we have to kill it. It's almost like thinking, I'm going to take a tablet of penicillin every day to make sure my gut is healthy. Well, you're going to kill everything. And that's what happens when you use antimicrobial mouthwashes, xylitol, antimicrobial toothpaste, even on the rest of your body. We have a microbiome, which is very interesting, everywhere in our body. We have about 38 trillion microbial cells and only 30 trillion human cells. You are more microbial than human cell. That's pretty interesting. We have to respect that. Biofilm and the gut microbiome because actually that keeps us alive and supports the immune system, which is our only defense for invaders from the outside coming in, as well as even cancer cells that start up in the body. Everybody has cancer cells that are produced 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but they know the cancer cells know how to kill themselves off, like a process called apoptosis. And they also can be eaten up by part of the innate immune system that gobbles these cancer cells so that they don't multiply and become malignant. If that immune system isn't working properly because of gut dysbiosis, then you can develop cancer and other chronic diseases. And this is why it is so critical to make sure both are being treated correctly.

And I know every dentist, not just biological or wellness dentist, they notice that if you have sibling from the same family and one sibling would floss and brush and do everything, right? And then have end up with the loss of cavity and the other sibling don't do it as much, but they don't have a lot of cavity. And they're always thinking, well, it must be the flossing, the brushing, but it's not true. The parents even noticed that, right?

So those parents probably come into the office drinking Gatorade, and munching on some kind of sugary candy, and yet they have no idea what they're doing to their children when they're feeding these terrible foods. So they're destroying the gut, they're feeding the pathogenic bacteria in the mouth, and unfortunately, once that infection is in the mouth, it spreads to everything else in the body. And it doesn't just spread because of dental plaque. The infection spreads in the bone, through nerve canals, through lymph tissue, through capillaries that get into the blood directly. All of that contributes to the spread of infection systemically and it gets into other organ systems. But we always have to be unaware that the gut is the initiator of this chronic systemic inflammation and the mouth is just part of the pathway as it disseminates through the body. Fortunately, dentists are so lucky that they have a platform. They see patients for an extended period of time. Hygienists see patients for an extended period of time. They can look at the mouth. They at least understand that the mouth may be a mirror to the rest of the body. And they can identify disease. The problem is when they see disease, they think for the most part it started in the mouth, but really started in the gut. So treat the gut, absolutely treat the mouth correctly, and you can prevent chronic disease and I would say many or all cancers, because cancer and most chronic diseases are diseases of metabolic dysfunction, not eating well and absorbing the nutrients that are there and anti-nutrients that interfere with the nutrient absorption, and that what's called mitochondrial dysfunction, where the energy of the cells are actually weakened. It's almost like having 38 trillion flashlights and 38 trillion batteries in these flashlights. And you turn all these lights on and all of a sudden the batteries are weakening and the cells don't do what they're supposed to do. And if the mitochondria in our cells start to break down, they can function only halfway and eventually they don't function well at all. And we have significant dysfunction in different organ systems. so all of that is very important.

What I hear from you over and over, and I think a lot of people don't really think about it, is we all have cancer cell in us.

Yes.

We should not wait for that cancer diagnosis and say, oh my gosh, I have to change my diet. I have to do something.

You should do something. Let me interrupt you and tell you something interesting. Yes. So I'm kind of geeky and I do a lot of research, and when I got diagnosed, I needed to figure out, why do I have cancer? For the last six years before I was diagnosed, I was extremely healthy. So how can I get cancer? That's crazy. And an incurable cancer, that's going to give me only three to six months to live. I mean, that's crazy. So when I did a little digging, I found an article that was actually published by some Brazilian researchers. And here's what they were studying. They were studying Dentists in my cohort, basically the age of 65 to 75, male dentists age 65 to 75 compared to a general male cohort that was not dentists and general male population. Turns out that their research showed that male dentists in my age group had a high prevalence of bone marrow cancer, especially multiple myeloma. Now, it was observational, didn't tell you why this happened, it just said it happened. So I'm digging into my thought process. So I was, you know, I've been a periodontist for 44 years. I got out of dental school in '72, my God. So it was a long time ago. And what happened in my four years of dental training and two years as a graduate student in periodontics that was different from the male population in general? Well, two specific things. I was exposed, like every dentist, to ionizing, low-dose ionizing radiation, which are dental x-rays. Now, it was every day. I don't even remember wearing badges in those days. In those days, I was exposed to this radiation and it has been proven that that radiation, plasma cells in the mouth are very sensitive to that low-dose ionizing radiation. I think that was part of it. The second part is that In those days, even today in dental school now, unfortunately, you learn and you have to know how to place mercury fillings. So we play in those days, we play with mercury in our hands like kids play with Play-Doh. This is a funny semi-liquid metal in your hands is beautiful, funny stuff. And if you throw it on the floor, the little beads scatter and eventually they disappear because they actually evaporate into the environment. Every dental school in the United States did this same kind of thing. That was probably the most toxic structure building in the country, all dental schools. So when we were playing and doing this stuff with free mercury, free mercury is highly toxic, I'm sure I had an overdose of that. So the mercury and the low dose radiation probably made one plasma cell. of the trillions that were there. One plasma cell become malignant, got cancer, it didn't kill itself off, the immune system didn't gobble it up, and it started to grow and multiply. And by the time I was older, even though I was eating healthier, eventually it manifested to what happened to me in 2018.

In an effort of being biological, holistic, wellness dentist, We're not only protecting ourselves by doing mercury-free, mercury-safe, but we're helping so many other patients.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

I totally hear you and I think that those are very great investigation because we observing a lot of that, our professor, our mentor, all have health and they're very healthy. They eat healthy, they maintain a healthy lifestyle and they still end up with that diagnosis. Now a lot of females, especially in my age group, where we childbearing age, we could not figure out why we could not get pregnant. And the first thing they asked was that you're a dentist? Okay, let's test you for heavy metal toxicity. And we never heard of that in dental school.

Of course, of course. You don't even hear about it today, which is sad.

But thank God the FDA ruling that.

Last-- yeah, finally they got around to it. But they only made a little bit of a concession for pregnant people and young kids, unfortunately.

Yeah, well, it's still a progress for us.

Yes, of course. One step at a time. One step at a time. Right, right.

We understand there's a lot of patients looking for biological dentists to have those mercury restoration removed safely. So I know that the public is fully aware of it. We just need more dentists to be on board to protect themselves, their team, and then of course their patients.

Yes, I agree.

Yes, I love, every time I listen to your talk and your lecture, I love that it's the passion, it's the knowledge, and it's the common sense not very common. So I have one question for you that one thing, and you're known for biological nutrition and you train so many biological dentists out there on the topic of nutrition. What is one thing about nutrition that no one agree with you about?

Absolutely. An animal-based diet, not necessarily 100%, but an animal-based diet, at least 70%, meaning that you're eating nose to tail, rudiment animals, basically beef and lamb that are grazed on pastures that are grass and not GMO or glyphosate or any other chemicals, totally organic. That is the healthiest diet. We can prove it over two and a half million years of evolution. I can give you studies that prove it. and it is the healthiest diet compared to a vegan diet, a vegetarian diet, plant-based diets, because an animal-based diet, 70%, maybe 30% plants that don't include plants that have what's called anti-nutrients, which are phytates, basically oxalates and lectins, which not only bind to minerals and vitamins so it doesn't even get absorbed, but it also damages the gut microbiome, puts holes in the epithelial barrier creating a leaky gut, and it interferes with the mitochondrial production of ATP, which is our energy source of every cell. And we are energy creatures. We are electrical beings. If we eat those kinds of foods, even though they theoretically have nutrients, they're not getting absorbed properly, and they're damaging our gut. and most people, most people who think they're eating a healthy diet are not. So I would tell you, most people disagree with me until they understand the research. And the sad thing is that the research that's quoted like red meat causes cancer or animal fat is unhealthy are flawed because the structure of the testing is incorrect. the kind of meats they're using are processed and they're loaded with chemicals. That's what's causing the problem. Glyphosate in the feed that is being fed the animals is definitely the A factor. Eating grains, animals eating grains, cause them to get sick. They need to be on antibiotics and hormones to fatten them up so they get slaughtered before they die. All these chemicals get into our body and those are the animals that are being tested to say, well, they cause cancer. What? Yeah, they cause all kinds of chronic disease and anything. So when you look at animal-based foods that are pastured, grass-fed, grass-finished, extremely healthy, we need the nutrients. And I will also tell you, every nutrient that your body needs, with maybe one or two exceptions, is in that animal meat, animal fat, bone, cartilage, organs, and you don't have to take, you do not have to take synthetic zinc, synthetic melatonin, synthetic vitamin C. Vitamin C is loaded in the organs and it's a different vitamin C. It's heat stable. Vitamin C from oranges is not heat stable. There are a lot of factors that if you eat animal-based foods, you'll never have to take a supplement from a supplement company again. That everybody almost disagrees with unless they see and understand the research.

That'S right, yeah, the same thing.

And it saved my life and that's why I am where I am today.

You-'Re living testimonial for that, obviously, and that's what the thing people always listen to, just the headline, oh red meat causing cancer, red meat causing heart attack, cholesterol, right? and we know it's inflammation that's causing all of that cardiovascular disease, not fat. We need good fat for our brain.

That'S absolutely correct. and when you start to connect the dots, you see that, but people don't want to take the time to do a little research and it's not being taught in medical or dental schools at all.

I know. I wish we had biological nutrition is one of our courses in dental school and a lot of our medical colleagues would appreciate that too. 'Cause we have all informations and relying on supplements and prescriptions versus food is...

Yes, food is medicine. Somebody said that a long time ago.

Absolutely. Dr. Al, I can tell our listener really, really eager to connect with you. So can you tell us how a listener can find you and connect with you?

Sure. My website is drdinenberg.com so it would be spelled D-R-D-A-N-E-N-B-E-R-G.com there's so much information you can download. It's all free. I do offer a 12-week coaching program called my 12-week balanced metabolic coaching program where I teach all this. And interestingly, because of everything that I've been doing, I've developed a platform. I'm doing consultations all over the world now, which is quite exciting. And on my website, there's information about that. So I also list my unconventional cancer protocols in detail for a download. It's only two pages long, but everything I am doing, and I update it constantly, with links to what I'm doing, what I'm eating, why I'm doing what I'm doing. All 10 protocols are right there.

So you can take a look at that. That's awesome. And you have a lot of research articles for anyone that really want to read more about, you know, where the science comes from and where do you get that protocol?

So all my articles do cite peer reviewed medical journals to support what I'm saying. If it's anecdotal, I'll tell you that. But if it is based on factual information that I've garnered throughout the medical world, basically through PubMed, internationally it's cited right there. You can always link to that and see the actual articles. Yeah.

On behalf of a lot of our biological wellness dentists, I want to thank you because I know you're helping a lot of patients over the world and it's so impactful. But when you're helping another fellow biological dentist to understand nutrition, The impact is even more because they're helping their patient, their team. And I can tell that when we are going through the training with our team and with a lot of our doctors, it's really eye opening for them on nutrition and look at that a different way. And now our conversation with our patients are very powerful too because they look at us like, wow, you understand so.

Much deeper about- well, let me just say you're never too old to learn a new trick. So old dogs can learn new tricks, which I've proven myself. and you're never too sick to make it better. I don't know anybody that has been through what I've been through hospice, the edge of death and coming back. I can tell you theoretically, I should not be here. There's always something you can do to make life better. Even if it is imminent that you're going to die, you can still improve the quality of life for whatever time you have. And the way to do that Attitude is a lot and a support group is a lot, but also you have to make your body's immune system as robust as possible. It's the only armed forces your body has to protect its borders. Just like our borders in the United States, we have to have a solid army. We need to have that solid internal army to protect us from the outside invaders as well as inside invaders. And we can do it.

Yes, Dr. Al, thank you so much and you hear it from Dr. Al, you're never too old to learn new trick and you're never too sick to get better. So if you want to listen to more podcast episode from our amazing guests in the future, please follow, subscribe and give us a review and until the next episode, there's always something for you to be grateful for. Bye everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Al.

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