No Matter What, Be Proactive & Deal With It says Dr Al on The Healers Café with Dr. Manon Bolliger, ND

In this episode of The Healers Café, Dr. Manon Bolliger, ND, chats with “Dr. Al” Danenberg, Periodontist, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, Certified Primal Health Coach, ADAPT Trained Health Professional & Author of CRAZY-GOOD LIVING! 

Highlights from today’s episode include:

Dr Al Danenberg (10:09):

The studies are basically four weeks. They were designed differently, but they serve the same purpose and showed the same facts. And that is the subjects in the study did not, and could not brush or floss or cheat for four weeks. They were only allowed the experimental group was only allowed to eat a healthier diet that consisted of very low carbohydrates, no added sugars and a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds, and basically good fats. The control group continued with their standard American diet eating, lots of carbs, lots of sugar and so on and so forth. Basically the entire group had active gum disease starting the program after four weeks without brushing and cleaning their mouth

Dr Al Danenberg (14:27):

That’s true. I’m here to scream my story. That’s the story of how the gut, really the gut is actually the cause of almost every chronic disease that you can imagine. And if we can treat the gut appropriately, that means not only treat the damage in the gut, but put the food that your body needs into your body and remove the irritants, or at least avoid the irritants that are going to damage the gut. And there are other factors of damage to the gut It’s not just what you eat. It’s, you know, it’s electromagnetic fields, it’s chemicals. It’s stress, it’s poor exercise to over-exercise will damage the gut. Poor sleep habits will damage the gut. So there are a variety of things that will damage the gut. But if you can understand what’s causing the damage and you can get control over that, you can control your life amazingly well without, without supplements and all kinds of gimmicks and gadgets that everybody wants to sell you.

Dr Al Danenberg (25:04):

Actually, dental plaque serves three main functions. It serves as a gatekeeper to actually allow minerals from the saliva, get into the root surface. So if there’s any need for it to remineralized the tooth root surface, it can do that. Now, minerals, if you just have a toothpaste with added minerals in it, it has no value whatsoever. And you take supplements with minerals, probably no real value whatsoever, but we need to eat food that has the minerals that are bioactive, that gets absorbed into your blood system. And a lot of it gets deposited into your soul salivary glands. So when you salivate, which you do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, of course, different flows for different times of the day. This mineral, these minerals that are in the saliva can get into the root surface, but the plaque kind of distributes the minerals as is necessary.

About Dr Al Danenberg

“Dr. Al” Danenberg is a periodontist and was in private practice for 44 years. He incorporated ancestral nutrition & lifestyle with his leading-edge laser protocol to treat periodontal disease. In September 2018, he retired from the practice of treating individual patients. However, he still consults with patients by phone, Skype, or Zoom regarding nutrition, lifestyle, oral and overall health, and the importance of a healthy gut.

Dr. Al received advanced training in evolutionary nutrition from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as well as The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. In June 2014, he received his Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP) designation as well as his certification as a Certified Primal Health Coach. In 2015, Dr. Danenberg was appointed to the faculty of the College of Integrative Medicine and created the college’s integrative periodontal teaching module. Then, in April 2017, he earned the designation of “ADAPT Trained Health Professional” from Kresser Institute. In July 2017, Elektra Press released Dr. Danenberg’s book, “Crazy-Good Living”, which is based on ancestral nutrition and lifestyle.

On April 14, 2020, Dr. Danenberg was appointed the Chair of the Periodontal Committee for the IABDM. He also created the Certification Program for Biological Nutritional Dental Professionals offered by the IABDM.

Dr. Danenberg can be contacted from his website – https://drdanenberg.com/contact/ 

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About Dr. Manon Bolliger, ND:

Dr. Manon is a Naturopathic Doctor, the Founder of Bowen College, an International Speaker with an upcoming TEDx talk in May 2020, and the author of the Amazon best-selling book “What Patient’s Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask.” Watch for her next book, due out in 2020.

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TRANSCRIPT

Dr Manon (00:02):

So welcome to the Healers Cafe. And today I have the pleasure to talk to Dr Al Danenberg. And let me tell you a little bit about him. So he’s a periodontist and was in private practice for 44 years. He incorporated ancestral nutrition and lifestyle with his leading edge laser protocol to treat periodontal disease in September, 2018, he retired from the practice of treating individual patients. However, he still consults with patients by phone Skype, zoom regarding nutrition, lifestyle, oral, and overall health, and the importance of a healthy gut. And I think I’m going to leave it right there and and ask you, well, there’s so many things to ask you. Well what prompted you go into periodontal medicine in the first place?

Dr Al Danenberg (01:10):

Well, okay, so this is a long time ago, but when I was in college, I actually wanted, for some reason I wanted to get into some medical profession. And at the time I was working for a dental lab in Washington, DC, delivering dental cases to dentists all over through Washington DC in Virginia. And it was a fascinating experience because I met many, many dentists and talked about their lifestyle and their incorporation of healing in a dental concept. And I never really understand or understood dentistry at that point other than seeing my own personal dentist. So I was impressed and started to think in terms of I wanted to do something in the medical issue type of field, the industry sounded appropriate. So I started to pursue dentistry and you know, you go through college, you get through all these prerequisite courses.and I applied to dental schools and I got into dental school.

Dr Al Danenberg (02:25):

So I went to what’s called the Baltimore college of dental surgery, Baltimore, Maryland, started at something like 1969 ish got out 1972, something like that. And then I was fascinated with the concept of treating gum disease. You know, dentistry is such a very small area of medicine and then periodontal disease is even smaller, a smaller segment of dentistry, but it fascinated me. I was very encouraged by one of my professors who was a periodontist as he was teaching that course in general dentistry. And I decided this was great. I wanted to apply. There was a great graduate school in the area. So I applied, got accepted and went through periodontics and I loved it. And I did conventional periodontics for 44 years at least starting with conventional periodontics, which meant basically treating the gums and basically the jaw bone that surrounds the roots of the teeth and its relationship to the jaw joint itself.

Dr Al Danenberg (03:40):

And unfortunately Dentists are trained really like the mouth is an Island unto itself, sadly enough. And I never learned anything about nutrition or anything that involved the gut. I don’t think people even understood the gut and anything that was affecting …

 I don’t think people even understood the gut and anything that was affecting the rest of the body that emanated from the gut. But I started periodontics, loved periodontics, got involved with some technology with lasers, that was really cutting edge and got involved with the lasers, which was much more patient friendly. And actually we could not only repair periodontal damage, but we could really regenerate, Jawbone using the laser correctly. So it was a much more patient friendly procedure and got even better results. So that’s what I did for a while. And then if you want me to go on, I’ll tell you how my life changed. Absolutely. So, I started practicing sometime in maybe 1974 ish, 76.

Dr Manon (04:48):

And I did until I was 59 years old and I did continue after that, but a very interesting life changing experience occurred at the age of 59. I had a stroke. Actually I woke up and I couldn’t speak and it was bizarre and scary. And my wife is an RN rushed me to the hospital, it turns out I have a stroke and conventional medicine saved my life, put me on seven medications for the rest of my life. And I weighed about 187 pounds at the time. I’m five foot seven. So I was a little chunky. And I didn’t think that I was unhealthy, but obviously I must have been. And I had no idea why I had this stroke at the age of 59. My physicians never gave me any idea. So what I thought was I need to go into the, research mode and looked into the American heart association, American diabetic association American cancer society, all of these healthy organizations, I needed to find out what they thought, what would be a healthier lifestyle and a healthier diet.

Dr Al Danenberg (06:00):

And I tried to make some changes. And, but between the age of 59, the age of 66, I continued to weigh the same and continued to take seven medications for the rest of my life. Meanwhile, I’m practicing periodontics and doing everything that I mentioned to you already, the age of 66, I was looking at different courses to take. And I found a course at the Kripalu center for yoga and health of all places. It was a five day intensive program for health care professionals about nutrition. And I thought this would be ideal. I’m really going to learn everything that I needed to learn. And it’s just going to confirm what I’ve learned up to this point. Well, it blew me away because I learned that I did not know anything. And it was based on nutrition of our primal ancestors and primal lifestyle blew me away, learned a lot at the end of the course, I called my wife and said, before I got home, I said, I’d like to make some changes when I get home.

Dr Al Danenberg (07:08):

And when I got home, we bumped heads a little bit. She said, she’ll give me 30 days. And I started to clear out my pantry freezer and cupboards a refrigerator of foods that were unhealthy. Basically. I was going to change from a standard American diet to a paleo type diet. And after we gathered all the foods, we took it to the food bank and we had no food in the house. So we started to eat and shop and eat healthy. And from that point, from the age of 66, until 71, I lost 30 some pounds and I completely eliminated all seven medications. I was feeling amazingly healthy and I thought I was the poster boy for a primal health at the age of 71. And I was

Dr Manon (08:02):

Before you go further, because I have just read your article. I want to just stick to one question I have for you. Did you see a change at that point in the the health of the gingivvitis.

Dr Manon (08:24):

Well I’m knowledgeable about dentistry and I know how to take care of my mouth. And I did not have any significant issues with my mouth. Let’s say at the time that I had my stroke, but in the beginning, when I actually went to dental school I had bleeding gums and didn’t realize that was a problem. Most people, sadly enough, when they clean them out brush or floss, their teeth they’ll have bleeding gum, they’ll see a little pink that you go to the dental hygienists. And she’ll say, it looks pretty good. It’s just a little bleeding here, maybe a little bleeding there, sadly enough, your gum should never, ever bleed unless you cut them, but you won’t ever cut them if you’re brushing and cleaning your mouth correctly. So any bleeding whatsoever is a sign of active gum disease. Doesn’t tell you how severe it is. It doesn’t tell you how deep the infection is, but it is a sign of active gum disease.

Dr Manon (09:30):

I’ve gone personally to quite a few because I’ve traveled, you know, and, I’ve often asked just to see whether they had any, you know, any knowledge of this. Do you think that the diet, what the food you eat will impact the gums?

Dr Al Danenberg (09:49):

Absolutely. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, there have been three very excellent studies that have been published. One was 2000, I’m thinking 2012 or 14, another 2017 and other published 2019 that are clinical studies that show. And this is very interesting. The studies are basically four weeks. They were designed differently, but they serve the same purpose and showed the same facts. And that is the subjects in the study did not, and could not brush or floss or cheat for four weeks. They were only allowed the experimental group was only allowed to eat a healthier diet that consisted of very low carbohydrates, no added sugars and a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds, and basically good fats. The control group continued with their standard American diet eating, lots of carbs, lots of sugar and so on and so forth. Basically the entire group had active gum disease starting the program after four weeks without brushing and cleaning their mouth.

Dr Al Danenberg (11:08):

After four weeks, the experimental group that had ate the healthier diet had lots and lots of dental plaque, but significantly reduced gingivitus inflammation, gum inflammation, and gum pockets. And the control group had significantly large amounts of plaque, but also significantly more inflammation. Dental plaque is healthy until it’s not healthy. Dental plaque should not be removed from the teeth completely. If it is healthy. Now the stage between healthy and unhealthy has everything to do with the gut microbiome, because that has to be in dysbiosis. The inflammation, the chronic inflammation is there. There is a compromise in the immune system. There is some leakage into the bloodstream, like with a leaky gut, what’s called metabolic endotoxemia occurs and unhealthy Particles are floating into the bloodstream called lipopolysaccharides or LPs gets into the mouth and all mucous membrane tissues. And it changes the microbiome in other parts of the body, including the mouth.

Dr Al Danenberg (12:22):

And then the healthy dental plaque becomes unhealthy. There’s about 700 or so species of bacteria in this plaque. Not only does it become unhealthy, the individual is probably because they have an unhealthy gut, probably eating unhealthy foods that are inflammatory, especially sugars that are going to cause the unhealthy bacterial species that are overgrowing to overgrow even more. Then you’re developing a vicious cycle. So you have an infection in the mouth. You have an infection in the gut, the gut infection pours into the bloodstream, the mouth infection pours into the bloodstream, as it leaks under the gum tissue into the capillary beds. And all of this will resolve if it’s only the state of inflammation, if you change the diet. So these three studies showed that you change the diet, the bacteria still remain and they grow, in very large amounts, but the bacterial cultures are not pathogenic.

Dr Manon (13:22):

As a matter of fact, they’re in a state of balance and the and the proof is the inflammation goes away. Now, the problem is when periodontal disease, gingivitus inflammation spreads under the gum and it changes into a more aggressive form, which it doesn’t always do. But if it does, and it’s called periodontitis, the infection now gets into the bone structure, breaking down the bone and creating leakage into the bloodstream from the periodontal pocket. And it also leaks into the lymph tissues. It leaks into the, the myelin sheath around nerves. And it travels throughout the body, not just with the blood system, the lymph, which eventually gets into the blood system and the nerve channels throughout the bone. That’s very interesting and not very well understood. There is a source of infection in the mouth that needs to be treated, but also the gut dysbiosis must be treated not one without the other.

Dr Manon (14:21):

It’s interesting how few people know this.

Dr Al Danenberg (14:27):

That’s true. I’m here to scream my story. That’s the story of how the gut, really the gut is actually the cause of almost every chronic disease that you can imagine. And if we can treat the gut appropriately, that means not only treat the damage in the gut, but put the food that your body needs into your body and remove the irritants, or at least avoid the irritants that are going to damage the gut. And there are other factors of damage to the gut It’s not just what you eat. It’s, you know, it’s electromagnetic fields, it’s chemicals. It’s stress, it’s poor exercise to over-exercise will damage the gut. Poor sleep habits will damage the gut. So there are a variety of things that will damage the gut. But if you can understand what’s causing the damage and you can get control over that, you can control your life amazingly well without, without supplements and all kinds of gimmicks and gadgets that everybody wants to sell you.

Dr Manon (15:32):

Okay. I have more questions for you.

Dr Al Danenberg (15:34):

I’m here to answer every question.

Dr Manon (15:37):

So I want you to, if you could how would you identify?…….. because these are all the misconceptions that,I’ve noted anyway, so…….. I really want answers to all of them. So if I have them….. So when you go to the dentist, they take away your plack That’s one of the things they do. How do we, let’s say you eat a good diet. So now your gingivitis is under control and you’re not bleeding all the time. How do you know that your plaque is healthy?

Dr Al Danenberg (16:15):

So here is a great way. I think that it is the best biological marker of gut disease, active gut disease, as well as active gum infection. And that is, do you have any bleeding in the gum tissue now it’s not just bleeding from the toothbrush because a lot of infected areas will not bleed if you brush them because you can’t get the bristles everywhere and flossing, I’m not big on actual flossing because most people will floss between the teeth at the contact, which is great. That’s what I would agree with. But a lot of people will floss under the gum tissue, sewing the floss back and forth and cutting the gum tissue, creating much more damage. So you should never floss under the gum tissue, but there is an interdental cleaning device. One brand is called TP soft picks. They are, the brand name is T E P E and it’s available on Amazon online, it’s everywhere.

Dr Al Danenberg (17:19):

And there are little brushes that are silicone brushes and they clean between the teeth at the gum line and the tooth. Now, when you go with these little brushes between the teeth back and forth, if you see any bleeding whatsoever, you have active gum disease, and certainly you will have unhealthy dental plaque. Now the most areas that would bleed the areas in the mouth that would bleed the most, would most would probably be the back teeth, the molar teeth, because they’re the hardest to clean. They have an anatomy that’s a little bit more irregular, so it will Harbour plaque and bad plaque and build up more quickly and create inflammation. If you have individual crowns around the teeth or caps or fillings that are at the gum margin, generally these are somewhat rough. From a biological standpoint, they can Harbour more bad bacteria and those areas will bleed more than a natural tooth surface area would bleed. But any bleeding whatsoever tells you number one, you’ve got gum disease called periodontal disease. The earliest stage of periodontal disease is called gingivitis. And that will tell you that your plaque is unhealthy. Absolutely would tell you it’s unhealthy. So any bleeding is a sign of unhealthy dental plaque and gut dysbiosis,

Dr Manon (18:45):

Right? And so would you say that if you’re not bleeding under those circumstances and you have plaque, what would you recommend people do?

Dr Al Danenberg (18:56):

Well, I think that a dentist, a good dentist, a biological dentist, let’s say a dentist that is understanding the biology of the system. Not just the idea that the mouth is an Island unto itself. because that’s not true. But if they’re looking at the mouth, the dentist needs to look at certain things that you can not see. They need certain x-rays at least on an initial exam to see things that are not visible. You can’t bring for exsample your car’s making a lot of noise and you go into the garage and he says, well, let me open the hood and see what’s going on. And you say, no, you can’t open the hood, but tell me what’s wrong with my car. It doesn’t work that way. You have to look into the system and to look into the mouth properly. You need to have eyes that are x-ray eyes.

Dr Al Danenberg (19:42):

So you need x-rays to see certain things, not on a regular basis, but you need to see certain things to see where you are. And, and there may be individual things that are a problem that you’re not aware of. You could have very severe active periodontitis under the gum in the bone and the tissues don’t bleed anymore because the diseases is so deep. So that needs to be evaluated. But in the early stages, you always have to have gingivitis before you get periodontitis and in those early stages, the gum tissues, especially if you’re using this little teepee brush in the back will bleed first, and that will alert you. Something is wrong. You need attention changing the diet though can change the entire biology of the system. And you may not need any dental treatment if you change the diet properly.

Dr Manon (20:38):

I was thinking all the things that I’ve heard, you know, and again, my training as a Naturopathic Physician So we look at the whole, but we don’t have specialty in areas So you know, as much as it is problematic in the paradigm of modern or conventional medicine, it tends to be specific to each area and they’re missing often the whole, it also, when you have the whole, you don’t also have the parts in the depth of knowledge required. So they both in that sense, complimentary to the dialogue which needs to go both ways. But one of the myths, I think it’s a myth anyways is…… But I’ve heard it so many times. ?it’s one or the other.

Dr Al Danenberg (21:33):

No, I wouldn’t go there. That there is a different process involved. Dental decay is generally more specific or specific bacteria get a hold of the area, create a lot of acids and create dental decay. And those bacteria are not the same types of bacteria that cause gingivitus inflammation. But to say, if you have one, you won’t have the other, that’s not correct at all. That’s not true at all.

Dr Manon (22:16):

And then just one little clarification on the plaque and provided you’ve done all the the x-rays, you know, that it hasn’t gotten into the bone and it’s not stuck under the gingivitus, Is there another way to look at that plaque or do you just leave it alone because everything else is good.

Dr Al Danenberg (22:48):

if you’re in an airplane and you’re sitting on the tarmac and you look out the window, you can see the tarmac, but you don’t see much other than that, as the plane takes off. And as it gets higher and higher, you see some roads and some tops of buildings and it goes higher. And all of a sudden you see mountains and planes and, and all of a sudden you have this huge perspective of what’s down there, sitting in the plane on the tarmac, you had no idea that the rivers and the, the trees and whatever are outside of the tarmac area. So if you were to look from a primal ancestor view and look at the dental, skeletal remains the Jawbone of our primal ancestors between 10 and 20,000 years ago, because studies have been done, you will see very little tooth decay and very little jaw bone damage.

Dr Manon (23:56):

In other words, very little decay or periodontal disease existed because the Jawbone and the teeth are relatively in good shape.

Dr Al Danenberg (24:05):

Not always but relatively, but you will see lots of calcified material around the tooth at the bone margin of these skeletal remains, which is plaque that has calcium calcified and it’s called tartar or calculus. So calculus is not an abnormal production in the mouth and dental plaque. Of course, it’s not an abnormal biofilm when everything is balanced. So these primal ancestors were not eating McDonald’s and they were not eating coffee with 12 teaspoons of sugar in it. So and of course the donut, which was basically their breakfast. So if they weren’t eating this kind of food, they didn’t feed bacteria. They didn’t have gut dysbiosis for the most part. And their immune system was, were very adequate to take care of any active infections in their body.

Dr Al Danenberg (25:01):

So they did not have problems with the dental plan. Actually, dental plaque serves three main functions. It serves as a gatekeeper to actually allow minerals from the saliva, get into the root surface. So if there’s any need for it to remineralized the tooth root surface, it can do that. Now, minerals, if you just have a toothpaste with added minerals in it, it has no value whatsoever. And you take supplements with minerals, probably no real value whatsoever, but we need to eat food that has the minerals that are bioactive, that gets absorbed into your blood system. And a lot of it gets deposited into your soul salivary glands. So when you salivate, which you do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, of course, different flows for different times of the day. This mineral, these minerals that are in the saliva can get into the root surface, but the plaque kind of distributes the minerals as is necessary.

Dr Al Danenberg (26:05):

So it’s the gatekeeper between the saliva and the mineral mineralization, the root. The other thing that saliva does, I mean, the the dental plaque does is that it’s made up of up to maybe 700 different bacterial or microbial species. And all of these species actually start to create a type of hydrogen peroxide that actually kills off any other invading pathogenic bacteria that should never be there. So that, that literally is the defense mechanism for the gum and tooth margin, because the plaque literally wards off bacteria that could be harmful. The other third thing that they do is that they have buffers chemical buffers in their bacterial biofilm that maintain an acid level of a pH of 5.5 or higher so that you can’t have tooth decay unless the pH drops below 5.5 for a long period of time. When you have sugar, that’s feeding bad bacteria in the plaque, and the plaque becomes unhealthy and overgrown with these very bad, bacteria. They’re producing acids that are way below 5.5, much more acidic. That’s why you have tooth decay, but healthy plaque balances and buffers, the saliva, or the acids in the rest of the mouth. So it doesn’t get to the root surface creating tooth decay. So dental plack has a very important function, as long as it’s healthy. And once it’s not healthy, all hell breaks loose.

Dr Manon (27:47):

Oh, that’s fascinating. I’m really enjoying understanding all this, you know, because it’s, it’s really not common knowledge.

Dr Al Danenberg (27:59):

True and most dentists and dental hygienists have no idea either by the way. And it’s not taught in dental school for some reason I don’t get it.

Dr Manon (28:07):

they don’t have this knowledge that’s for sure. because I’ve asked……. And it made me think of one thing. If you have plack maybe that’s where the original, the first time I heard this I was actually told that the plaque is not the problem. If you have gingerVitus, we have a problem. And so I thought of that. And then this particular dentist that I had when I was in Montreal……., I’m not worried about that….. It’s probably why you don’t have cavities and that’s was the first link. But now that I hear this part of it, I can see why that might’ve come, but what he worked a lot with prisoners and he said, one of the things that worked really well was giving. And again, they’re looking at cost reduction and all that, but using hydrogen peroxide and soda baking soda as a you know, cleaning, if you are at the beginning stages of gingivitis to, to at least kill that. And he didn’t talk about gut health but this would be, Oh my goodness, 50 years ago.

Dr Al Danenberg (29:22):

Actually peroxide and baking soda has been used Salt has been used. Hydrogen peroxide is very effective as a therapeutic agent. If you have a lot of infection, you want to kind of clear, clean things out, it is an antimicrobial. So it’s going to kill bad stuff as well as good stuff. As long as you know that, and you help replace the healthy bacteria, that is not terrible if you’re only doing it for maybe seven days, right? If you continue with hydrogen peroxide on a longterm basis, hydrogen peroxide tends not to kill yeast. So you can have an overgrowth of yeast in your mouth because you’re changing the healthy balance of bacteria. Certainly you’re changing the healthy balance of the dental plaque and actually hydrogen peroxide that leaks into your bloodstream and gets into your gut can cause oxidative stress and a variety of other damage into the gut microbiome.

Dr Al Danenberg (30:11):

And then you’re, you’re developing another vicious cycle that you don’t even realize because you’re getting unhealthy gut and you’re getting oxidative stress and a lot of other things getting, becoming systemic. So hydrogen peroxide is not a good thing on the long term basis to clean your mouth. The best thing to do is use a toothbrush properly and these little TP brushes, like I just mentioned to you and maybe some filtered water and that’s all you don’t need toothpaste at all. Toothpaste has no real benefit. If you want something on the brush, you could dip the brush in a little bit of coconut oil and a little bit of baking soda and brush with that baking soda is good because it’s a little bit very, very lightly abrasive, so it can remove some superficial stain and it will balance out acid. So it has a buffering capacity. If you have excess acid in your mouth, certainly it’s beneficial.

Dr Al Danenberg (31:26):

So take a toothbrush. If you want to brush with just filtered water, that’s perfect. You don’t need to face, but if you want toothpaste, what you could do is dip the two bristles into a little medic baking coconut oil, and then dip that just a little bit of baking soda and then brush with that brush with a soft bristle toothbrush and the baking soda because of the buffering capacity helps eliminate excess acid in your mouth, as well as it’s a little abrasiveness remove some superficial stain. So it works extremely well.

Dr Manon (32:03):

I have one last question on practice before I’d like you to share your story. But is the practice of using antibiotics in dentistry in case a person has, or if a person has any heart disease or anything like that, maybe what is your thoughts on that?

Dr Al Danenberg (32:28):

Well, the American dental association has actually gone on record recently that shows that it is not necessary and should not be used as a prophylactic. In my opinion, I would never use an antibiotic unless it is a severe infection that I cannot get under control with variety of other modalities. Actually, when I was doing periodontal surgery in my office using lasers, using periodontal surgery, although the technique in recommended antibiotics, I did not use that. I use Andrographis complex and go to Cola. These are two herbal type of products that actually are very good to enhance your immune system and help your body to prevent infection. That’s really the secret of being healthy. You’re, you’re bombarded with all kinds of microbes all the time. If your immune system was not adequate or certainly highly dysfunctional you would breathe the air, your, breathing, and tomorrow you would be very sick and probably three or four days from there, you would be dead because the immune system is a, the armed forces of our body that literally gets activated and fights the infection.

Dr Al Danenberg (33:44):

But interestingly, the immune system finds out there are antigens or invaders to the body because of the microbiome, the microbiome literally there’s 37 trillion microbes in our body. And we are made up of only 32 trillion cells. So we are made up of more microbial cells and human cells. And most of these microbial cells are in the gut. And the gut, the microbiome literally speaks to the immune system, which 80%, 70 to 80% is in the lining of the gut. So it speaks to the immune system saying, Hey guys, there’s an invader here. You need to get started. So now the immune cells start to do their job. The innate immune system does its job. And eventually the adaptive immune system does its job to create some antibodies. And all of a sudden this infection gets under control. And if you can enhance your immune system, if you do particular procedures and you’re concerned about an infection, your body automatically does what it’s supposed to do.

Dr Al Danenberg (34:55):

Now, if you have a real acute infection and your body is compromised because you have a bad gut and you have a bad immune system, and all things are, are not working for you, they’re working against you. Sometimes some high powered antibiotics need to be used, which will damage a lot of the bacteria in your body that should never be damaged, but you’re dealing with the worst of two situations. You need to get them under control. But on the other hand, you need to be aware that you need to do some really heavy duty, significantly effective probiotics to restore the gut health. and we could talk about the kind of probiotics that work and the kinds that don’t, there is some great research, relatively new research and some research from us from a few years ago that shows that the majority of the probiotics lactobacillus and the bifidobacteria type of probiotics create metabolites, biologically active chemicals that are extremely beneficial in the body.

Dr Al Danenberg (36:01):

And they go through the stomach into the small intestines, large intestines, and they do very, very well with helping the bacteria in the gut. Unfortunately, these bacteria, the lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, and all these other types of regular bacteria or probiotics are destroyed in the stomach acid. That’s one of the methods that our body prevents other infections to get into the system. So the probiotics are completely destroyed, but the metabolites are not. So you’re only getting 50% of the benefit of a probiotic when you do that. They there are spore based probiotics, which are bacillus spores that are natural. They’re in the soil, the animals defecate, they have spores in their faeces. It gets into the ground. It gets into the food, the food we eat and the spores are resistant and, and they’re resistant to the stomach acid and they get into our gut. And not only do they create the metabolites that are necessary to maintain a healthy gut microbiome, but they also germinate in the gut. So they get new bacteria in the gut that supports the commensal or healthy bacteria. And it creates a more diverse and a higher quantity and quality of bacteria in the gut, which is critical to maintain and improve the health of the gut and the immune system.

Dr Manon (37:28):

So I told you that the age of 71, I considered myself the at least the primal senior poster boy for a healthy lifestyle. And I was, I was feeling phenomenal as a matter of fact, April of 2018, I was speaking at a convention called paleo FX. And I was speaking about the gut health and the oral health. And that’s what I did, but on my travels to Austin, Texas, which is where the meeting was in April, 2018, I was carrying a bag of luggage on my right shoulder. And it actually started to get sore,, and I did my seminar, I got back home and my right shoulder just stayed sore.

Dr Al Danenberg (38:34):

And I thought you, I must have torn rotator cuff or some damage, soft tissue damage of some type. Well, the soreness didn’t really go away, it kind of moved to my back and then moved to my chest and being a little lazy. I waited until maybe August of 2018 to see my physician who knew me very well. I had seen him for the last 30 plus years. And he looks at me and he says,, you got some soreness here. And I said, yeah, surprise. And so he said, let’s do some blood work. He did a series of very traditional blood work. And one of the tests that he did, which wasn’t part of the normal traditional stuff was a CRP, a C reactive protein. It’s a biomarker that can identify systemic inflammation. Then tell how serious it is.

Dr Al Danenberg (39:27):

It Doesn’t tell where it’s coming from or how long you had it, but it tells you something that you shouldn’t have. So my M S C RP, normally it runs less than 0.0 0.5. It was up around five point something, and it alerted him and me that maybe there’s something wrong. So he did an MRI. And after the MRI, he calls me and he says, Al, do you want to come to the office? Or you don’t want to talk over the phone? I said, of course, Billy let’s talk over the phone.So he tells me that I have a vertebral compression fracture. He tells me that there is some soft tissue mass on the side of one of my vertebrae. He tells me I have two cracked ribs and a hairline crack in my pelvis, kind of jokes and says, did you get beat up or did you fall down some stairs?

Dr Al Danenberg (40:25):

And I said, of course I didn’t. I only have this pain in my shoulder and my chest at this point. And he tells me if I were you, I’d be very concerned. And he says, I think you have either leukemia lymphoma or multiple myeloma. These are three doors I never even expected to ever open. And I am shocked with this brotherly revelation. So he says, let’s get in a oncologist, let’s do some more tests. So I have a pet scan done. And a pet scan is a an involved tests where they, they inject radiograph a radio active glucose into your vein. And it goes through your body very rapidly. And if there’s cancer cells, it literally eats up the glucose and, and it shows on the X Ray kind of glowingly. And then we did a biopsy of the soft tissue lesion and of a number of other blood tests to check and see what’s going on.

Dr Manon (41:36):

So it turns out that the radiologist who read the pet scan diagnosed multiple myeloma with enumerable lytic lesions throughout my skeleton, meaning I have holes everywhere in my body. Now there are different forms of multiple myeloma. This is called IGA Kappa light chain, multiple AMA myeloma. It’s rather aggressive. And the the holes in my bone generally when they describe multiple myeloma, they either say, and with one lytic lesion or two lytic lesions or five lytic lesions, there were so many that they couldn’t count. And my body was literally breaking from my own body weight, because it was severely like a person that had severe osteoporosis, and that’s what caused my bones to hurt and pressure. And my oncologist with my wife in the room and my two adult children tell me that I have probably three to six months to live.

Dr Al Danenberg (42:42):

Here I am thinking I am the pillar of health as a 71 year old guy leading a life that I think is extremely healthy. And I’m being given a death sentence of three to six months, very disconcerting so I made some very quick decisions with my family there. Since he told me, my oncologist told me that my disease is not treatable or curable by conventional methods. But he wanted me to start chemotherapy right away. And a few other things I said, well, it’s not going to cure me. What’s going to happen. He said, well, you’ll go through chemotherapy. And you’ll go into remission and you’ll be fine for a while. And then all of a sudden this myeloma is going to come back and we’ll need to use a different, more caustic cocktail of drugs because the original wouldn’t work any more.

Dr Al Danenberg (43:40):

And you’ll do that and go into and out of remission until none of the drugs will work anymore. And you’ll still buy from the manifestations of, or the complications of multiple myeloma. All along the quality of my life would decrease. And that is not what I would want to do with my life. I, I have no problem dying tomorrow, believe me, but I want the quality of my life to be maintained. So I told him, no thanks. I said that I need to do some research. I did have some radiation on my chest area because I couldn’t breathe because the fractures were so severe and the fractures were part of the myeloma cancer masses. So that had to be treated just for the pain relief. But I created a, an unconventional cancer series of cancer protocols that I maintain. I tweaked it significantly from that date until presently and I was doing extremely well until I had a couple of little fractures here and there.

Dr Al Danenberg (44:47):

Until April of 2019. Now April, I mean, August of 2019. So August of 2019, I had lived much longer than I was supposed to live. And I was doing quite well with no real decrease in the quality of my life. So I’m in my bathroom, brushing and flossing. My teeth sort of know how to do that. And my feet are planted on, on the floor. I’m looking in the mirror and then I twist to the left to throw away my dental floss into the bath. The trash can in the bathroom and my right foot is planted on the floor. And I knew that my bones were fragile, but I didn’t know what that really meant. So I twisted about 90 degrees. And as soon as I twisted instantly my right femur snapped in half and I collapsed to the ground, obviously not realizing what was happening, collapsed to the ground, broke two more ribs and fractured my right humerus in half.

Dr Al Danenberg (45:47):

Now, when I did that, I was in the excruciating pain pain that you can imagine the worst pain you can imagine and multiply that by 10. And of course I’m screaming. My wife is running into the room. What’s happening. Obviously I’m having a problem and I really wanted to die. I knew that I have outlived my diagnosis, my prognosis, and I would go down Hill from this point on, I just was ready to die. So I went to the hospital. They actually fix my right femur because it was going to puncture my femoral artery and I would bleed the death. So they fixed the right femur. I refuse everything else. And they sent me to a hospice hospital to die a week or so later. A hurricane came through Charleston called hurricane Dorian, and it had 187 mile an hour winds. The hospital was ordered to evacuate.

Dr Al Danenberg (46:46):

They didn’t know where to send me. My wife has an RN. She scrambled to get a hospital bed at the house. They evacuated me to the house. And here I am in a hospital bed. The hurricane hits, there was no power. The hospital bed is electric. So that doesn’t move. I can’t move. It’s hot. It’s sticky. There’s no TV. There’s no radio. There’s no telephone. I mean, I’m miserable. Eventually the power comes on and we have to get somebody to help me in the house because they can’t do anything. I’m catheterized. I have to use a bed pan. It’s so demeaning. My life was literally awful. I mean, I really wanted to die. I prayed to die. And then my wife gave me a little bit of tough love, said, you know, you’re not a victim, you’re a survivor. You need to get your head together.

Dr Al Danenberg (47:33):

You had a high quality life until this accident let’s get over this. And so I wasn’t hospice and revoked hospice. We got a a physical therapist to come in. He worked with me, I got off the catheter and I started to walk around with a Walker in the house and was able to use the facilities, bathroom facilities correctly. And eventually I really rallied. And I got back into my protocols and I was fantastic my oncologist a month later. And he says, well, there’s a couple immunotherapy drugs that were just approved by the FDA. They’re not chemotherapy. They’re immunotherapy, they’re human derived, monoclonal antibodies. It might help with the plasma cells and the bone damage. And I started to take those and incorporated it with my protocols. And then fast forward, I was doing quite well. Fast forward may of this year, May 8th of 2020.

Dr Al Danenberg (48:29):

My oncologist wanted me to get a new pet scan to see how things were going. So with the original pet scan, lots of cancer pet scan was June of 2019, lots of cancer. So May 8th, 2020, I get a pet scan. And my oncologist calls me that night and he says, I want you to get your wife on speakerphone. So he reads to me the pathology report or the radiologist report. And it says basically no active cancer cells visible throughout your body. So I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, George, I want you to say that again. I need you to make sure that I’m hearing you properly. I don’t have any cancer cells that are visible in the pet scan in my entire body. And he says, that’s correct. Well, I kind of elevated off the floor. You know, levitated, I felt a little bit high, very, very good.

Dr Manon (49:29):

And I’m thinking, Oh my God, now reality sets in. I’m not in remission. I haven’t cured my cancer, but I have no active cancer cells that are visible on the pet scan, but I can’t see everything. And I do have some blood chemistries or cancer blood work that shows at a high level still of the proteins from the malignant antibodies that are produced from my malignant plasma cells, but it could still be, it hasn’t cleared through my body yet. And my body’s immune system, which is very, very working in a very high level of peak performance because of my protocols. It may need just to clear itself out. So I’m really feeling great. And do I look like a guy that’s supposedly should have been dead a year and a half ago?

Dr Manon (50:23):

That’s, an incredible story. Like goodness. And how, what do you, do you assign any meaning to this?

Dr Manon (50:31):

Oh yes, I do. I do. So this is one of the controversial things I’ll talk about. I believe that we are here for a purpose. This is kind of spiritual here. I believe we’re here for a purpose. I am not religious whatsoever, but I’m very spiritual and I believe in the soul and I believe that we come back as necessary to learn different lessons until we progress and, and elevate our soul experience. So I think that I have been given this opportunity to tell the world that there are ways, even if you are diagnosed with some severe life threatening disease or other life threatening conditions that there are other ways to treat your body. And the most important thing is a quality of life. And, your immediate surroundings are people that love you and you love them back.

Dr Al Danenberg (51:34):

And all of this is critical., and I think I’m here to spread the word. And I also am here to let people know that cancer is not a disease of genetics. It is a disease of metabolic dysfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction, and these are all affected by our environment or our epigenetics. And if you change these things, it can improve. So my protocols support a very healthy immune system with the very critical and specific diet I I’m on. The things that I do to maintain a very healthy gut. I think I have the healthiest gut, certainly on my block and, and then other things to support my immune system and some exercise. And I know the immune therapy immunotherapy is effective. Stress reduction is effective. There are very varied number of things. I use pulse electromagnetic field therapy. So energy medicine helps to improve my mitochondria as well as my cell membrane and ion transport in and out of the cells, which is the way cells get their nourishment in and get the junk out all of these things in their own way, do some very important things for healing. And my overall protocols I think are supporting my body. And I can’t tell you anyone that’s more important than the other, but I do believe in conjunction. I am where I am today. And I think I will be cured of a disease that is not curable in the United States today.

Dr Manon (53:18):

Wow.

Dr Manon (53:21):

And also have got to commend your wife as well, who says, let’s get over this, let’s move on. And you know, and it’s kind of like giving a little kick in the butt saying, you know, Hey, this isn’t, you’re here for you’re here for more. And, I can sooo agree with that. It’s quite a journey and it’s so needed, you know, your message.

Dr Al Danenberg (53:48):

There are there are other things that happen. And the cancer clinic I go to is really high class cancer clinic. But when I go for my immunotherapy is an infusion, so they have to give it to me in a vein. So I go to my cancer clinic and one time the nurses were giving out chocolate chip cookies to these cancer patients that are there for chemotherapy and immunotherapy. And what’s the disconnect here. I don’t understand this. I mean, you’re, you’re trying to treat cancer in one way and you’re feeding it sugar in the other way. I mean, you’re destroying the immune system. You’re destroying your……. Feeding, the cancer, your do you doing everything wrong? You’re creating insulin problems. I mean, you’re doing everything wrong. So the word needs to get out. And then sometimes the problems with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, there are some very serious side effects.

Dr Al Danenberg (54:48):

Physicians, oncologists. Don’t talk about that very much. But sometimes the side effects of these drastic and caustic drugs is more painful than the cancer. The oral lesions that are developing called mucositis or mucositis can be so debilitating. You can’t drink, you can’t eat you for weeks, and you have to take all kinds of medicines to clear it up, which is affecting the rest of your body. You’re just shot. If you were to walk outside and get, a cold, it could kill you. Your immune system is shot. I’ve never had a problem with my immune system interestingly a month or so before COVID came out, I saw my oncologist and he had a mask on, a physician’s assistant comes into the room, with a mask on. They were coughing and sneezing and drooling. And he told me that 50% of the staff had the flu. Now, mind you, everybody in the hospital has to take the flu shot. That’s another story………

Dr Manon (55:50):

I need another interview.

Dr Al Danenberg (55:52):

Yeah. So he’s got, he’s got a serious case of the flu and he,s needed to be there and he’s got, he’s protecting himself. I’m thinking if my resistance is slow so low, because theoretically I should be extremely high risk for any infection. I’m thinking I’m going to get at least a cold or some kind of disease after I leave. And this was five months, four or five months ago, and I never got sick and I really rarely get sick. So that’s good. I think I have a healthy immune system, even though theoretically, my immune system is really compromised because of my disease as a disease, a malignancy of the plasma cells, which is what creates my immune antibodies. So my protocols are working. Yeah, definitely. And it also raises questions, which about how really the immune system works even more questions, but yes, that’s going to be another talk because we’re, we’re past our time. Oh my goodness. wow, we need to get our immune systems healthier because our society is a very unhealthy society.

Dr Manon (57:25):

Yes, I okay. I I would, I look forward to that and I would love to discuss that subject, so that’d be great. And well thank you so much for accepting to be on this on this show. Thanks for the opportunity. I’d love to discuss these things and that’s, that’s what I think I’m here for. If you want to have me on again, I would love to do that. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. My pleasure. Have a great day yourself.

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.

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