In this episode, James Maskell is joined by Dr. Staci Whitman, a holistic pediatric dentist who shares her journey from being a fluoride-promoter to becoming an advocate against its use in public water systems.
Dr. Whitman has a unique approach to dentistry, where she considers dental health as a part of whole-body health. She is an IFM-certified provider (IFMCP), board-certified in naturopathic medical dentistry and integrative biological dental Medicine (NMD), and is involved with many other organized dentistry groups.
During this conversation, she discusses recent studies and court rulings that have raised concerns about fluoride’s neurotoxic effects, particularly in reducing IQ in children, even at the “optimal” fluoride levels added to most water supplies.
She also explains that fluoride exposure is cumulative from many sources (water, toothpaste, processed foods, etc.), making it difficult to accurately measure total exposure, especially for vulnerable populations like infants and children.
Check out this episode to learn from Dr. Whitman about:
- The alarming lack of safety data on fluoride and its potential neurotoxic effects.
- Her case for a paradigm shift in dentistry toward a more holistic and preventive approach.
- Her favorable view of topical application of fluoride.
- How hygiene, nutrition and education are better alternatives to public water fluoridation.
- Counterarguments of those who promote public water fluoridation.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
We have one shot at developing a child’s brain. And so, I think we really need to value that. And the other issue I would say too, you’re going to hear the prof fluoride group say, but this is for the poor children. These are for socioeconomically challenged families that don’t have access to, I guess their argument is to fluoride toothpaste or dental care, and they’re not eating well. But again, this is a Band-Aid approach, and I would argue those kids are the most vulnerable five IQ points is on par with lead those kids to lose five IQ points. What are the long-term ramifications of that?
James Maskell:
Welcome to the Evolution of Medicine podcast, the place health professionals come to hear from innovators and agitators leading the charge. We cover the latest clinical breakthroughs and health technology, as well as practical tools to help you transform your practice and the health of your community. This podcast is brought to you by the Lifestyle Matrix Resource Center, who provide a range of options to help you deliver successful, effective functional and integrative medicine. To find out more and to get started, go to goevomed.com/lmrc. That’s goevomed.com/lmrc.
Hello and welcome to the podcast. This week we talk water fluoridation with Dr. Staci Whitman. She is a holistic dentist, has a really interesting practice, but this is a really hot topic in the world right now. It’s in the news. There’s been studies that have come out talking about the reduction in IQ from fluoride and we talked about all things so that you could be educated and you could take this education into your community. It was a really interesting session. Enjoy.
A warm welcome to the podcast for the first time, Dr. Staci Whitman, thanks so much for being here.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Thank you, James. It’s truly an honor. I’m excited to chat today.
James Maskell:
We have had holistic dentists on the platform over the years at the functional forum at the beginning, and I think it’s mission-critical to understand the mouth as a critical part of health. But what I really wanted to jump in and jump into is the conversation about fluoridation of water and fluoride generally, because this is a hot topic at this moment, and I just feel like we need to set the foundation in this world. I feel like most practitioners who have got educated in it see it as a problem, but it’s also one of the most critical topics happening right now in the world. So why don’t we just start from the beginning. You’re a dentist. It’s typically, from my understanding, there’s this weird juxtaposition is that I feel like every dentist that goes holistic and really talks about the issues in dentistry is packed with patients, but not many do it because you kind of have to admit that what you’d be doing up until that point is somewhat poisonous. And it’s the same with pediatrics a little bit in my estimation. Am I right on that feeling?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yes, and absolutely. I’m very busy. It took a lot of time for me to come out publicly and speak about some of these things for fear of how my colleagues would react, how my board would react. And then you meet people in the space and you realize you’re not such a lone wolf with these ideas and thoughts. And so it becomes a slow movement and a slow evolution. But we’re very busy. But the idea is that dentistry is quite antiquated, it’s pretty archaic and a lot of its practices. Not much has changed since decades and decades ago with materials and how we approach the patient, we’re really just putting out fires dealing with end stage disease, much like the typical medical model too. And we’re not discussing the why and course correcting and helping our patients get back to optimal health. And we’re just using shortcuts and Band-Aids in many situations. And I think we’ll get into that in a moment.
James Maskell:
Yeah. Well, was there one moment where you just sort of said, I can’t do this anymore? Was there one tipping point or was it just a slow accumulation of realizations?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yeah, I mean more of an accumulation, but I would say when I was a general dentist for many years and I almost left dentistry, I was so dissatisfied with the career. I was quite honestly depressed because I realized nothing I was doing was helping. It was just whack-a-mole. And to have patients come in with just chronic disease and they hate you, people do not like the dentist. They’re phobic. And so I would interview them. I would try to take the time in my schedule and we’re not allotted a lot of time, but just say, what happened to you? Why are you so scared? It was always coming from their childhood experiences at the dentist. And so then I thought, okay, I’m going to salvage this career. I’m going to go back to pediatrics. That’s how I get upstream anyway. It’s through education, educating the parents, let’s help these kids before they even get this chronic disease, the periodontal disease, the gum disease, the chronic cavity cycle.
So it was in my residency where just pediatric dentistry is pretty aggressive to be honest with you. We overtreatment a lot. They wrap kids up and papoose them. And it never resonated with me. I thought there has to be a better way. This is really ridiculous. And so I graduated and the same issue happened. I was in associateships and just so overwhelmed with the amount of disease and the lack of time or even ability to pursue additional education to get upstream more. And so I just had to piecemeal it together myself. And I spent a lot of time and money taking additional education and then to create what I consider one of the first functional pediatric dental offices in the country. And I pursued my functional medicine certification. So I’m one of the only dentists who have done that. And so it took a lot of time, but because I have all this now newfound experience in education, I really just want to share it. And my goal is to change the industry. I think we really need a reboot in dentistry because yes, my office is busy, but I can’t see everyone and everyone should have access to this level of care.
James Maskell:
Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like dentists have been extremely valuable members of some of the functional forum communities. They could work with all the functional medicine doctors, be a great source of referral, have consistent communication with the other practitioners in there about environmental drivers of chronic illness. So I mean, let’s just jump into the reason why I wanted to have you on. Obviously it’s amazing for you to have built this practice, and I think we can learn a lot from it. And I think most practitioners need to have a good partner, a dentist partner, because so many issues start in the mouth, but we’re literally in the moment where water fluoridation is having a moment, right where people are talking about it. You’ve got Bobby Kennedy now in the running or at the first pass of the post to be the head of the HHS. And so I just wanted to set the record straight from your point of view. So let’s just start with this. Does fluoride in the water help children have healthy teeth?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
No, my answer would be no. So I can break down my whole story with this. I think there needs some context. So I used to be a big fluoride promoter, like every dentist out there, and I just did what I was told. I took what I was taught at face value. I took the limited studies that was shared with me at face value, and I said, you need fluoride, you need fluoride. Everyone needs fluoride. You need varnish, you need rinses, you need toothpaste, and you need it in your water. And if it’s not in your water, we need to prescribe you supplements. And I live in Portland, Oregon, and the water here is not fluoridated. And so this was up for a ballot measure back in around 2012, 2013. And I, like many other dentists, heard that there was a controversy about this and there were people who were opposing it.
I had never even heard that before I moved to Portland. And I immediately, my knee-jerk reaction was tin hat brigade, the woo-woo caucus, if you will, since that’s such a popular phrase lately. These people, what do they know? Everyone needs fluoride. And I was very distrusting and dismissive. And then I actually attended a debate and one of my faculty members did too. And we both had similar experiences at these debates where it was the first time we listened to the other side and the other side did not come across as woo-woo or pseudo-scientists. They were extremely articulate, intelligent leaders in their field. And I started to dig into the research. I had never heard that it could be a thyroid disruptor, endocrine disruptor. I’d never heard about its neurotoxic effects. I’d never heard about bone fluorosis or mitochondrial issues like how is it impact your mitochondria?
And once you start reading the research, it doesn’t take long for you to say, whoa, what are we doing? The burden of proof should be on safety. And then you realize there was no safety data. It was really grandfathered in before evidence-based medicine. And so I’ve been speaking about this now for over a decade. So I’m very happy it’s getting more attention because I can only do so much of my little social media platform. But now it’s becoming a national, arguably global conversation. Many people don’t realize the United States is one of the last countries to still fluoridate our water, 97% of the world. I think that’s very important, and many of these countries used to, but they removed it for various reasons, whether it was health and safety issues or medical consent issues, and we can get more into that. But essentially, so I changed my position.
So I went from the picketing person, pro-fluoride, and then became a real lone wolf in my community saying, I think we got this wrong, you guys, or at least can we have these conversations? Have you read this study? Are you aware of these issues? Are you aware now that there’s a federal trial? Do you know about the National Toxicology Report and now the Cochrane Review that came out? And so there recently has been a trifecta of information that has been presented to the public, although people have had concerns about water fluoridation since its inception, and especially if you speak to epidemiologists and endocrinologists and neuroscientists and not dentists, but people who are looking at the rest of the body and the impacts of fluoride in the body. And we know now, so back in August, the National Toxicology Report came out and it said in this report, which had been out for many, many years but hadn’t been made public yet, and it was the federal trial, Dr. Judge Chen, who under the Freedom of Information Act mandated its release. And so it was released in August, and it said, there are concerns with IQ issues overwhelmingly in areas that are fluoridated at 1.5 milligrams per liter, but also at optimally fluoridated areas. And that is 0.7 milligrams per liter in the United States. Now what the pro-fluoridation people are focusing on, they say they’re just focusing on that 1.5 level saying, oh yes, but that’s not what we fluoridated at. But if you dig into the report, it says, even at often fluoridated levels, there are neurotoxicity concerns. And the reason is partly because of halo effects. So number one, we can’t calculate and truly understand how much someone’s exposed you through drinking water because you might drink a glass of water a day and I might drink two gallons of water a day, plus I’m cooking with it, I’m making soup with it, I’m boiling my pasta with it.
I eat a lot of ultra processed foods that are manufactured in facilities using fluoridated water. And these manufacturing facilities, they don’t have reverse osmosis filtering their water. Okay? So there’s fluoride in these ultra processed foods and drinks, plus it’s in pharmaceuticals. That’s one of the top places people are exposed to fluoride is in our drugs, our pharmaceuticals. Plus your dentist is saying, you need toothpaste, you need rinse, you need varnish, you need prescriptions. It’s naturally occurring in black tea and grapes. And so how are we really calculating this on a population level? And also factoring in weight infants and children and adults. And then there’s the medical ethical issue too. So the judge took that report and the federal trial was the people versus the EPA. And essentially the people were saying, where’s the safety data on this? Is there any long-term safety data on water fluoridation?
And the answer is no. There has never been a long-term safety studies on the effects of water fluoridation. Again, it was grandfathered in. And so the EPA has been dragging their feet through this trial installing. But once Judge Chen got the NTP report, we believe it helped him with his verdict. And so his verdict came out a few weeks later. This was maybe in September, it was September 24th I believe. And he determined that our current water fluoridation practices in the United States pose an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children, and that he now ordered the EPA to take measure to eliminate this risk. And so what are they going to do? So now it’s what law, there’s a legal precedent from the EPA, they have to respond. So what are they going to do? Are they going to appeal? Are they going to eliminate it?
Are they going to reduce it? And I will say if they reduce it in our water, so it’s 0.7 milligrams per liter, let’s say they drop it to 0.4 milligrams per liter. We once again, do not have safety studies on this, nor do we have efficacy studies. And now this is where the third bit of information from the Cochrane Review came out. This came out on October 3rd, and the Cochrane collaborations considered the gold standard evaluating the effectiveness of health interventions. And it released its report on fluoridation. It analyzed 21 of the highest-quality studies, and it calculated that concluded that fluoridation reduce cavities by only one quarter, a tooth per person or one cavity per four children. So this is not statistically significant. And then if you actually look at the World Health Organization data, and you look at the rates of decay in fluoridated communities versus fluoridated communities or fluoridated countries versus un fluoridated countries, the decay rate is the same and it’s decreasing at the same rate.
So people will speak about Calgary Canada and how they took the fluoride out of the water and the decay rate shot up, and there was a lot of nuances to this, but when you actually look at the data, it doesn’t match. It doesn’t track. And so it’s much to do about nothing. So it’s not statistically significant. The decay rate isn’t decreasing as people want it to. It’s just kind of a magic bullet when really actually what the conversation we need to be having is our ultra processed foods, our overconsumption of these ferment to carbohydrates, hygiene and access to care issues, and simply using topical fluoride if one should choose to use it, is effective. We do not need to be ingesting it. And my argument to the dental community is they’re hyper-focused on the teeth. And this is the problem with dentistry in general. We are so focused just on the tooth, but we forget there’s a human attached to that tooth, and what happens in the mouth doesn’t stay in the mouth.
And this is where the oral systemic connection comes in. And we’re learning more about the oral microbiome and how important the mouth is to the body. It truly is the gateway to the body and that we need to look bigger and we need to make sure everything that we’re doing is not only effective and safe from an oral health standpoint, but from a systemic health standpoint. And so we will see how the EPA moves forward with this. I personally hope we follow suit of other countries and eliminate it of course is extremely controversial as we know. And I think part of the issue is many people just don’t have access to these studies, this federal trial. I mean, many of my colleagues don’t even know this. When I speak to my friends who are dentists, I say, Hey, have you heard of the federal TACA trial?
They have no idea what I’m talking about. I mean, it’s really important for the public to understand. Most dentists are not up on this because our journals aren’t covering it, our conferences aren’t covering it. So I’m really happy for the media attention. No press is bad press. I think at least it’s initiating conversations. But again, the burden of proof should be on safety. For some reason, fluoride gets this hall pass where the dentists are saying, I mean, it’s really wild. Dentists are saying, no, no, no, no, no. Prove to me it’s not safe. Prove to me it’s not safe. And it’s like we have all this data to show these links to neurotoxicity and thyroid issues and endocrine disruption, mitochondrial dysfunction. We should be proving it’s safe at this point. It is really wild how reversed it is. So
James Maskell:
Yeah, it’s really interesting. I think one of the things that’s come up a lot in the functional medicine world and the education that doctors get when they go through functional medicine is that a low level poison that comes over a long period of time can be just as problematic as an acute poison, if not more, because ultimately it’s working. What are some of the conditions that you think if you have someone coming into a functional medicine office and they have these conditions, you might want to think about fluoride as a contributing factor?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yeah, that’s a great point. By the way, that is going to be one of the arguments you hear from the pro-side too. You’re going to hear the dose makes the poison. And this is true. However, no one is speaking about acute fluoride toxicity. No one is saying you drink a glass of water and it’s going to have this impact immediately. We’re talking about cumulative effects. We know fluoride is not excreted from the body a hundred percent in adults, it’s only about 50% in children, it can be as low as just 20%. They absorb and hold onto 80% of fluoride in their body in calcifying tissues. So that means in excess, in their teeth, in their bone. And this segues into what you said, if I see dental fluorosis, which is the modeling of the teeth, it’s the white spots. If it’s bad, it’ll be these brown spots. Very unsightly. 40% of teenagers now have dental fluorosis if their teeth are being impacted, their skeleton is too, their bones more so bones are more susceptible to fluoride and fluorosis. And so that’s actually a weakening of the integrity of the structure. And then also what other tissues are calcifying on tissues is the pineal gland. And I think this is where people go, whoa, this is woo-woo. But I mean, if you can just spend a couple minutes to learn about the pineal gland, you will understand it is a calcifying tissue.
James Maskell:
Let’s dive into that because over the last little while, I would say it’s been very crazy because when I came into the industry in 2005, I start working with all functional medicine doctors and more alternative doctors and going to hundreds of conferences and these kind of topics would come up. And it made me kind of not much fun at dinner parties because I would be talking about these things and these things were way out of the middle of the discourse. The oon window was nowhere near this far out. But it’s really interesting to see that this is arriving now into a moment where we can have these kind of discussions. And I think most people are open to these kind of discussions. But yeah, let’s talk calcification of the pineal gland because I would love to understand how you see it from a dentist perspective and how now that you have your functional medicine training, what that’s happening on a whole-body system.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yes. I mean it’s going to impact hormone function. It’s going to impact mitochondrial function. Fluoride competes with oxygen. It’s the most electro negative element on the periodic table. We want oxygen to be our number one source in the body. So it competes with iodine. It creates inflammation in the body. My concern too with fluoride is it’s antimicrobial in nature. So that might sound great on paper, but it’s not selective. So what is it doing to the beneficial bacteria in your mouth and gut? So if you’re drinking it, what on earth is it doing to the gut microbiome? No one has studied this, but yes, this is why we’re likely seeing neurocognitive effects is because of this accumulation in the pineal gland. And very likely there’s mitochondria stores are in surplus in the brain and inflammation in the brain. We don’t fully understand the mechanism of action for this cognitive effects, but one could conclude that that’s probably why these are happening.
Of course, we need more research, but I think it’s important to know this is a kitschy saying, but it’s true. I can fix a tooth. I went to dental school to learn the mechanics of essentially dental surgery, fixing a tooth, putting a filling in a tooth, fixing a cavity, but I can’t fix a brain. We have one shot at developing a child’s brain. And so I think we really need to value that. And the other issue I would say too, you’re going to hear the prof fluoride group say, but this is for the poor children. These are for socioeconomically challenged families that don’t have access to, I guess their argument is to fluoride toothpaste or dental care, and they’re not eating well. But again, this is a Band-Aid approach, and I would argue those kids are the most vulnerable five IQ points is on par with lead those kids to lose five IQ points. What are the long-term ramifications of that? And also, should one of these families learn about water fluoridation and have concerns and say, gosh, I want to protect my family from that. They can’t afford a reverse osmosis water filter system. I mean, they’re outrageously expensive. And then you might hear people say, well, they can buy bottled water. Well, okay, what about that’s expensive? What about microplastics? What about the environmental impacts of that? And then
James Maskell:
You see those bottles of water that are sold at Target where it says with fluoride in it, the craziest ones you see where it’s like the regular water pure life by Nestle has fluoride. Don’t worry, we’ve already added the fluoride in. I always just think that’s like, especially if that’s been sitting in the back of your car, that’s—
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Like Absolutely. And the other issue is there’s not enough standardization about the rules even with topical. So the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry warns to not mix baby formula with fluoridated water, but it’s not like this is a huge public service announcement that’s getting announced to people. And what are low-income families mixing their baby formula with? I mean, they’re not going out to buying spring water. So we’re fully admitting that in infants it’s dangerous. And then I’ve attended conferences of dental materials that have fluoride in them and they say, oh, don’t use this in under six-year-olds because they can’t spit. They might swallow. There’s a Poison Control label. And then yet you’ll go to a pediatrician’s office who’s slathering on fluoride varnish on a one-year-old. So there’s no standardization about the concerns. And again, it’s the cumulative effects.
What is it doing day in and day out with multiple exposures a day? And knowing that some people in some bodies and some immune systems and metabolic functioning humans can probably do okay with certain levels of exposures, and some humans are going to be much more vulnerable for various reasons. And we’re just treating the population, we’re losing individual treatment planning when you’re mass medicating a population. And then there’s medical ethical issues too. I mean, we’re supposed to have patient consent before we administer a drug. The FDA does define fluoride as a drug. So that’s a big issue and that’s why many of the western European countries have removed it.
James Maskell:
Fluoride in the water, statins in the water, lithium in the water. I’ve heard all of those. And this one seems to be the most strange. I would just say when you talk about it in these concepts, in these ways, it almost reminds you of the incredible resilience of the human body, of the fact that there’s been a low dose poison in your water and you can’t escape it. When you look at the levels of chronic illness, I’m sure that this is the kind of thing that the RFK wants to get into that just he’s aware that these studies don’t exist. And yet I know normalize right?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
We need more. I mean, yeah, we do. I mean, I am interested in what are the effects as we age on Alzheimer’s and dementia and the confounding variable concern. I understand that these are hard asks of the research community, but I mean think, well, I personally think the funding is a waste of money because we should just remove it. I mean, there’s enough data now to say, no, let’s just use it topically. And even still, there’s better alternatives that are more biomimetic like hydroxyapatite and theobromine is another that remineralize, but wouldn’t it be lovely to stop fighting about this and spend all these dollars working on an educational system that talks about the importance of diet, nutrition, breathing and hygiene, because that’s truly ancestrally. We did not get cavities 12,000 years ago when we were a hunter-gatherer society because we weren’t eating these ultra-processed fermentable carbohydrates all day long.
It is just like animals in the wild do not get decay, but what do or are domesticated pets because of the kibble that we’re giving them? So, it’s food-driven. This is a food-driven issue. And so again, if you want to approach things from a root cause, which is my belief is how we should be approaching human health. And that’s why I love functional medicine and dentistry. Fluoride is just another Band-Aid. It’s like if you have a headache every day, and I say, take an Advil, it’s masking the issue. Why does your patient have a headache every day?
James Maskell:
So if you’re a practitioner listening to this, what can you do to understand if fluoride is playing a role in the person in front of you’s diagnosis? Are there tests that you could do to understand it? And then second, if you establish that there is a high level of fluoride in the body, what can you do to support the body to move it out?
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yeah, there really aren’t any definitive tests that I’d probably recommend. But iodine, there’s some limited data that if you increase your iodine level, it can help reduce high levels of fluoride. I’ve heard providers speak of this, but we need to understand, no one’s done studies on this because everyone just assumes it’s fine. So I think my best advice is just to reduce your exposure to it as much as possible, especially systemically, until we do have more definitive testing and more definitive protocols. I mean, just like we now test for heavy metals and we have protocols for chelation or just using different detox pathways and herbals and things to help with heavy metal accumulation, NAC, et cetera.
I think just optimizing the system is never a bad idea. So making sure your detox pathways are open, making sure your glutathione is optimized. I think ideally just working with a functional medicine doctor to make sure that your body is working as optimally as possible and then trying to avoid additional exposures as best as possible. And if you’re a provider out there saying, well, what do I do? I work with low income families, they need something. I don’t disagree with that. And so this is where I’d say just use fluoride toothpaste. I mean, fluoride toothpaste is very accessible. You can get it. There are
James Maskell:
The cheapest toothpastes have fluoride.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Yeah, I mean you can get it at the dollar store. You can. And this is what’s being given out at dental offices. And so I think it’s all just such an oversimplification of the issue and it’s why cavities are still the number one chronic disease globally.
James Maskell:
Globally. Just if you take a step back, is it better to have a little bit of fluoride go over your teeth every time you drink water and then all of that fluoride to end up in the body and you do you dunno what with or can you apply it to the actual teeth that need it directly and then spit it all out? It’s just even the mechanics of it make that much more sense.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
And it works better topically. I mean there is data on this to ingest fluoride and then expect it to go through absorption through the GI tract. And then if they back up in the saliva and come out, that is such an inefficient way to apply an agent, just apply it topically. And that’s what the data shows anyway works better. I mean, they’re teaching this actually in dental school that it’s topical over systemic, but we’re just so hung up on this. And I do try to unpack why is it so emotional in this country particularly? And I think it’s honestly, I really like to say this, I deeply believe the pro fluoridation side have the best intentions. They want the best for kids. They think if we do not the water, these kids’ teeth are going to just decay and they’re going to have all these dental issues.
It’s going to overwhelm the system. I will tell you again, fluoridated or non-fluoridated communities have the same rate of decay, but their issue I’d say is they’re just focused on the teeth and they’re not looking at the big picture and they’re not looking at the child and they’re seemingly not looking at alternatives for how can we perpetuate prevention through an educational lens. But I do wonder why they hold onto it so much. And I think it’s because when you have such good intentions to look back on something and say, maybe I got that wrong. Maybe I was advising my patients incorrectly or God forbid, do no harm, maybe all my advice I’ve been giving the past two decades of my career was creating some damage in my patients. That’s hard for a lot of people to say. And then a lot of the big fluoridation advocates, I mean they’ve attached their identity to this cause. I mean, I’ve met and know a few of them and this is their purpose. And so it’s very hard. I don’t think anything will ever change their mind, ever. It doesn’t matter what data comes out, will they ever change their mind about water fluoridation? And we just need to accept that as part of the reality.
James Maskell:
Yeah. Well look, the exciting thing is that at this moment, the two areas that I mentioned the beginning, like holistic dentistry and holistic pediatrics, if you are sitting on the sidelines and thinking like, oh, it’s a lot to change my mind. And otherwise, the good news is if you go through an education through the organizations that exist, I know in dentistry you’ve got I-A-O-M-T and there’s other organizations that will educate dentists in toxicology, in pediatrics, there’s maps and there’s A4M has different groups as well.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
I have an announcement.
James Maskell:
Yeah, tell me.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
The Institute of Functional Dentistry is launching next year and I’m a co-founder of it. So we are working with IFM to help us with the curriculum. We’ll be kind of like a sister association if you will. And that is going to help dentists become more educated and trained and they will get certified and they’ll become certified functional dentists. So that is something I’m working on currently with some other wonderful functional dentists and that will be launching in summer 2025.
James Maskell:
I’m excited to follow that journey. Yeah, I’ve been, early in my career, I worked with a lot of dentists and I just saw that that was such a big deal. But now there are models, there are business models. I think in pediatrics, just the way that pediatricians get paid is problematic as far as the incentives on that end. And so the good news is there are examples that can be replicated in every county and every city now because there are successful models and there are successful clinical models. And part of my effort for 2025 is to popularize some of those pediatric models because ultimately we need an army of pediatricians. I think so much of the work, and I saw you out there on Capitol Hill and all kind of things that were happening recently, and I would just say, yeah, we can advocate for sure, we need changes in policy, but there are also a lot of people that are chronically ill today, like in California, we could change the policy tomorrow and maybe the autism rate would go down from one in 22 back up to one in 10,000 over a period of time.
But there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kids in California right now that need help. And the only way to help them is to spread some of these best practices and build practices where they can consistently see these kids who are on the spectrum and help them recover because recovery is possible. And so that’s what I’m going to do is help them. They love it. Physicians learn this and do it. And the good news is that you can have a sustainable business model without taking incentives from pharmaceutical companies for their wares to your patients. That’s one of the things that I’m going to be focused on in 2025 and beyond. So Doc, let me just ask you this. So you’re an advocate, you have a great Instagram and I started following you then, and I think that’s where you do the majority of your advocacy online. But with all of this knowledge, tell us a little bit about the practice, what you do in the practice and who you help just so other people could understand what a practice like this does every day.
Dr. Staci Whitman:
Absolutely. Yeah. So my practice is in Portland, Oregon, and we do have families travel from all over, including other countries to see us, which is very humbling, but also shows what a need there is for practice models like this. We focus primarily on education. It’s an education first. It’s an emotional health and education first. And by that I mean I think dentistry forgets there’s a parent attached to that child and there’s feelings about the procedures and there’s the stress of the financials and maybe the child needs anesthesia. And then just sitting through these procedures. I think we over plan over-treatment plan children a lot and it’s creating negative impacts on how they view dentistry as adults. So we focus a lot on education. My mantra is eat a rainbow. I teach a lot about the importance of diet nutrition for cavity and disease prevention. The kids get motivational charts.
We talk about the good germs in the bad germs. We talk a lot about the oral microbiome. We do salivary analysis in my office on the kids. We emphasize the important of vitamin D, mineral and vitamin optimization. So we will work with all, either test various things because of my training or I’ll work with naturopath or functional medicine doctors in the community to make sure the child isn’t nutrient deficient. So it’s important to know cavities really are a sign of malnutrition and nutrient deficiencies as well as oral dysbiosis or microbiome dysbiosis. That’s truly what’s happening. And you could argue too, it’s acidity, it’s acid that causes the disease. So we want to help unpack this and educate the family so that maybe the child we’ve given a chance to course correct so that child doesn’t experience dental disease as they age. We also are very focused on airway health and sleep health.
So we talk about the importance of breathing, nervous system regulation, vagus regulation, body work, craniosacral work, osteopathic work. We do a lot of that biomimetic materials knowing that a material that works in one human may not work in another. And so we just take that very integrated approach essentially, and we work with a lot of specialists in the community. We have a close network of like-minded providers in all different realms. And so it’s really, I think a wonderful experience of patients say it’s unlike any dental experience they’ve had because I’ll be honest, the teeth while important, they’re just a small component of what we talk about. The teeth really are just showing us a manifestation of what’s happening in the body. So yeah, I can fix the teeth later, but I want to get to the why for you. And we talk a lot about gut health, GI mapping and gluten intolerance, Crohn’s, celiac, these are all ways that you can get cavities to because of intestinal permeability and malnutrition.
That way your uptake is not optimized. We talk about genetic predispositions, gene snips, it can impact oral health. So we dig deep, we really do. And some parents come in and they’re just expecting a totally normal dental experience. And so we don’t bombard them with some of these concepts that might seem overwhelming. But some families come in and I love my patient families because they’re so, they keep me on my toes, which is really great. I love people Googling and researching. I think it’s wonderful. And so we have to be our own health advocates. It is a new practice model and I am working on creating other offices throughout the country with a similar practice model too. So stay tuned for that. But we are am accepting new patients. I do online consultations too, so you can go to my website. It’s drstaci.com. We can put it in the show notes. But I do online consultations where I give you all my educational handouts. So I have about 25 educational PDF handouts, infographics, and things. The families all leave with a new patient packet with all of this information in it because I could speak to families for about four hours on this stuff, and I know they don’t have time for that. So I want them to feel empowered like they have the information if they want it. And this is why I have my social media platform too, is just to provide additional education. So yeah.
James Maskell:
Wonderful. Well, look, thanks for being a great advocate for this and being able to be clear. I hope this has been helpful for people listening along and you can understand why this is mission critical. The functional medicine movement understands these kind of topics and we need to be at the forefront of helping to get the word out. Thank you for your advocacy and putting it together. And thanks so much for tuning in. This has been The Evolution of Medicine podcast. We’ve been talking all things fluoridation with Dr. Staci Whitman. Thanks so much for tuning in and we’ll see you next time.
Subscribe
Download
Click here to download this podcast
music provided by intomusic.co
