Root Canals and Breast Cancer

Have I got your attention yet? Or, are you just thinking that Dr. Lord’s gone off the deep end again this month? Well, it’s probably a little bit of both, but you’re still wondering why I would pick such a subject.

Actually, it all started after a few patients had either called or stopped by the office to ask about what they’d read on the Internet about these and other subjects. In fact, one man even asked if I was aware that fluoride (you know, the stuff in toothpaste that helps prevent cavities) had not been found on the earth prior to the atomic bomb and further opined that it was the bomb itself that created the natural occurring element. To be honest, there is a grain of truth to his claim. Instead, however, of fluoride not being found on earth until after the atomic bomb, he really should have said that fluoride had not been found in toothpaste until after the atomic bomb. (Adding fluoride to toothpaste started in the early 50’s.)

But, let’s get back to the first issue. If you do a search on “breast cancer” and “root canals” you’ll likely get well over 8 million hits! WOW, that’s a lot of interest on this subject! So, I decided to find out just how many root canals are being done. Worldwide, 40 million are done each year with 24 million of those being done in the US alone. Well, that’s fine you say, but how does that affect my boobs, or man-boobs if you fit that body type.

Well, it’s an offshoot of the Focal Infection Theory of the late 1800’s and was based on some long ago research done by a dentist named Price. He felt that a “dead” tooth could not be sterilized and, in reality, he’s right. He also stated that bacteria in a “non-vital” or “dead” tooth could provide a hiding place for bacteria to grow and infect other parts of the body. His assertion was that each tooth was responsible for different parts of the body, and if you were sick, all you had to do was have the offending tooth removed and you would be cured. Unfortunately, his theory fell on hard times when, a number of years later, there were a lot of toothless (they called them “100 percenters” back then because they had had all their teeth removed) people running around that were not getting any better.

More recently, a doctor named Rau, who works today with breast cancer patients, was apparently reading some of the really old magazines he hadn’t yet replaced in his waiting room and he stumbled across a 1925 issue of a dental journal that contained Price’s work. Judging Rau to be an avid Pawn Starts devotee since he values ancient research over current research, decided to do some research of his own. Finding most of his breast cancer patients had had root canals, he theorized that bacterial “sleeper” cells had been hiding in those root canals and had been activated to go on a “search and destroy” mission to eradicate all breasts. (Men, as usual, seem to have lucked out again but they do have their own issues. According to a recent episode of South Park, gluten was shown to cause a certain part of the male body to fly off.)

At Arizona Smile Designers, we are aware that there are many issues out there that can pose a threat to one’s overall health and we continue to do our best to stay abreast (pun intended) of them. Let me just say that you need to take what you read on the Internet with a grain of salt. There is both good and bad to be found there.

Earl Lord, DDS, MAGD