Functional Medicine: A New Approach to Heart Health

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode on the Holistic Dentistry Show. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Moldovanova, and I am so excited to talk to Dr. Myra Reed today about the number one killer of women, which is heart disease. And as you well know, heart disease is also linked to oral health. So the two of us together today will bring you really interesting information on how you can avoid getting heart disease as a woman or men, really tips, practical tips for your life, for a healthy lifestyle. So Dr. Meyer, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thank you.

I'm excited to have you here as a functional internal medicine specialist, especially. I'm a big fan of functional medicine. You've had now over 30 years experience in helping women prevent, detect, and reverse heart disease. What brought you on this journey? How did you discover functional medicine?

So I'm traditionally trained, so I went to an allopathic medical school and I was working, doing fine with all of my practice. And then I saw medicine changing where insurance was going to start taking control and making you rush to see patient after patient. So I started looking for a different model of where I could spend more time with my patients because I love just sitting and talking to them. And so I was looking at doing a concierge model, which is a membership model where I have less patients and can spend more time with them and just really help them along the way better. And when I was at a meeting about concierge, I was introduced to these doctors talking about functional medicine, which I didn't even know what that was. And at that time when they were— it just clicked with me. I was like, Wow, they're really talking about the way our bodies are supposed to heal and like the root cause of, of really getting to find out why things happen. And instead of that pill for an ill approach, we can really just use lifestyle and diet and the way our bodies are meant to heal. And so I was like, okay, I've got to learn more about this. So I jumped right in just learning everything I could about functional medicine. So that was about 10 years ago, I guess, a little bit over 10 years ago.

Okay. And heart disease in women, how do you treat that differently than a traditional, let's say, cardiologist?

So what we have found, and I call it the 20th century medicine, people will go to the doctor and they'll go and, well, they'll get their total cholesterol, their total lipids, and then they're like, okay, my doctor says I'm fine, or maybe they'll say, "Oh, your LDL's high. You need to get on a statin." That's just not true. A lot of women don't tolerate statins and they're not good for a lot of people. Now, there is a need to have a statin when there are, I'm not gonna say I'm anti all the way, but in general, I have found out that instead of just doing the totals, we can do these special labs like Cleveland Heart Lab. Really, the first part that we're looking at is inflammatory markers. So these inflammatory markers will tell us if the cholesterol is really getting in the arteries and causing inflammation because we know that inflammation is what is burning, I call it burning the house down, but it's what gets in the arteries and causes the plaque formation and the problems and the hardening of the arteries and such. So I started looking at these advanced testing and found out that the total cholesterols are really not the right way because how many times have you heard people go to the doctor and say, "Oh, my cholesterol's fine," and then a month later they die of a heart attack. And you're like, well, they said my cholesterol was fine. So I started looking more in depth at advanced testing. And as you go along, you start learning more. So there's even not just these inflammatory markers like hs-CRP or what they call the MPO and LP-PLA2, but we can look at the the density, the number, and the size of the particles, like looking deeper into the totals. Like the totals are like the tip of the iceberg. What we wanna do is go down and see what's happening. I call it like the ants in the anthill. We're like, okay, where's all the work happening? And so we look at these markers like Lp(a), 'cause we know that that's a, like a marker that's kind of, that's genetic. Those people who have an elevated Lp(a), are more prone to not only heart attack, but stroke and dementia. And another marker is the ApoB. That's kind of like your overall looking at how bad is my cholesterol really doing. So when we find out that the totals don't give you enough of the picture, and in functional medicine, I've learned about how you can look, dive deeper, and find more people who are at risk earlier. And that's the start, and then we go from there with some more advanced testing from there.

Yeah, it's interesting, Myra, because cholesterol runs in my family, high cholesterol. So I've had the Lp(a) test, and unfortunately for me, it's high. Now, I really want to dive into that because I think a lot of women— what are the statistics today with heart attacks?

Well, yes, I mean, they're very high, especially postmenopause. So I do want to touch on that because we know that really women have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, dementia once they go through menopause. And all women are going to go through menopause. It's just a fact of life.

Yeah.

So if you start going through menopause, we know that estrogen is protective to the heart, to the blood vessels, to, you know, the arteries. And once you go through menopause and you lose that estrogen, then your arteries are going to lose, they're going to get stiffer. They're going to lose that nice little supple lining of the arteries. It's going to, plaque is going to start increasing in the arteries. And so when you have that, and along with this Lp(a), which puts you a little bit higher, puts you at a higher risk of this clotting of the plaque, then you really have to look at, okay, what do I need to do? It's not a matter of just going, okay, this is just how life is. I'm just gonna go my merry way and just hope for the best. We now, thank goodness, in medicine and science, we have ways of helping. We have more knowledge now. And I always say knowledge is power. So with this new knowledge of not only advanced testing and all the research showing what can be done because you just go, okay, you get this test done, now what? So when we're looking at this Lp(a), there are things that can be done, and you want to really look at all your lifestyle factors, because it's not by saying testing is great, but it's what you do with the testing and what you do with your life around it that is the game changer. If you have an Lp(a), people need to know about that, just like they need to know what their ApoB status is, and they need to know what their inflammatory markers are. And then, then meet with a doctor who knows about these things, like a functional medicine or integrated doctor that can help you really know lifestyle changes or what nutrients you need, or, you know, there's a lot of factors we go into around just lab testing.

Are there certain supplementations that are helpful with things like Lp(a)?

Well, unfortunately you can't. It's hard to get it down because when it's high, it's a genetic. But yes, people who are prone, they want to make sure that they're keeping their other factors, their other lipids down. So you want to make sure that you're sleeping at night because we know stress and sleeping, not sleeping at night is a stress. So sleeping at night, checking for sleep apnea. You can also make sure that you're doing meditative or things like that that are going to keep your stress level down, your cortisol levels cause that's pro-inflammatory. You wanna make sure that your diet, like a Mediterranean diet is so important because it's anti-inflammatory. And you want to, well, there's a lot of different factors, but you wanna make sure that you're moving every day, that you're staying active. So what I'm saying is that if you have an Lp(a), there are things you can do around it to bathe it, to protect it. But there's also, because the Lp(a) makes you more, prone to blood clots, like it increases what they call the fibrin, which makes the blood stickier. So we do have a supplement that I use on a lot of women and it's called Lumbrokinase. And it's an enzyme that's actually made from earthworm.

Okay.

Yes. And there's a couple of companies that make that Lumbrokinase that we use. It's— you have to get the right one, the right kind for it to work. So yes, I always tell women if they're at risk and they're they're worried, like definitely if you have an Lp(a), don't smoke. Make sure that you're doing all the lifestyle factors that I mentioned and more. And just, you know, I think stress is a huge thing that adds to a lot of these things. So really looking for ways to make sure that you're not that type A person, just running, running, running. And that is hard, but there are ways to work around that.

I am that person. Type A, running, running, running. Yes. So thank you for the message. I know there's a lot of Type A women listening to this show. Some of them are dentists and, you know, they're really, you know, the stress in a dental office and running a dental office can be high at times. Does stress play a big role in heart disease?

It does.

Yes.

So again, when you're stressed, that sympathetic releases cortisol. Which from our adrenal glands, and the cortisol is meant to help us escape something in danger. But if you're constantly in stress mode, you're releasing cortisol all the time, and cortisol breaks the body down. We know that it's very catabolic, which breaks, breaks the body down, but it also plays a huge part again in our hormones. What I call it is the cortisol steal, because our hormones are there to protect us and help us. And if If you're stressed all the time, the cortisol is going to pull away from your— I call them the sex hormones, which is estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. So you really want to balance things because if you have too much cortisol, you know, it's just like anything in life. You need to have that yin and yang or that, you know, you have that sympathetic, that go, go, go. You want to have that parasympathetic, which is the calming factor. So I'm all about prioritizing ways of deep, even just breathing, taking that deep breath. It stimulates your vagus nerve, which slows down your heart rate. It helps you calm down, and that is protective of our body.

Very nice. I like that. I also tell my patients that, you know, in the dental chair, deep, slow breathing. So important. Now, are there signs, you know, with women as compared to men? Are there signs that you might be having heart disease?

Okay, so women have different signs than men. That's why it's really not noticed as much. In fact, I had a patient today that was in my office and she's always been healthy and, you know, she's always been like my— I'm like, oh, she's my healthiest patient, you know, elderly healthiest patient. And she started saying, you know, I'm getting short of breath when I'm going out just pulling weeds in the I'm going for walks and I'm getting shortness of breath. I'm like, okay, that's a sign that we need to check out your heart. So women have different symptoms than men. They're more vague. It could be fatigue. It could be some nausea. It could be, you could have the chest pain, but it's more like a pressure. You can even have things that are like dizziness or sweating, like unexplained sweating, even at night. Or you could have like the just fatigue. So those symptoms really just kind of go like, oh, it's just, you know, it's nothing. But if you're having any of these symptoms, I really encourage you to get it checked out.

Yeah, very important. I'm glad you mentioned these because for some women, especially as they're getting closer to menopause, they experience sweating, night sweats, especially due to a lack of estrogen. Is there a connection? You mentioned earlier there's a connection between estrogen and heart disease.

Yes, very much so. So that's when, when the number one killer of women really accelerates is after menopause. So estrogen is actually protective. It keeps our arteries supple, it keeps them elastic, and it keeps them healthy. When, in fact, the American Heart Association is even talking about this, that when women go through menopause, it does accelerate heart disease. And they even encourage that women would look at getting back on estrogen. Now, the key is, when you really want to get on estrogen, the earlier the better when you're going through menopause. And they did study— they've done several studies, and they showed that after 10 years of menopause, when you— it's not as beneficial. You really want to get it within 6 years or less of menopause to get on hormones. But if you're over 60, you might, you need to talk to your doctor and get checked out about the pros and cons. But hormones are safe. You know, they did that study, the NIH did that study, what, 25, 30 years ago? And it really did a disservice for a lot of women. They, well, there's a couple of things. There was a silver lining about this. So many women did get taken off their hormones And then you see all these women that just couldn't sleep. They were mood— they had mood changes, vaginal dryness. They were just a mess, you know, weight gain. When you go through menopause, all that happens. And of course, you know, you want to have your skin looking good, you know, your bones good because the bones affect the teeth as well. You want your muscles strong. You want that longevity because we know that when you lose hormones, There are studies show a higher risk of death and morbidity, which means more medical problems, chronic diseases. So we know that hormones really protect the arteries. So that is definitely something now that we're coming around from that study that was done year— 25 years ago, they used synthetic hormones. They used progestin. And you know, those were synthetic hormones. They used The estrogen was made from horse urine. So today we know with all the studies that the bioidentical hormones are identical to what our body would make and they're much safer. In fact, they're protective and people live longer. They feel better. Everybody's happier because, you know, when Mama's happy, everybody's happy.

Yeah, definitely. What do you recommend women to start checking their hormones?

Well, a lot of women will start going through perimenopause, which, you know, that's when the cycles start changing and they'll start having night sweats and mood swings and, you know, you just don't feel right, start gaining weight. It's all those frustrating things that we don't want. You have fatigue, you get brain fog. So that's a great time to start getting your hormones checked. Now, I'm not saying that you have to go on hormones all the way, but like a lot of women don't sleep well at night and they're having the night sweats, you might be able to just take oral progesterone at night because it calms the brain and the body, helps with the night sweats, and it's just overall helps women just feel better. And they— when you sleep better, you sleep better and you function better. And you know, that's one thing. Now another thing is testosterone. I'm a love testosterone, not just for men but for women. That's really a game changer for a lot of things. I know back when I started going through changes like that, I got on testosterone and my skin was better. I slept better. My muscles are better. My bones are stronger. I'm using that for my osteoporosis and all these— it just has so many benefits. So there's different hormones. You want to use different hormones for different things, but it's a, it's what we call a symphony. You wanna balance your hormones. It's not just like throw something on. You really need to go someone who has studied and understands bioidentical hormones because it's not just throwing hormones on somebody. It's a balance. And everybody's different. One size does not fit all.

Now, what's the best way to test? Is it through urine, through blood? I know there's different, or saliva nowadays. So what is your preferred method?

So if someone is coming in that's not been on any hormones, the blood test is fine. You can do that. Now, I do love on some women who are going through changes or they don't really, you know, they have different situations. Like today I had another young lady who had a hysterectomy and she's like, but I feel like I'm still cycling and I just don't know. So I'm doing not only blood tests on her, but I'm doing what they call the Dutch test. The Dutch stands for dried urine total comprehensive hormone. That's what DUTCH stands for. And it's a urine test, and you can do saliva as well. And what, what the DUTCH test is doing is checking your metabolites. So like the blood test checks for the totals, but the DUTCH test checks for all how the breakdowns and how they're going across to each other. And it also can check some metabolites in the urine that again, not checked, that can't be checked in your blood, but it tells you if the— there's 3 different estrogens and it'll show you if you have the pro-inflammatory or the anti-inflammatory estrogen metabolites. So that's a whole nother subject there. That's a beautiful test. So again, first time, just, you know, getting the totals in the blood's fine. The saliva test is good if you're on topical. If you're on topical hormones, it's better to check saliva or sometimes urine. There's different ways of different things. If you're on patches, you know, we have different ways. So it's a whole different science of knowing exactly how to test. So it's not just doing one type of test. And I do use all the different combined ones, whether blood, urine, saliva. All the— yeah, depending.

Now, one of the things that impressed me about you also, your focus on oral health. Because I don't meet a lot of physicians that actually know and understand how big of a role oral health plays in especially heart disease, but also overall health. So what are some of your recommendations when it comes to oral checks and heart disease?

So I studied this years back about the— how the oral health affects our heart and our brain, because I have a, have a very special in my heart about dementia because my mother died of Alzheimer's. So I really dove in learning everything I could about Alzheimer's. And I took Dr. Dale Bredesen's course in learning about that. And part of that is talking about how the oral bacteria causes dementia as well as heart disease. So the P. gingivalis is a bacteria that, like, if you have bleeding gums or if you— it can be more than just that as well, but there is a test that I do in my Cleveland Heart Lab. It's an inflammatory marker and it's the hs-CRP. If I see that elevated, I always ask the patient, "Do your gums bleed?" And when they say yes, I'm like, "Okay, you've got to go to a biological dentist." Not just any dentist, a biological dentist, because you need to be checked out. And while they're in my office, I have a little test kit, it's called Oral DNA, and they can, it's just a little thing they swish in their mouth and they spit in a tube and I send it off and I can see what bacteria is in there and what levels and if there's the real high risk, the moderate or the low risk and what they have. And then I'm like, that's a really good test to really find out if this is what's going on. Because if you have these, there's several bacteria. If you have these certain bacteria in your mouth, that's going to set you up for not only heart disease, dementia, stroke, a number of things, inflammation in the body. So I love biological dentists. And there's a whole thing about, about that. In fact, I know I keep saying this, but I just had a patient today that I sent down the street from my office. We now have a biological dentist. Thank goodness. Because otherwise they had to drive so far from where I live, but they have ozone and they, you know, they do the cone CT. They look for pockets, you know, all the things that are so important. For this bacterial infections that affects your whole body, your whole life, your whole livelihood, your longevity. And I'm a longevity doctor.

Anyway. Yeah, and you know, as a periodontist, I always check for P. gingivalis because it's one of the microbes that causes gum disease. And you know, it's interesting, a lot of people think, oh yeah, my gums are bleeding, what's the big deal? Because it doesn't hurt, but the reality, is every time gums bleed, there's an opportunity for the microbes like P. gingivalis to catch a ride in the blood vessels and end up lodged elsewhere. The heart, blood vessels. It's been linked in patients with arthritis. So it's been found in the joints, in the brain, you were mentioning. So I'm so glad you're doing this oral DNA. I really believe any longevity doctor should do this, and especially dentists. It's actually not a test that a lot of dentists do. Sadly, it's been around for, I want to say, 20 years now.

Yes. And I'm glad that, you know, people like you are doing this great work because we definitely need it. I mean, there's just so many different things that people don't know. And that's why I'm glad we're talking about these things because, again, people don't know what they don't know. And once you know better, you do better. And like I said, knowledge is power. So I love all this. I love teaching, but I just want to be able to get this out there more and people to understand because there's so many things that we can do naturally to reverse chronic diseases. And have the right people that know about it and that can help dive in and get to the root cause.

Yeah. And you, in my conversations with you, you also mentioned you're not a big fan of root canals. Do you ask your patients whether or not they have root canals? Do you have a little oral questionnaire that you give them, or?

Well, I, when I see people that come in with inflammation, say, or like, not only, you know, like you were talking about arthritis or skin rashes, or they just don't feel well, or like their inflammatory markers are up, I do an oral exam. That's part of my physical exam. And they always tell them, you know, as a functional medicine doctor, I ask a lot of things, you know, family history and all this, you know, lifestyle things. And I ask about their pooping, you know, they're all like, what? You know, talking about bowel movements? But I always say, yeah, because the gut is the window to the rest of the body and the mouth is the beginning of the gut. One of the most important places. So I always look in their mouth, look at their tongue. I want to see how many amalgams they have, if they have silver, gold, different metals, if they're having like their— I look at their tongue to see if they have a scalloped tongue. I look at the top, I look at the color, the width, you know, see if they're having sleep— could be having sleep apnea, things such as that. So I do, I do an oral questionnaire, but more so personally. But I do have some questionnaires that touch on it a little bit, but I do a deeper dive when they come in and I talk to them.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's nice that you do an oral exam. Absolutely. Because a lot of people, you know, I had somebody yesterday, he hasn't been to the dentist in 12 years. So 12 years is a long time. A lot can happen. And definitely having that cone beam CT scan and, you know, that you work with a biological dentist that could, you know, help you decrease that inflammation faster for your clients or your patients. Yes. Let's talk a little bit about sleep apnea because you mentioned that. How does that play a factor in heart disease?

Oh my goodness, it's one of the biggest things. And it's— now we can do home sleep studies, but it's convincing people to even do that. I'm like, look, they're going to send this little thing. It's so easy. Send it to your home. You put it on your finger. You put a little thing on your chest.

You know, you sleep.

There's no one No one's watching you. You don't have to watch all that, but it's a good screening test. But I can tell you that one of the number one causes of heart disease, especially atrial fibrillation, if someone comes in with new onset atrial fibrillation, I'm going to do a sleep study on them. But if they're also having like a lot of fatigue during the day, they're having a hard time losing weight. They're just like their brain fog, their blood pressure's high. Hypertension is definitely a signal for that. They need, you need to make sure that they have, they don't have sleep apnea It does. Sleep apnea, what that really means is you're not getting oxygen to your body. It means you're not getting oxygen to your brain, your heart, all the vessels. You just don't function well. And we know that oxygen is the key to living. And so if you're not getting proper oxygen, you're getting up several times a night and they say, "Well, I just have to get up and go pee." several times a night. That's one of the clues. If you're up frequently at night to go urinate, you need a sleep study because it's not that you have to urinate, it's your body waking up and it gives you that signal of urination. But if you're having daytime fatigue or brain fog or can't lose weight, then those are also some clues. But we know that sleep apnea is one of the number one causes, like we mentioned, heart disease, dementia, and just not, you know, decreasing longevity and vitality. Absolutely.

And it's something that I ask for as well, because it has a 47% risk of morbidity, which is high. And it's one of those things I feel I have so many of my patients that, Mark, you know, we ask them if they snore. Yes. But most of them have not had a sleep test. It's still not, not the norm out there. Do most doctors recommend a sleep test or still No, they don't.

I do it very regularly on my patients. And they don't have to just all be obese. I have some little small thin ladies that I finally said they're having all these problems and finally convinced them to get the sleep study. And then they were like, they're positive. And I have to convince them, look, just get this, just try it, get used to it. And then they, one lady calls it her binky. She says, I can't go to sleep without it now. Oh, it's good. It's changed my life. And you can travel with them. They make these little travel ones that, you know, everybody's just— but I also recommend people, if you don't always have to just do the CPAP, and I'm not sure it's your practice or not, but there is down at that same place, they have different ways of doing oral devices. I mean, there's different things you can do than just always just doing a sleep study. I mean, there's mouth taping, there's different, but You know, some places can go and look at the shape and how your tongue falls back. And do— there are other things that can be done at some of these sleep centers that are based through some of the dentists. At least there's one down the street from me that does.

Yeah, so in dentistry, we actually can treat up to like moderate sleep apnea, for example, with certain dental appliances. It's basically a top and bottom guard, and the lower jaw advances forward with the guards. Another option, we have this procedure, it's a laser procedure that actually has become more popular, I want to say, in the last couple of years. A dentist from Florida actually came up with this technique through a Fotona laser company, and basically it's called NightLase. And what it is, it's energy, laser energy, that we put in the back of the throat to lift the palate or the roof of the mouth and kind of tighten the ligaments of the tongue So the tongue doesn't fall in the back of the throat as much and really open up the airway without cutting, without numbing, really just by using laser energy.

Wow. I have some people I can send to you. I've been waiting for this.

Yeah, he developed this actually about 9 years ago. He finally got some studies together. He's 89% successful. He's even seen people with a CPAP actually significantly go down in pressure. On the CPAP machine. We cannot tell people, okay, get rid of your CPAP. Not yet. But people that are not wearing anything, especially that have mild to moderate sleep apnea, we can completely, you know, reverse their sleeping scores.

And what's it called?

It's called Night Lace. Night Lace. L-A-S-E. Night Lace.

Okay. Okay.

And I treated both my mom and my husband. And so I was very excited because I could sleep better now.

Yes, yes. And I have patients that they're kicking their spouse out the other room. They're like, that the CPAP, you know, I just can't sleep. So that would save some marriages, maybe.

Yeah, exactly. Very true. So easy. And I like the fact that, you know, you talked about the testing. The testing has gotten so much easier. I remember when my mom got tested about 12 years ago, she had to go to center and be all wired up and sleep there. And it's uncomfortable.

Well, I think that's great. I've been, I was, you know, cause the laser stuff in the past really didn't prove itself well, but, um, people, I think people would definitely want to try, like you said, if it's mild to moderate, I would love, I have patients that would love to try that out.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty incredible. And even often after the first treatment, patients could tell a difference even getting off the chair. Some of the fascia actually changes with the laser energy, and it does take 21 days to really see the full results from one treatment as the connective tissue continues to change and, you know, the tissues to tighten.

Is it a radio frequency or— or is it—

No, it's actually a combination of erbium YAG and Nd:YAG laser that actually promotes the changes. And Fotona, a laser company, they're the ones that have this dual combination laser. That allow for this kind of treatment. So I highly encourage, if there's dentists listening, to definitely look into this. It's a great way to help people and to especially pair up with physicians like you who actually test for sleep and really, you know, educate people. Because I have some people that just could not wear a CPAP, or they just couldn't wear dental appliance because they were gagging. So this is really the only other option.

Yes, that's, that's awesome. I'm excited to learn about that.

Yeah, another question I have for you, it's regarding mercury. Does mercury metal, and you mentioned amalgams, the fact that you look in people's mouths and you count the amalgams, does mercury play a role in heart disease?

Well, it is more so, it does. Heavy metals do affect the heart. I really am very passionate about mercury toxicity because not only did my mom, like I said, have like a lot of oral problems and all, but I found out that I have high, had high mercury in my brain because I was having a lot of brain fog and a lot of problems such as that. So I'm a very big proponent of testing for heavy metals, especially mercury. And we do have good ways of testing for that and then referring the patients to a biological dentist to have them safely removed. And you want to do it— so when I say safely, because mercury loves to go into fatty tissues. And so the brain's one of those. But I, that's one of my passions is mercury toxicities. So it is definitely pro-inflammatory to the body. If anybody has the silver amalgams in there and they think, oh, they've been there for years and they're turning dark and every time you bite down, you're releasing mercury and that mercury goes straight from there, goes up and where's it going to go to? The brain. And then you're swallowing it. So it's going to go down the rest of the body and then you absorb it and it goes into a lot of your organs in your body. So yes, I mean, definitely. I know a lot of dentists. From the past don't really believe in that mercury is a problem. But we— but I, I know I've seen enough studies and I've seen enough people having problems like ringing in their ears, you know, tinnitus, tinnitus, however you want to say it. But yes, I'm, I'm definitely one to say, please, if you have any kind of issues, any kind of neurological issues, it could be neuropathy or anything like that, you need to be checked.

Yes, absolutely. And, uh, you know, I'm glad it's something that you talk to your patients about because it's exactly right. People look in their mouth and it's like, yeah, I've had this since childhood. Why should I remove them? You know, they're not bothering me. But the truth is, there's that smoking tooth video from Dr. Kennedy that he did. Every time he actually touched it or rubbed it, there was mercury vapor coming off of it. And that's going in our body, basically.

And I know a lot of people have trouble as well with mixed metals, you know, mercury and you have a gold and, you know, all these different things. So I always tell people to go to the dentist and get checked if you have like different metals in the mouth.

So do you prefer to start removing the heavy metals prior to removing amalgam fillings or after?

So what I'll do is I'll put them on some binders and some things to just, I guess, methylation support is what I call it, so that when they do go to the dentist, then they're safely having it safely removed with, you know, all this, all the special techniques to catch the vapors and such, the trap and all. And then as soon as they have them removed, I have them start on the mercury binding, which is like a silica powder. It's an IMD, and I use glutathione and alpha lipoic acid and vitamin C and a lot of different things to help with the detox as well. And you have to be on the binder as well to grab the mercury. So I'm big on doing mercury detoxes.

How long do you see, or how long does someone have to be on a mercury detox?

It does depend on person to person, but generally it's a minimum of 3 months. Sometimes I've had people have to do 6 months if they're real— if it depends on how dedicated or how strict or how structured they are, like how, how well they're following the protocol, I guess you can say. But if they follow that protocol and I take them off of all tuna and crab and things that are high in mercury food-wise as well, then I've had very much success in helping people just turn everything around. They just feel so much better in about 3, 4, sometimes 6 months, but Generally around there.

Amazing. So if someone is listening right now and like worried about their heart, what's the number one thing they should do today?

I would tell them to find a functional or integrative doctor or somebody who does the Cleveland Heart Lab. Now I think there's Boston Heart Lab as well. I'm just used to Cleveland Heart, but find a doctor who knows how to do this advanced testing looking for the inflammatory markers. If they're just looking at total cholesterols and saying, "Oh, you look fine," or they're just putting you on a medicine, a pill for an ill, for high cholesterol and not looking at anything else, that's not the right person. So you want someone that does advanced cardiovascular testing, someone who also, if you, there's another test that we do is a CIMT that looks at the wall of the artery to see if there's plaque. Also, maybe a doctor who will also do advanced testing like calcium scores, of the heart to see if there's plaque around the heart. Because we know if you send people to the cardiologist, they're going to do the typical EKG, stress test, echocardiogram. And they go, okay, you're due fine. You know, come back when you have a problem. And then a month later, they're back in with something going on. They didn't really do deeper. So what I do is I like to do this advanced cardiac testing with cardiac CT scan. And if they do have some plaque, or I'm still thinking, even though they don't maybe not have a lot of plaque, I'm still thinking there's symptoms, there's a new artificial intelligence software that we use with an angio. They can put the dye at a radiology department, and they'll do a CT scan and send the software off to this company called Cleerly, C-L-E-E-R-Y. L-Y, and it does this AI detection of plaque and stenosis that's so much better than any invasive test that can be done, and it gives you so much more information. That is a huge test, an advanced test now. So if you can find a doctor that does the advanced cardiovascular lab testing, that does this, say the CIMT to look at plaque in the artery here, that does more than just, you know, the calcium score is fine, but someone who can do this advanced plaque and stenosis test that's non-invasive for the most part, and not just your regular old-fashioned way of detecting things, because, you know, science is going forward. We got to stay up with it. And there's so much now that we can learn. And once you know, then we can do more to turn this around. You know, find a doctor, find a functional medicine integrative, or, you know, someone who, who who takes the time to learn more. I mean, I spend a lot of time studying and learning. I love learning, but I'm doing it because I know it's my calling and I know that I'm here to help people to live their best life. And to, you know, I'm writing a book right now and I'm calling it Smarter, Stronger, Longer.

I love it. Great title.

Yeah. Live longer and perform better.

Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, with all the amazing testing we have today, we can really detect things early enough to where we can make a difference. You also mentioned to me earlier about Omega-3 Index. How does that help?

So we know that omegas, omega-3s are your fish oils. Omega-3, you know, 3 and 6, and sometimes 3, 6, 9 are your omegas. Those are the anti— they get inflammation down the body. So they're an anti-inflammatory, a natural anti-inflammatory. And I measure that in my Cleveland Heart Lab because I know that if they're low, people are going to have more inflammation. And it's so easy just to pop a fish oil in. You don't have to, you know, it has to be cold water fish. That's why people like, I live in Florida, so we don't have cold water fish. So people are like, well, I'm eating grouper and snapper, but it has to be way up north and So there are certain fish, salmon, or— but it has to be the wild-caught salmon. And if you don't want to eat that, then take fish oils because it's anti-inflammatory. And that is definitely helping the inflammation as well of the arteries and the brain and the body.

What happens to the fish that's not wild-caught? Let's say there's some sustainably grown salmon that is pretty fatty. There's one particular one I love called Tsukuna Bay salmon. It's out of Vancouver. That's going to be nice and great flavor. Is it not the same in terms of omega-3?

So because it is harder to get the wild-caught all the time, if they're sustainably raised and you know the background of the company, then yes, you can eat that. It's the ones that were farm-raised that they were using the chemicals and the additives and the food was full of additives and chemicals that are really, you know, we live in a toxic world. And so we're trying to avoid as many toxins as we can. So the sustainably raised fish, for the most part, it's always good to do your research on the company, but yes, that's better than eating the farm-raised if you can't do the wild-caught all the time.

Good point.

Yeah.

You've given us so much great information, really, really incredible. I know some people listening are wondering where they can find you.

So I'm in Florida, I practice in Florida, in the top part, what's called the Panhandle, is Panama City Beach, but my website is the best way to find me and to do research about what I do and such, or get in touch if you want. But it's www.drmyrareed.com. That's D-R-M-Y-R-A-R-E-E-D dot com. And yes, check out my website, start following me on my social media. I put a lot of things on Instagram and Facebook, and I'm starting my YouTube channel, getting that going. So yeah, I love it. Be putting a lot more information out.

And we need it. We need to get the word out for sure. And we're definitely looking forward to your book and all the information. Your website will be down in the show notes. And I thank you so much for your time and your generosity and your passion and having this world a better place.

Yes, thank you so much. I really appreciate so much. Thank you. Thank you. And yes, I'm hoping that we can help change the world to a healthier place.

Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram @DrSandaMoldovan. This is Dr. Sanda Moldovan, and remember, Your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.