4 Steps to Put Your Practice at the Forefront of Prevention

  How many patients a day do you see with chronic disease or complicated medical histories? Sadly, obesity, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune and heart disease are all too common. What if there was a simple way to utilize the power of your hygiene department to not only improve the physical health of your patients but the financial health of your practice? As dental professionals, we can help our patients detect, manage, and even avoid these and other health risks. We understand the re...
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Interview with Kristen King RDH

Dr. McGlennen: Tell our readers how you use OralDNA® salivary diagnostics. Kristen RDH: We recommend OralDNA® saliva testing on all patients that have bleeding/inflammation regardless of probe depths. We utilize MyPerioPath® for these patients to customize treatment plans and target the cause of the inflammation. We utilize a post MyPerioPath® test, called MyPerioProgress®, to measure the effectiveness of the therapy we provided. It is awesome to use an approach where we can have objective ...
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Periodontal Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis – Controlling Two Birds with One Stone?

  Challenge: Our case study represents an example of the emerging evidence from interventional and, more recently, animal studies showing how seemingly unrelated diseases such as periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis can be related through similar genetic, biological, and clinically consistent mechanisms.1,2,3,4 Background: The initial medical assessment for a 57-year-old female diagnosed with palindromic rheumatoid arthritis was conducted at our functional medicine clinic....
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A Physician’s Treasure Trove

My journey into oral systemic health began when a very dear patient suffered a fatal stroke. Following the best evidence-based medical practices was not enough, so I studied hard to learn more. That journey led me to a treasure trove of knowledge from Bradley Bale MD and Amy Doneen DNP, ARNP, founders of the BaleDoneen Method®, and then to the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health. More than ever, I can emphatically pronounce that NO cardiovascular prevention program is complete without ...
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How Do you Speak Testing? With Becky Comstedt RDH

“How Do You Speak Testing” provides insight into how to talk with your patients about optimal care. The guest author has been given a fictitious patient with background information and clinical signs along with a randomly selected test result(s). The guest author will share their expertise in communicating OralDNA® Labs testing with patients. Hypothetical Patient Bio: An 82-year-old female patient has been seeing you for periodontal maintenance. She has cardiovascular disease, takes lisinopri...
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Oral Health and Leaky Gut: The Surprising Connections

Helping dental professionals recognize the interconnectedness between oral health, the gastrointestinal (GI) system, and overall wellness is my passion. As dental clinicians, it’s imperative to understand these connections because what happens in the mouth doesn’t stay in the mouth. Numerous health issues can be detected by educated and observant dental professionals—thus alerting patients to avoidable negative health consequences down the road. Does bad oral health affect the rest of the...
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American Academy of Oral Systemic Health: Collaboration Cures

As a young dentist, you are faced with career decisions. Joining the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health (AAOSH) has been one of the best decisions I have made in my career. This organization and its mission, connecting medicine and dentistry to save lives, has encouraged me to look beyond the teeth by making me more aware of the importance of cardiovascular, metabolic, gut, and airway health. Connecting the dots between a patient’s oral and systemic health is where the next frontier i...
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Why Join the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health (AAOSH)?

The length of my dental career has been shadowed by the declining health of our population. With great sadness, I have witnessed my patients arriving with new lists of lifestyle-related diagnoses and an assortment of medications, prescribed as “band-aids” for those ailments. In congruence, the ever-increasing prevalence of oral disease (caries, periodontitis, oropharyngeal cancer, and occlusal disease) has not surprised me. As a dedicated friend to my declining patients, I started looking fo...
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Light the Flame of Awareness

Incorporating OralDNA® testing into our practice has been a game changer. It finally gives us, the clinicians, an advantage when getting ahead of this progressive disease--periodontal disease. The research is mounting, periodontal pathogens do not just exist in your oral cavity; the bacteria can enter the bloodstream through inflamed periodontal tissue. Hence, the mouth is connected to the body and so are the pathogens. It is all linked. Now with MyPerioPath® results to show what periodontal...
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Part 2: Build the Microscopic Army in Your Mouth to Fight Oral Cancer and Improve Dental Health

Last week in part 1, oral cancer was defined with a potential cause being oral dysbiosis identified. This week, I will give supporting evidence of this connection along with strategies to avoid this dysbiosis. When we talk about an unhealthy microbiome, we often use the word, “dysbiosis.” Oral dysbiosis is a mouth that is unhealthy because the microorganisms are out of balance. An imbalanced microbiome may lead to symptoms or disease. Symptoms of Oral Dysbiosis: Bad breath Blee...
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