How Oral Inflammation Drives Chronic Disease & Cognitive Decline | Dr. Jonathan Levine

What if your bleeding gums are silently damaging your heart and brain? NYU professor and medical pioneer Dr. Jonathan Levine reveals the truth about the oral-systemic superhighway, how mouth bacteria trigger Alzheimer’s, the "small jaw" epidemic sabotaging your sleep, and his 3-minute routine for ultimate longevity!

Dr. Jonathan Levine is a world-renowned prosthodontist, NYU clinical professor, and inventor with over 29 patents. He is the founder of GLO Science and a leading pioneer in oral-systemic medicine, dedicated to bridging the gap between dental health and longevity.

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Transcript

Voice Over: Welcome to the Longevity Formula with Dr. Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: We used to think your dentist was there to clean your teeth and fill cavities. That oral health was about avoiding bad breath and keeping a nice smile. But what if I told you that the bacteria living in your gums right now has been found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, that 78% of blood clots causing heart attacks contain oral bacteria that every time you brush your teeth with bleeding gums, you're injecting pathogens directly into your bloodstream, and some of them end up in your brain eating away at neurons.

This isn't about vanity, it's about survival. Welcome to the Longevity Formula, the podcast where we explore a new era of wellness through the pillars of faith, light, movement, mindset, nutrition, and science. I'm your host, Dr. Brandon Crawford. My guest today is Dr. Jonathan Veen, a world renowned prosthodontist, NYU professor, inventor with 29 patents, and founder of GLO Science.

But more than that, he's a pioneer in oral systemic medicine. He sees the mouth not as an isolated system, but as a gateway between the external world and everything happening inside your body, your brain, your heart, your immune system. Dr. Levine calls the oral microbiome the fifth pillar of longevity, and after this conversation, you'll understand why we're talking about porphyromonas, gingivalis, and brain tissue, mercury, fillings, root canals, and heart attacks.

The mouthwash lie in a three minute daily routine that could save your brain. Dr. Levine, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Such an honor and a pleasure to have you to, for you to have me and such a kind introduction. Thank you.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Thank you so much, man. Well, let's start off by explaining to the listeners what the heck is a prosthodontist.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah. You know, I'm almost gonna tell a story that a friend of mine who now lives in Austin, how he introduced me and confused prosthetist with proctologist that I explained to him. That's a mistake, but a prosthodontist is a small specialty. In dentistry, there's the periodontist that handles the kind of foundation of the tooth, the, the gum and the bones, and makes sure it's healthy.

And today they also place implants. There's the endodontist that does the root canals and it takes the nerves out and seals. Extremely well. Orthodontist, moving teeth, pediatric dentist, pediadontist for the young children. The prosthodontist is really for adults and we deal with aesthetics and structure function in biology.

Not each one more important than the other, but we look at them as a continuum working together because as you were saying, you know, look, the mouth is part of the body and there's such a ecosystem connectivity. 'cause it's all about these systems as as, as you know, connecting and how one impacts the other is what we're learning today with all our new, new science and research.

So it's quite exciting. But as prosthodontists, we kinda oversee the team. What, what, what I've been able to figure out, we say Brandon, over over 25 years, a complete success. It only took 25, 30 years. Right? We figure it out. But we have all the specialists under one roof. Where we have the periodontist and the orthodontist, prosthetist technicians all working collaboratively together.

And the prosthodontist kind of is that visual architect to kind of help drive the team to work collaboratively with their specialist colleagues.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: So it's almost like a systems architect, right? I

mean

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Exactly. Exactly right. That's exactly right. When you break it down. 'cause look, the body, human body, and the mouth, it's complicated.

And we know as scientists that we create simplicity when we can break it down into its component parts and that's where the systematic approach has to take over.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. Was, was there something in your life or career or something that shifted you into this more holistic way of thinking? Or was this your mindset from the beginning?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Such a fair question for a knucklehead like me, but I have to tell you, when I was in college, I played a sport called lacrosse and we had an amazing coach named Richie Mo. Who, who passed away a couple of years ago. And he was like the John Wooden of lacrosse. If, if we all know the great basketball, great pyramid of success, John Wooden, well, Richie put a group of us together, and by the time we're seniors, we win the national championship.

We're undefeated. We kind of mented into that senior year, but we, what I realized is that it's amazing what you can do together as a team where players have each other's back. We really love each other and and we believe that's when the magic happened. So when I got out of dental school and I started looking at dentistry and becoming a clinician, it was very siloed.

This is 35 plus years ago. Very siloed, very individualistic. There's some collegiality, of course, with the academics, but in general, everybody did their own thing. And I said, wow, this has to change. I worked really hard at kind of strategizing, but just almost by default my own thinking was let's go put teams together, and that's what I did.

I always put US doctors together, other prosthodontists bring the periodontists in. And over the last 20, 25 years, that's what we've evolved into where we have a core group that been together almost 30 years, 25 years, and then a young group that's been together five to seven working together, where on Friday morning we put all the patient's data up.

I call it the grand rounds for the smile. It's very unique. We do this in our graduate programs. We go over all the data on Keynote and then collaboratively through the point of view of each specialist working together. Because the orthodontist sees things different than a prosthodontist, than a periodontist, we really come up with a methodical approach.

Talk about systemic systematic approach where we identify the problem. We visualize digitally and different ways of where ideally things have to go. Like, think orthodontics. And aligners and kind of the software that allows you to see what the tooth movement's gonna be like. And then we work backwards, reverse engineer from there and come up with a treatment plan that is the most conservative and appropriate, but holistic from a standpoint of the, to improve the wellness of the patient.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, no, that's amazing. And I can absolutely appreciate it. It's very similar to, to what we've done in, in our functional neurology practice. Collaborative, collaborative care is paramount. And, you know, that's, that's exactly what we've done. We've got various professionals, right, whether it's functional neurologist, chiropractic, ot, pt, speech, neurosurgery, nurse practitioner, you know, that's our team.

And, and we do the same thing. We, you know, we have our patients in we put the data up there and then we develop the treatment plan and basically reverse engineer based on the functional goals we're trying to achieve. So I completely align with what you're doing, and I, I will say. I love biological dentists.

I don't know if that's accurate to call you a biological dentist. I don't know if that's the same thing, but is

Dr. Jonathan Levine: it, it's, it's, it's actually not

Dr. Brandon Crawford: okay.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: It, it's not what we can talk about. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but, you know, I'm, I'm an old fashioned guy and, you know, we're, we're a team of specialists working collaboratively together.

I, I do like the word comprehensive and holistic. I love in medicine a concept of functional medicine and integrative medicine. But, you know, those, these are all words that describe how do we do things better? How do we disrupt the system and constantly push forward for improvement? It's I love to hear what your team does and it look, it takes a great, you know, it takes leadership, it takes servant leadership, it takes, you know, inspiring our team from the top and everybody works collaboratively.

The, the biological dentist. There's a little bit of you know, kind of some hard, fast rules that they're, they're living under that might be questionable. From a scientific standpoint, but there's also a lot there that's quite good, and those type of people are what challenge the status quo. So I love it, but I, I kind of move a little bit more to the middle in those, some of those conversations.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Okay. Very good. That, that's a good differentiator. Okay. Fantastic. Okay, so let's kind of talk about, you know, the main thing that comes to my mind, you know, I'm a, I'm working with complex neurological disorders autism, brain injury, you, you name it, right? This kind of stuff. How in the world can we connect the dots between our oral microbiome and the brain?

I know specifically like I mentioned in the intro, like there's connections with Alzheimer's, but where does this connection happen? How does the mouth influence the brain?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah, so it's very interesting when the gums are inflamed chronically in the mouth, the pathogenesis, the pathway by which these bacterial byproduct.

Get into all of these distant areas in the body, has a lot to do with our superhighway, right? The circulatory system. But what happens, just like when you blow up a balloon, the walls of the balloon thins out when the gum, the epithelium next to the tooth has irritants, that the body believes it's antigenic.

In other words, it's a foreign invader. That tissue starts getting inflamed. You have a a, a, a adaptive and a humoral response chronically. And over time what happens when all the blood rushes in and we have the inflammatory cascade, we, we see that the epithelium thins and that just like the balloon gets expanded.

It becomes permeable, okay? So now you have a permeable membrane. Next to the root surface. What happens with this pathogenic bacteria in the mouth? The microbiome of the mouth is the second largest microbiome. The gut, as we all know, is the largest with about seven 8 trillion. The amount is about six 7 billion.

We have about 600 species, seven pathogens, and these pathogenic bacteria led by the baddest guy in the, in the room. P gingivalis, as you were stating will develop. And we know these endotoxins, these bacterial byproducts, they get into the bloodstream through that thin epithelium. That's, that's what the pathogenesis is for Alzheimer's.

What they've identified is these bacterial byproducts of p gingivalis called GIP pains, and these gip pains worse this way through the blood brain barrier. And they've actually been able to figure out exactly how it gets into the amyloid plaque of, of Alzheimer's. So it started off with Andrea Kamer group out of NYU about 12, 15 years ago, and there's been multiple studies since.

And what they've done is they've been able to link exactly where chronic inflammation in the mouth we call periodontal disease, but it's inflammation. People have to ask themselves, would you walk around with a cut in your hand that is sating red and not do anything about it? The problem in the mouth is you don't feel anything really going on.

Maybe there's a little bleeding when you're brushing. You blow it off, say no big deal. The big deal is that not only are you losing bone around the teeth when it's chronic periodontal disease, and you have this pocketing, but you now are putting these bacterial byproducts into the body. 57 chronic inflammatory diseases of the body.

Name 'em. Diabetes, cardiovascular disease number one, killer in America, cognitive function, leaky gut, pancreatic cancer, on and on and on. They're inflammatory, and there's a link between p gingivalis and a number of these pathogens that works its way. What does it doing in the amyloid plaque? What's it doing in the interstitial cells of leaky gut?

What's it doing in the pancreas of a pancreatic cancer? On and on and on. So there is a direct link. There is a Delink direct link, and once you know that there's a direct link and people are really starting to understand this, we gotta get smart in healthcare because we know the problem in healthcare today.

Sickness bottle model, we spend 20% of our GDP on the sickness model. We gotta get upstream and we gotta get well. So a group of troublemakers like myself, I say that with a smile. Say, you know what? Dentistry could be very helpful here in the healthcare system. How could that happen? Well, people go to the dentist more.

You go to the physician more than you can go to your PCP, your primary care physician. So if the dentist did a couple of basic tests to look at inflammatory markers, to look at salivary glucose, which is now available to the dentist, a company called Oral Genome led by a gal named Tina, saw a dentist, amazing founder of that company.

Through that, those tests, we say, oh, well we could do some finger brick, finger prick, finger prick, capillary tests. In the dental office and we could test some very basic things. So we can get A1C test, we can see lipids, we can, in fact, very soon we will have the Clio license on C-reactive protein.

Fantastic. Now I'm gonna take this data and I'm gonna refer it to your PCP. Who's gonna then understand that I better get this doctor, this patient in 'cause they haven't been in, in two and a half years. What did we just do? We just probably avoided some type of event that would've put someone on in, in the emergency room costing the healthcare system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And now we got ahead of an event. So as early as we, as we can go upstream, the better we all know that. And we just save the system millions of dollars. But we're also increasing improving the lives and the out health outcomes for people. So dentistry and medicine and medicine and dentistry, the bidirectional activity needs to happen in so many ways.

Yeah, and that's opportunity.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. I mean, so it's similar to the retina, right? I, I, I always urge people to have their retina scan, but of course, if you have great vision, no one's going to the eye doctor. Because when you look at the retina, you can see so many different degenerative markers to, to, or even, you know, diabetic markers and whatnot to tip us off that something may be going on, right?

But this is actually a bigger cascade of events. So how does, man, so many questions here, because no one is really routinely going to someone that's doing all of this.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: How in the world can someone find someone like you that does this work because it's so important to have your mouth looked at to just for preventative health.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah. You know, it, it comes down to, I'm sure, what you've done in your business, because I could ask you the same question. Yeah. Yeah. I really can, and I appreciate the question. Ho you know, I'm a humble human but I wanna move the needle and when it, when it comes to my profession, but improving people's lives.

And, and with that in mind, what we're doing with a company called Henry Schein, and we call it the bridge to bridge Oral health and overall health. We are testing this concept where we go from salivary diagnostics, which is now available for every dentist in the country. Oral genome is the com company, so you're testing salivary diagnostics.

It's a point of care test. It takes 20 minutes when the hygiene appointment starts, 20 minutes later, we got a good read. Amazing the hygiene appointment. Dentistry is the center of innovation of a dental practice. I could say that five times in a row. Why? Because that's where we have a full hour in a good dental office.

We have all this great new technology. We do CAT scans for the jaws as standard of care. We look at salivary pH, we do microbiome testing with a company called Bristle Health or, or oral DNA. It's been around 20 years. Amazing companies, and we can learn so much more. So I'm gonna ask my profession to be on top of the technology to be curious about learning, but we're gonna lay out a way and a pathway for dentists to work more with physicians through this bridge.

One of the key people at Henry Schein is David Kotchman, and he's taken about three of us dental offices, plus a few extras throughout the country working collaboratively. With another company the largest not-for-profit, for oral care called Care Quest up in Boston. Great company. And we're working together to build the protocols and the systems so that this can get rolled out to the dental practices.

So between a good screening test and, and a point of care finger capillary test where you can test A1C inflammatory markers and lipids, we'll be able to start increasing the number of biomarkers we could test quickly in a dental office. That data then needs to get to their physician, but the beauty of this is that physicians understand this conversation.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: If we said we took a salivated diagnostic test and we're reading and we're, we're seeing this pg and it's not their language, but if we said, oh, we took a blood test and here's the HDLs and the LDLs, and here's some of these important tests that we're seeing in the blood and we're getting a point of care, we could share it with them.

Now that now they're gonna say, okay this is relevant, this is important. All of a sudden, dentistry and medicine are talking to each other.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Nice.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: I'll give, I'll give you another example is Sleep Today. Sleep diagnostics is best done not only by the physician, which really only has A-C-P-A-P as their tool, but in dentistry, what we've figured out in the last five years in dentistry and people don't understand how important it is to get into deep regenerative sleep, how important it is to breathe through your nose, not through your mouth, and most of the problems of obstructive sleep apnea and snoring, and that's when you have a breathing disordered sleep.

The professions, medicine and dentistry, call it sleep disordered breathing. It's the other way around. When we can't sleep, that means we can't breathe. And when we can't breathe, it's usually structural, which means you either have a nasal obstruction, so you're forced to breathe through your mouth. You either have small jaws so the tongue doesn't come forward, so you have a mild functional tongue problem.

'cause when the tongue goes back, guess what happens? You block the airway and then when the palate of tissue is too that far down the throat, you're snoring or the circumference of your neck is too wide or you're overweight. We see all these things now in dentistry, fast. So this is why we started this concept called Smile House, because we're taking these ideas, all this technology, and we're putting it into a model that can be duplicated.

So the an, the short answer to your question is I'm hoping with a group of us to help lead the charge and to challenge my profession to adopt some of these ideas so that we can use that hygiene room as a center of innovation. Dentists and doctors are now working collaboratively and closer together because of our, our new technologies.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. So it's a similar path that I'm trying to take right now. You're just way ahead of me. I don't know about

Dr. Jonathan Levine: that.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Well, no, I mean, look, I'm just working on publishing data right now, right? Because, you know, I've been doing this for 15 years. I've been doing this really entrenched you know, hardcore for, you know, seven, maybe eight years.

I have this plethora of data now, right? And so my next step is to hire a research team to now start to publish this. 'cause what I concluded is I don't have the time to be a clinician, to be an inventor, to do all the, and still run research, right? So I'm hiring researchers to do that for me. Exactly. So we can get that published data and take it to the, the formal school system so that we can re really make an impact.

So I, I definitely appreciate your approach there. 'cause that's really how you implement change.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Exactly What, what I'm doing also, and maybe that'll be helpful for you, is that I'm leveraging the, the power of a large dental company that is very interested, not only in the top line, but interested in their, in their customers, their doctors, and their medical and dental.

Henry Schein. It's a very unique company. And they also have an amazing not-for-profit side called Henry Schein Cares that they support our foundation, our glow good foundation. They're a very special company, and I, I, I, I think so highly of them, but we're able to leverage their breadth of people to help drive this because it takes, as we know it, it takes a village, it takes a team to, to do what we do.

And so I, I applaud you for everything you're doing, you know, on the research side, because that takes time and it's gotta be, you know, it's gotta be very specific and IRB and all the things that go with, with these clinical studies.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Exactly. I, I have a lot of follow up questions, what you just discussed.

However, I want to go back to this concept of neurodegenerative brain disorders and whatnot, because we know there's data that shows pathogens can travel from the gut via the vagus nerve. Are we seeing a similar effect in, say, the trigeminal networks or any, like, are these pa not just going through the bloodstream, but also coming in through the nerves into the brain?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah, so the, they, what they've isolated, if you look at the studies is that these ging pains, they, they believe it's going through the blood-brain barrier, but they also think there is the ability for the, the axonal transfer. And you, you would know this stuff much greater than I, but that you have these, these endotoxins and you can have also viruses and, and, and bacteria that are traveling, you know, through the ne nerve network.

So there is some theories on that. What's interesting is when they did the studies to understand why p gingivalis is in the gut, but in, in a leaky gut in the inflamed tissue, and we all know the interstitial cells, they separated the, the, the toxins are getting into the bloodstream. What they found from the studies, and we never thought this happened, but from the studies that the p gingivalis, you know, we swallow so much saliva in a day that, and in the inflamed mouth with p gingivalis is gonna be all over the saliva.

That one out of three bacteria actually works its way through the stomach acids. And so there's two routes of getting PG in into, let's just call it, into that, into the gut area where 80% of our immunity re lives. So it, it's, you're getting 30%, you're getting PG through a circulatory system pathway, the superhighway, and also through the top of the digestive track, which is the mount.

That's really interesting. So then now you have potentially PG all over the body and now we wanna understand, we wanna understand, you know, what, what are these cofactors or you know, these, you know, morbidity issues. And all we had to do is look at what happened over COVID. You know, when you have inflamed a mouth and periodontal disease, you are 4.8 times more likely to end up on a ventilator.

And we can say that, talk about cardiovascular disease and pulmonary diseases and, and any of the inflammatory diseases in the same way. You know, maybe three x, four x, but huge numbers. Yeah. And basically it's the inflammatory cascade getting overwhelmed as we know. So as far as how it gets into the brain, there's a couple of different theories on it, but they've identified that it is getting through the blood brain barrier because you got the ging pains, which is the bacterial byproducts of pg mm-hmm.

In the amyloid plaque. And once you establish that, the pathogenesis is getting figured out.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's, that's fascinating. Okay, so you mentioned some things about mouth breathing. I have some personal questions on this because my youngest son we're going through a process of expanding his palate.

So my direct question to you are we doing the right thing here? Like, we've gone through the whole, he had a tooth that was, you know, way up here. It was not coming down. The pallet was too shallow, you know, it was too small. So we've gone through the process where they've gone in, they're starting to pull the tooth down, that we're expanding the pallet.

Is, is this the right approach or is there something different we should be looking at?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: That is a hundred percent the right approach. Not looking at x-rays, but what's happened in orthodontics and what's happened with our research, and you gotta go back about 40, 50 years, there was a guy named John Mu orthodontist in England.

He got picked up his concepts also by his son. They were thrown outta the orthodontic world in England because they, he challenged the status quo. That's why we gotta love the people who challenged the status quo. Well, his concepts, you know, first it was rejected. He was thrown out. Then the, you know, he still had kept his voice, although he was, he was no longer allowed to practice.

But the science in the researchers and people like Sandra Khan, orthodontist, Stanford, Paul Erlich, who wrote a book called Jaws Together, they popularized this whole concept of forward Dantes and expansion and what happened when researchers like COI 400 year ago study. So 400 years. Turn back, look at the skulls of people back then, and they realized that the jaws were extremely well-formed.

Well, what's the difference? Modern diet, ultra high processed food, soft foods for children eating. So their jaws did not develop that well. Also, besides that is bottle feeding versus breastfeeding. The, the motion of doing that, the suckling creates also jaw expansion. On top of that, how we breathe, so children with rhinitis and, and a stuffed nose is gonna breathe through the mouth.

Now what we got, we got narrow arches vaulted up on the palate because the mouth now is operating as an airway shunt, which it's not designed for. The nose is designed for breathing. The mouth is the top of the digestive tract. So the orthodontist, instead of pulling out teeth to create space because they want the teeth to line up.

Now they realize, go expand the jaws. Create now an airway. Remember breathing the tho disordered sleep. We gotta allow our young people to breathe to set up a healthy life because you gotta get into deep regenerative sleep. You gotta be able to heal the body. That's when we're fighting oxidative stresses and, and all of the problems that we pick up environmental toxins all day long.

And so we need that deep sleep, deep regenerative sleep. We know that to be sure. So the orthodontists now are expanding arches and it's a way to do it because the palatal suture is wide open in young people. All the stem cells are there. You can put pressure, it moves very quickly. The reason the canine didn't come down, there was no room for it.

So they're expanding and pulling at the same time, which. That, you know, it sounds absolutely correct, and now not only are is, is your child and people who are now having expanded appliances, and it looks weird, it looks a little medieval. You got a screw on your palate. But with all due respect to that, you're, you are nicely opening up that palette, which basically happened from the type of food the young, young babies are, are starting to chew on because, you know, you turn back the clock, it was hunters and gatherers and these young kids are, are putting pressure on the, on the teeth and causing this expansion and exciting those stem cells.

That doesn't happen with the modern diet,

Dr. Brandon Crawford: right?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: So the new therapies, the understanding of our orthodontists, the fact that we're not extracting teeth to create room, but we're expanding the skeletal profile, the basal base, the maxilla, and the mandible comes with that, with that, where that expansion, now you're lining the teeth up properly because the.

Basal base of bone, the maxilla is now expanded aesthetically. It's fabulous and gorgeous because you have this big, beautiful dynamic smile. I am a prosthodontist. I was one of the earliest guys to do porcelain veneers. What did we used to do 25, 30 years ago? We'd put veneers on the side to make everything look wider.

It looked beautiful, but we didn't address the underlying problem. Today with our orthodontist and the paradox, the prost, we expand, I almost don't do an aesthetic case without expanding the jaw. When we need to create volume, in other words, to create these big, beautiful, dynamic smiles, so by the specialists working together and understanding the science, we can change our approach and how we do things.

So instead of camouflage, we're getting to the root cause. Patients will breathe better. And because this ability to expand and then there's all these studies that show how the nasal opening and, and the, you know, the airway from, you know, na, any potential nasal obstruction is now opened up so much better.

But we diagnose so well today. You know, we do CAT scans, cbct. As a standard of care. Mm-hmm. On the CAT scan we see from the top of the nose, so we see deviated septums, we see if there's blockage. Right. To the ENT, you have to be able to breathe. Yeah. People talk about mouth taping. Mouth taping is brilliant.

Why? It forces the person to nasal breathe if their, if their nasal passages are open, but they got in the habit of mouth breathing by taping it, it will, biofeedback wise, they'll push the person to breathe through the nose. If they gotta rip the tape off because they can't breathe, they gotta blockage in the nose.

Maybe it's a sinus, chronic sinus issue, or nasal obstruction. So now all of a sudden. The good old dentist that I like to call oral physicians. 'cause that's what we are. And it's only separated from medicine because of politics a long time ago.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Which I won't bore you with that story. You know, now the dentist now can work really great with the, with the physician colleagues and so that bidirectional referral system really starts to happen.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. So I read the book, breathe. Are you familiar with that? Great. Yeah. Yeah, of course. James Nasper. Yes. He's been in the office. Met him personally. He's a great guy. So we, you know, we started with mouth taping. Did every you know, everything we could, it just, it just wasn't happening fast enough.

And then I read that book and I was like, man, we gotta act fast. You know, he's getting older. And now you, you know, you're right. It does expand very quickly. Yes. He's sleeping better. His migraines are gone. He's, you know, behaviors are changing. I mean, it's very amazing just how rapidly I'm seeing my son change.

And we're not even done. We're, you know, maybe halfway through. Yeah, so it's quite amazing. So

Dr. Jonathan Levine: you, you, you did something very special because let's just run down the road. If you didn't do what you did, if you didn't take action, he might get diagnosed with a DHD pharmaceuticals, meanwhile breathing through the mouth, and now his head posture forward.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Jaws small and his palate vaulted. So he could be, you know, retrognath or you can be actually do cephalic, which is a long, narrow face. And his whole structure that was genetically predisposed is now epigenetically driven.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: By the environment that he's living under his nose is blocked or what, whatever reason that, you know, or, or the, you know, early developmental issues of, of the type of food.

So here we are, you know, with, with such better science and research to really get to the, you know, more of the root cause and really help the young children. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Well, thank you for that. I wanna shift just very briefly, we don't have to have a robust conversation about it, but I'm also very keenly aware of heart health.

I had a, a father that died at age 53 from an aortic aneurysm. I avidly monitor my apo, lipoprotein b my lipoprotein little a i I monitor all my inflammatory markers and as soon as something gets outta range, I am like in full attack. I'm, you know, I'm doing anything from extracellular vesicles, exosomes, regenerative medicine all the lifestyle things, all, everything to keep all of that in check.

Right? And I've even had CT angiogram. I've got a little bit of calcification developed in my abdo. Abdominal aorta is tiny. It's not, you know, concerning. I need to do the scan for the soft plaque. So I need to do that. But it sounds like we need to be monitoring our oral health as better signs, better indicators for heart attack and heart disease.

Can you give us just a little discussion on the link there and, and

Dr. Jonathan Levine: yeah. Why

Dr. Brandon Crawford: it's so important?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah. Y you know, this is some of the older studies that link the mouth to the body, oral systemic health and oral systemic health is the, is kind of the discipline. So about 22 years ago, Moisey Devereux team outta Columbia and he's an epidemiologist, started the invest studies.

And what Theves study showed that p gingivalis was in the intermedia of a carotid artery for cardiovascular disease. So what was PG doing there? Just like what's PG doing in the amyloid plaque? And as they started to unpack this and did fir few more and more studies, they started doing studies where a cardiovascular patient, when they controlled periodontal disease and they lowered periodontal disease, the biomarkers of cardiovascular disease went down.

When it perio went up. Cardiovascular disease goes up. Now what is cardiovascular disease? Right? You got inflamed hot arteries, they're inflamed and you have a, a, a, a body on high, high alert. So you, you are looking at a constellation of risk factors, cardiovascular disease 'cause it is a number of things, but you are, you are dealing with one more layer of inflammation coming from, chronic inflammation in the mouth. So they've been able to really understand this pathogenesis of, of, of, of pg, which is basically causing the inflammation in, in these, in these areas because the body, you know, looks at pg bacterial byproducts like the ging pains in the brain as a foreign invader. And the body that you know, is inflammation and the inflammatory responses we all know is designed to protect us.

But on the flip side of that coin, it hurts us. It's just like that in the mouth where it's designed to protect us. Yet the contents, the bi, the bacterial byproducts works its way into this superhighway circulatory system. But also you're, you're, you are getting, you know, kind of the cytokine storm of bone loss.

So the pockets of chronic inflammation and mouth go deeper and deeper and deeper 'cause you're losing bone. So the chronic inflammation gets worse and worse and worse. 'cause these are bacteria that. Basically live without oxygen. They're the gram-negative anaerobes. And within those gram-negative opees, there are seven really bad ones that really will excite inflammation and get inflammation going in the body.

CVD cardiovascular disease is number one killer in America. And so we, we, we spend a billion dollars a day on controlling CVD for people. And the problem is that it's too late. It's too late in the, in the profile of these patients. We gotta find out earlier, again, back to us oral physicians, AKA dentist, let's get an oral wellness regimen going.

Let's get your oral health game. 'cause so much of this, you know, Brandon, one of these great conversations, so much of this is preventative. The beauty of this, it's preventative. It's just like that in our body. You know, the way you take it. We take care of our bodies. If we're thinking about the, the pillars of longevity, right?

We know fitness and motion is so critically important for all the reasons I'm sure you talk about all the time. And then there's nutrition, what we're putting into our system. The same rules apply for the body and the mouth. Same conversation. I could tell. I'm talking about pH and acid and setting up a microbiome that is dysbiotic.

In other words, too much of these pathogenic bacteria. And then you talk about, we talk about sleep in dentistry, we diagnose sleep and we work collaboratively with our MD partners for sleep tests. But we in dentistry have amazing opportunity to, to therapeutically improve people's sleep. Which I can go into in tons of detail, but the, the stress management and social connections.

Fourth pillar. Fifth pillar, as you said early on, that is the oral microbiome. That is the balancing act of the mouth. And we need to keep it in a symbiotic relationship with this good versus bad bacteria, not dysbiosis, which is, which is disease. And that symbiotic relationship is preventative. You just gotta develop a great oral health game, a regimen where you do it in the morning, you do it in the night, it's a priority.

Just like our high performance habits in the morning, we think about all the things we do for these longevity pillars. You just gotta make your oral health game is one of those pillars.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. So, you know, I had Nathan Bryan on here and he talked. At length about mouthwash and how it's destroying things, and his big connection was nitric oxide.

But let's kind of go into that regimen, that routine that you're talking about. So how do we, what are some practical things? How do we, what do we really need to be doing in the morning and the night? What does this look like?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah, so what everybody needs to know is it's all about the mechanical removal of plaque.

Plaque has four phases and over a period of time, 24 hours, 48 hours, another 24 hours, that bacteria, which is in a balancing act, let's call it, all of a sudden it over colonizes. Because when you don't clean the plaque off the teeth, the biofilm, you get this canopy of bacteria that almost creates like a tenting around the tooth.

So where the tooth and the gum meet critical spot. That tenting allows these bacteria that live without oxygen to colonize. And what does that mean? That means these bad boys, these gram-negative anaerobic bacteria, do not live with oxygen. Start overpopulating. I tell you that because you visualizing I'm using a mechanical a brush.

I gotta have perfect technique. I gotta do it for over 30 seconds. A quadrant. Nobody does it. Why doesn't anybody do it? You know, the facts speak for itself,

Dr. Brandon Crawford: right?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: 70% of adults in, in the United States has some form of gum disease. 70% over the age of 65 has periodontal disease, chronic inflammatory disease.

And you wanna know why cardiovascular disease is number one killer in America. Okay, so now that we establish that we can do a lot better, and it's not that hard, but I will tell you, instead of a, a manual brush, with all due respect to the manual brush companies, electric brush does all the work for you.

The angulation by, in fact, the way you hold it is not even so relevant because the most important thing is that you get between the tooth and between the teeth, the interdental space between the teeth and the tongue. These recesses is where these gram-negative, these bacteria that live without oxygen, opes.

So water, flossers, water floss picks, floss. That's what gets between. So electric brush gets the outside and inside very important. But then between, you gotta have game. So I love the water flossers and I love the floss picks because a lot of people, string floss is a little like, you know, kind of manually, a little more difficult.

Then you gotta do tongue scraping because on the tongue you have all these recesses and you got the same bacteria that between the teeth causing bad breath. Nobody wants to have bad breath. And it colonizes. So one microbiome impacts the other microbiome in the mouth. There's seven microbiomes. You can figure it out.

You look in your mouth, you see your cheeks got under your tongue, you got your back of your throat, you got between the teeth, you got seven of them. And they all impact each other just like our systems impact each other. And so after that, a, a mouthwash is good. Why is it good? You just gotta watch out for the ingredients.

So we don't want alcohol because alcohol. Decreases saliva, salivas are such an important factor of health of the mouth. Your saliva's gotta be at a neutral pH. If it's acidic. It creates an environment for the bad bacteria and demineralizing of the enamel heart structure in the body, by the way, as we know.

So you, you don't wanna have a low pH, you wanna have a neutral pH, and that's impacted by how well we clean and what is our food we're putting in, in our mouth. Alcohol is the enemy, sorry for all you TTOs and sugar is the enemy. 'cause that's the substrate that gets broken down by strep mutans. One of the bacteria that causes acid and thus demineralization demin of the tooth.

The tooth either gets remineralized from saliva, calcium and phosphate, or demineralized from the acid. So you got two things going on in the mouth. You got the hard tooth getting destroyed by demineralization, and you got the gums being inflamed chronically, which has this huge impact on the overall body because of low pH and because of the dysbiosis of the microbiome.

Yeah, so that's, you know, that's how it breaks down. So you have tongue scraping and you have a rinse that has no alcohol. Some of the really good ones look for an oxygenating rinse and pH raising. And so the ingredient for that is sodium bicarbonate, which has been around forever. It's amazing. Sodium bicarbonate, it raises the pH.

And so there's some rinses that that do have both. But any rinse with alcohol? Absolutely. Right. No good. And then tongue scraping, electric toothbrush and your water flosser and getting between the teeth. And then a lot of people look, a lot of people are talking about oil pulling. The beauty of oil pulling is you're pulling bacteria into approximately between.

It takes a long time. It's inefficient. But if you find, if, if a person finds that they have time for it, I would add it to the regimen. If you, if you like doing it, there's studies on it are very good because it's, it's pulling the bad bacteria out. So that's another way to mechanically disrupt the biofilm in a positive way.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: So the, so flossing both morning and night, just to clarify,

Dr. Jonathan Levine: flossing bo both morning and night and, and look what you do in, you have a little more time, let's say at night because Russian for work. And so at least get the flossing and the water flossing at night. I look, I personally, I tell my patients it's great twice a day, but if you can't do it twice, at least you're doing it at night.

Yeah. Right. And you're, and I like the whole pH raising of the mouth, you know, in, in our offices part of our mouth mapping diagnosis, which is what we call, what our comprehensive approach, we do pH tests. Mm-hmm. pH is a very good indicator for health of the mouth in addition to, of course, microbiome testing and all the, all the things that we do.

So for people to understand nutritionally, the balancing act for the body, for health for nutrition is similar in the mouth. It's 60 40 alkalinizes versus acidifying. So what does that mean? All of the proteins, steak, fish is, is, is protein. And that is going to create those are acidifying type foods, the alkalinizing ones, the fibrous foods, the vegetables.

The fruits, those are alkalinizing. So you want a 60% of your diet to be that way. And it's a nice way to think about the balancing act in our, in our nutrition. It really is. So imagine you cut out sugar, which I gotta be honest with you, I'm a complete dessert guy, but I have all these hacks to work around it.

So it doesn't have sugar, but it's got coconut and it's got other things besides, you know, with make sure no added sugar. And look, you know, you, I love to have a glass of red wine. Okay? So have a glass of red wine, but don't have three glasses of red wine. And you have a little moderation, you know, if your body accepts it.

Everybody's different with, with what you do, but don't have any sugar and sweets at least a couple hours before you go to bed. And you know, there's all these sleep hacks also that are really important for people to know. So it's, you know, it's just owning your own health, learning as much as you can, trying to listen to the experts.

And testing it in your own body. What, for what really works?

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. Well you mentioned the pH of the mouth. 'cause you know, you, you can get test strips and test this at home. Is there a optimal pH that we should be looking for? The,

Dr. Jonathan Levine: the pH that's optimal is 7.0 and what the dental practices should be doing at the hygiene room is taking pH of, of the patient.

Because if you have a 6.0 5.0, 5.8 pH and you didn't just have coffee 'cause the coffee's acidic.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: You know, you know that your, your mouth is now set up for an acidic environment, get ready to have some inflammation in the mouth. So now that. Periodontal team, that hygiene team. So the hygienist and the dentist of the office are now gonna work with that patient.

And the hygienist is really the rockstar. So the hygienist really goes after oral hygiene regimen and, and really a soft tissue management program. Once the diagnostics is done to get the mouth healthy, to get the tissues healthy, tight pink, bound down, no pocketing, no inflammation. You want that mouth to be inflammation free as much as possible.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right? It, when is the best time to test the pH of the mouth? Is it when you wake up, is it after you do all your routine? Like when, when's the best time to do that?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah. You know, it's pH testing. Look, it does change based on what we put in our mouth, but before we'll have a coffee, before we can really alter that saliva, which is transient, because then what happens is the buffering effect of saliva is gonna bring it back to 7.0.

Mm-hmm. So I would do it after you do the, after you do your regimen doing, you getting the bacteria off. Before you have your coffee and, and you eat anything you could do, they're litmus pH strips and you could look yourself, you can get 'em in the drugstore. And it's just another good way for people to kind of own their, own, their oral health.

But even more than that, just get, pick a dental professional that's up on their game with great hygiene team and make sure you're getting in there at least two to three times a year.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Nice. Okay.

Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: What, just to clarify, oil polling, I've heard, you know, don't do it twice a day, once a month. What, what, what's the best frequency there if you're gonna throw it in?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: You know, I gotta be honest with you, I'm not an expert on the oil pulling.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: But I read the science on it.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: And, and I believe that it will not have a negative effect. In fact, I think it could have a positive effect.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: But if, I think if you did it a couple of times a week, you're good to go.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Un unlike the rest of the regimen. And, and we could share with your listeners our regimen guide. And, and we could get a link for that.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Oh, that'd be great.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: That, you know, that just says, this is what you do first.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: This is what you do. Second, third, fourth. Try to follow this. It takes all of about three minutes and, you know, normal visits to your dentist.

The key to getting to your primary care care physician and your, and your oral health team, your dental team is just being consistent. Yeah. Consistent and with rhythm. Because that allows us to get to Right. We get to those problems when they're small. When they're small, they're very easy to manage. When they get bigger in dentistry, they get painful, they get expensive and they take a lot of time.

Yeah. So we wanna avoid that.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: The earlier we go, the better off we are.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: I personally, so I do a lot of that. I don't actually do the tongue scraping. So I'll throw that into the mix. But I do also use a tooth price that has a red light in it. And then I also laser my own, you know, face and teeth, you know, I do it externally.

My laser goes through. I do this for several reasons. Obviously. There's there's good data on photobiomodulation for tooth health for various conditions and whatnot. There's also this whole concept, I do have an acupuncture license as well, that, you know, there's major acupuncture meridians that run through the teeth.

And so these teeth act like fuses like in a breaker box for these meridians and whatnot. Do you ever recommend photo biomodulation for the mouth as well?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Not only do I recommend it, I have patents on it. Aha.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: So

Dr. Jonathan Levine: we have a, we have a device. So in our glow science company, we have a device that has blue light that has been shown to kill the black pigmented bacteria.

We have a cosmetic side and a therapeutic side. I also have a mouthpiece that has blue light and red light. I, i photo bio modulations, which is studies were done up at foresight. Which tremendous researchers at Foresight for the last 40 years up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These are the scientists and the microbiologists that named all of the pathogenic bacteria in the mouth 40 years ago.

AMA amazing, amazing researchers. Max gi max Lisgar. Max Goodson. These guys with the Giants of Microbiology and Oral health. Yeah. And they now are the number one periodontal testing center in the world. Forsyth Dental, Forsyth Research Center. So we we did plenty of good studies on that, but red light photo modulation, they have the earliest studies on that from about 20, 20 years ago.

And you get, look, you're getting healing. So as the mouth, the, the inflammation of mouth goes down. What do we have? We have collagen synthesis, we have all of the repair mechanisms. So what's the red light gonna do? It's gonna accelerate and amplify. And quick and in hasten that healing mechanism. So I do believe in it.

Absolutely.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Big question. Someone, an adult loses a tooth. Okay. They don't have a replacement. What is their best solution here?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah, depends. So we do a lot of studies now that we do a, a volumetric detailed look, which is the cone beam CAT scan for the jaws. Person loses a tooth.

It's very important the person taking out the tooth, the oral surgeon or the periodontist or the surgically trained dentist now puts some type of bone back in with a membrane closing it up and getting excellent bone formation. If you don't do that, if you don't clean it out, well, and if you don't do that, you are creating an area of an atrophic area.

Too little bone and you won't be able to get an implant in. You also can create a void that gets walled off and those are called cavitations. And that is a whole host of problems that speaks to the meridians that you were talking about. So extraction and working with the team that really knows what they're doing to make sure that you have great bone formation, takes four months and then you can place the implant.

The option is a bridge that has existed in dentistry for decades and decades when done well, could last for decades and decades and decades. Okay. Especially when it's only one tooth replacement. So it depends on which way a person wants to go. If the extractions are done properly, the implant is placed well, there's no medical compromise.

The titanium implants have been around. Brought here by Pi Branemark in 1987 after he studied it for 20 years. He was an orthopedic surgeon and also a dentist, and they determined the the ability to get titanium and now ceramic has been figured out to bond to bone o osteo integration. They have 97 to 99% success rate in most areas of the mouth without any medical compromise.

Wow. So either one does work, and it depends on a number of these factors. Also, the bite, how strong is the bite? The mass muscles, we call it agonal angle, put a lot of load on teeth. And so there's, there's a lot of considerations and that's where the dentist and the dentist team really needs to work together.

A person with a high smile line. Imagine you show everything. You're missing a lateral incisor. Mm-hmm. Do I do an implant right away? If you're gonna do an implant, you better know that you gotta have everything perfect placement, emergence type of material that's emerging. You got metal emerging, you're gonna see a dark area on that high smile.

You have to emerge with ceramic. So there's all these things we figured out since Brown Mark first came here in 87 and I was fortunate to be sitting in the audience as a young dentist, and everybody got blown away because we had implantology. It was like the wild, wild west in the United States at that moment.

We had no protocol and systems and SOPs that BMORE brought here. Here's, here's what you use. Here's here's the amount of heat you can, you can heat the bone with. It'll fail if it goes to this number. This is the water you have. You know, he really figured it out and he gave us a system and a protocol, and people couldn't place implants unless they took the course at brandmark.

Now there are 50, 60 implant companies and we've been able to take those protocols up to even the next level. And also the prosthodontics to duplicate the look of nature. So there's a lot of considerations and that's why the multi-specialty team is very, very important. Even if it's not under one roof, that there's a collaboration between the restorative dentist could be a prosthodontist or general dentist, and the surgical team could be a periodontist or an oral surgeon.

And today, prosthodontists are also surgically trained. I call them the double threat. They're really very well trained. They come outta Nova, they come outta these top dental schools that are doing a fantastic job training these young dentists.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. I know we're getting close to time, but I have another big question if you don't mind.

'Cause you know, there's a lot of people and there, this is a big topic, you know, the, the mercury amalgam fillings, right? So we still have, you know, the population that, you know, they have mercury amalgam in their mouth. Do we need to remove that? Do we need to leave it? What, what, what's the best case situation here for that person?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: You know, 10 years ago, I had a much different thought on this, but today, over the last five, six years, there is excellent evidence to show that the mercury vapor that comes off of the corroded amalgams and these amalgams that are breaking down are cr creating mercury toxicity. So for that reason, and the fact that when amalgams are in the mouth 20 plus years, there is a separation between the amalgam and the tooth.

You can't see it on a two dimensional x-ray. And if you wait too long under that filling, there's gonna be decay and you are not gonna have any pain until it's too late and it's root canal time. Root canals have to be done by a highly trained specialist. Hmm. Otherwise they're gonna fail because they're very tortuous.

There's all these canals that get missed and it's gotta be done under a microscope. So the big conversation also with amalgams, yes. Amalgams gotta be removed. Amalgam's gotta be removed under certain environmental conditions. Rubber a dam, high speed suction, air filtration, that's where the biological concept is.

Absolutely a hundred percent. For the people who are working in the room, you're gonna be breathing in the vapor, the patient's gonna be bringing in the vapor, they're gonna be swallowing, amalgam. It's the last thing you wanna happen. So it's gotta be controlled. We put 'em, everybody under rubber dam and high speed suction and the air filtration units.

100%. Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: But, you know, and, and, and so mercury is a, is is a big, is a very big, big issue that has to be dealt with, amalgam's out under the right. Environmental conditions.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the, the conditions because I, I've had patients that, you know, they have this discovery, I've got mercury, oh no, I've gotta get it out.

They go to some person that says they can do it. Right. They don't, they have this massive exposure. I've seen people. Go through a rapid demise after. Wow. You know, I've got a great dentist here locally, Joan Sevick. She, I mean, she shows up in like a hazmat suit. She's got the suction, she's got every, you know, good for

Dr. Jonathan Levine: her.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, she does. Good

Dr. Jonathan Levine: for her.

No, that's, and you're, look, you're protecting the healthcare workers also.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yes.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: It, it good for her and, you know, it's, it is not since COVID, now that we have an understanding in, in my industry about air. And the air filtration and the air quality and the air testing that we have to do in dental offices is cri.

Critically important a hundred percent. But the whole notion of, you know, what's being used in our materials is so important. The biocompatibility of it, there's a whole conversation, you know, just quickly about root canals that I was going into. But it's just the key is that they have to be done well.

They have to be monitored. If there's a breakdown, they could be re-treated before you start extracting teeth and have to put patients under implants. So there's a balancing act there, you know, and so, you know, we have to use, you know, we just have to use our good judgment Yeah. And science to really drive our decision making.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. My, my wife actually, when, when we were in college, you know, we were broke college kids, we were married you know, she had a cavity. It, it was a very nice person. It was someone we knew it was a dentist. They said, look, I'll do this. We'll just, you know, not charge you, et cetera. It was great. They removed her tooth, they put in a a root canal, whatever, right?

It developed a cavitation. Right. This was over years over years and, and we didn't know. And she started having gut dysfunction. And lo and behold, that, that was the same meridian and all, and we had to have it taken out. And it was this whole thing. And actually, Joan, the Dr. Icks, the one that did it she had to go in there and clean it out.

There was massive cavitation. She had to use a lot of like ozone injections and a lot of other things. And, you know, slowly her health improved after that. So, you know, the whole concept of root canal, I mean, we could probably do a whole hour on that I'm sure. But

Dr. Jonathan Levine: yeah, we, we, you, you, you really could, you could do a long conversation with both root canals, cavitations, meridians.

Look at, at the end of the day, you know, it comes down to diagnosis. You, you don't wanna overtreat with this notion of cavitations, but it will oftentimes show up on these three dimensional x-rays, not two dimensional x-rays. And there are experts today that are really driving this whole concept forward based on, based on what they're finding, what they're clinically finding once they open up these areas and the improvement of the patients.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, for sure. Well, you've, you've done just a brilliant job of, of breaking this down in a digestible manner. So I thank you for that. You're clearly the pioneer and the leader in this, in this field, so I really appreciate this conversation. Is there any topic or anything that you want to convey before we sign off here?

Dr. Jonathan Levine: You know, I, I think the other area that we didn't talk about is screening for oral cancers. Mm. You know, oral cancer the morbidity rates haven't changed in 50 years. And you don't, we don't have enough people in our profession. The dentist, the dental team, the hygienist, and it comes from the top, right, the leadership of these dental practices to make sure that every patient gets screened.

Soon we're gonna have a saliva test that's just going through FDA, it's called Orx dx, and that'll be a game changer. But we have a company called VELscope where we can see dysplastic changes of the tissue, and it takes two minutes.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Wow.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Only about 17% of all dental practices are doing screening for oral cancer.

And we know it's preventative, you know, so what do we do as patient consumers? You have to demand that every time you go in for a cleaning. I want an oral cancer exam. Not only a visual examination, but you need to have, there's something called a vis light. Or there is, you know the, the bright lights that have showed dysplastic tissue, the VELscope.

Soon we'll have a saliva test. The profession has to embrace this. And so I say demand it as a to the patients and to the people listening. Demand it because it's as early as you can get is gonna save your life.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: As early as you can get.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Well, if only 7% of dentists are doing this and, and we demand it and they say

Dr. Jonathan Levine: 17.

Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: 17%. And, and they say, sorry, we can't do that.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Yeah.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: What do they do? Go find

Dr. Jonathan Levine: someone that does either the dentist is going to say, come back next week. I'm gonna call my rep. I'm gonna get a VE scope, they're outta Canada. I'm gonna get, or s dx, it's coming. FDA, so that's probably months away. A vizi light.

There's a couple of different ways to do it. Visi light, you rinse with an acetic acid and then it's a light that will see any dysplastic tissue, but also to look. Because a lot of times, you know, you, you can see, you just wanna get as early as possible. Yeah. 'cause when it is very visual, potentially it's too late.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: So you wanna get really early, the early stages of, of the cellular change we call dysplastic tissue.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's awesome. Thank you for that information. That's of course important. Well. Dr. Levine, thank you for connecting dots that most of medicine is still ignoring. For those of you listening, if you want to learn more about mouth mapping, GLO science or stay updated on when oral, which is Dr.

Levine's book is gonna be released, check out the links in the show notes and everyone else, your brain is listening to what's happening in your mouth. Your heart is listening. So stop treating dental health. Like it's separate from your body. It's not. Start with the three minute routine. Start with all the brilliant things that Dr.

Levine lined out here. Find a dentist who gets it and stop waiting for a diagnosis to take this seriously. So, Dr. Levine, again, thank you so much for your time and you're, you're just a wealth of information. I hope everyone goes out, gets your book, looks at all the things you're doing. What I would suggest, everyone listening.

You need to pass this information onto your dentist and everyone in your dental networks because truly what, what's going on here is Dr. Levine's trying to raise the profession. He's trying to raise awareness. He's trying to give new techniques, new methodologies, everything to improve the overall health and wellness of our population.

I mean, this is, this is brilliant. This is what every, you know, practitioner that truly is a pioneer needs to be doing. And, and I commend you for that. So thank you so very much.

Dr. Jonathan Levine: Thank you Dr. Crawford, and it was absolutely a pleasure to be here with you.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Awesome. Thank you so much, ma'am.

Voice Over: We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips, and resources, visit drbrandoncrawford.com.