Believe it or not, but your mouth is connected to the rest of you. A recent analysis suggests that bacteria that cause gum disease are also associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease and are related to dementia, especially vascular dementia. In this episode, biological dentist Dr. Kalli Hale sits down with Carrie Miller to talk about the relationship between some dental solutions and having a healthy brain. She also goes over some cause of periodontal disease and the best ways to prevent it, how our teeth affect our systemic health, and the long-term consequences of dental treatment.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Unconventional Dental Solutions For A Healthy Brain With Dr. Kalli Hale

We have got a special guest on the show. I am extremely impressed by this young lady’s resume. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and her Master of Public Health from Texas A&M University. She earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston. She received certification in Safe Mercury Amalgam Removal Technique through the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology and trained in antimicrobial strategies and healing, Ozone therapy, and cosmetic dentistry. She is an Affiliate Fellow of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry and a certified Invisalign provider. I am excited to introduce you a biological dentist from League City, Texas, Dr. Kalli Hale. 

Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. This is going to be way too much fun.

I’m excited to gather all the information, get my notes down and we’ll go through what we can. We run out of time because you’re busy. I’m excited to be here with you. Thank you for being here on the show. I’ve got many questions. First of all, I’m curious to know what piqued your interest and catapulted you to the understanding of holistic methods of dentistry for brain health, to begin with. 

That’s such a story and I feel like I wish we had two hours because I could probably talk about that transition for me alone. As a dentist, when you get out of school you know enough to go out and help people with their teeth and decay. The systemic health and the overall body function of what happens when you have, for example, recurrent decay or amalgam restorations that are leaching. Root canals that might have periapical cysts involved with them and infections in the body that you have to focus on all of it instead of pretending that your mouth is not connected to the rest of you. For me, I have to give a lot of credit to my also dentist younger sister. We are sixteen months apart and we both went to A&M, both went to dental school together. I’m also married to a dentist and my parents are both dentists. My older sister, Jackie, is our regional manager at the office. We eat, breathe, and live teeth all the time. My younger sister was traveling with her husband who was playing professional baseball at the time.

She had a lot more time to research after dental school than I did because I was thrown into a wonderful, busy practice. She started talking to me one day and saying, “You need to look into protecting yourself a little more with amalgam, for example.” As sisters, we’re close and it was met with an annoyance and an eye roll of like, “What are you talking about? This was even a potentially dangerous material than we would have been told that and all of it.” What I learned the hard way was that there’s a lot more to play with materials, politics, what we use, why we use it, when it was created and how things have changed since then. My parents are the smartest people I know and I attribute my success to them and their raising...