I learned the old hard way (20+ years of chronic disease), then the new fast way about gene types and toxins: two years discovering biocompatibility issues in dentistry and medical devices, and immersion in the sciences and arts of investigative and scientific research. An economist and ethicist by training, with a new vocation and skill set by life's necessities and the fundamental urge to be well.
What am I learning? Health and chronic disease has a lot to do with methylation, and other basic biochemical and bioelectrical pathways essential for human life, animal life, probably plant life. We are the biome, the toxome, the home. Much as we like to think we are a higher being or species, our higher creative and economic capabilities come back to bite us when we ignore the fundamental economic, social, medical, environmental externalities at the scale of patient, profession, and local, national and global levels.
It's all about luck in the gene pool, and in the toxins pool.Those with great genes can swill toxins and expel them with ease, and dance and compose magna opi in their 90s. Those with bad luck in methylation, detoxification, and immunological pathways can still be healthy - but only if they avoid toxins like the plague. Because they are ubiquitous, and stick with us given our genetic glitches, we begin the long slow decline, the long sunset, and the long goodbyes much too early, before our time.
But there is hope! We can now learn our gene types and our toxins, separate the bad from the bad, and strengthen the good.The body, brain and psyche has an astonishing capacity to heal itself when, like a computer or a car, we clean out bugs, reboot/reset electrical pathways and get things humming in the right direction again.
After being 25 years clinically older, I am now 25 years clinically younger. At 60, I may live to 101 like my grandmother relatively intact, instead of mid 80s with a horrible last few years like my mom. When my time comes I'd vote for a massive heart attack in my sleep or the ice floe or ocean to reenter the great sea and circle of life from which it began.
There are clinical trials underway in Sweden of a compound that boosts glutathione to help with metals toxicity because the FDA wouldn't grant orphan drug status. People travel even overseas for biologic dentistry because dental plans have no patient protection nor medical necessity rules, they are strictly commercial contracts that write their own rules. Health insurers would be so wise to cover biologic dentistry like any specialty, make referrals, and incorporate all things dental into EHRs.
Dental is the root of much inflammation and oxidative stress throughout the body and brain. Teeth are god's plan for mortality. Dental infections, and toxins - conveniently denied by the ADA and the FDA - cheat us of years of health, vitality, cognition and mobility. Dental mercury poisoning is acknowledged in many advanced countries, not in the USA. Toxins - bad for humans - are synergistic.
Biologic dentistry, functional medicine, integrative and holistic approaches are growing by leaps and bounds not just because they make people feel better, but because they work.
I am interested in partners for fascinating ventures. New interests include health innovation, apps and IT, wellness, chronic diseases, etiology, epidemiology, QR codes, old and new medicine, genomics, toxicology, pharmacology, cellular bio-chem-electrics, medical devices, FDA, Form 3500s, govt regulation of dentistry and medicine, self regulation of the professions, patents held by professional associations, conflicts between professional and commercial roles, civil rights, genetic rights (none where it counts in dentistry and not enough in medicine), constitutional law, health law, conflicts of interest among top regulators and industry, lobbying and campaign spending reports, media, censorship and journalism.
