Understand biological dentistry — and find your dentist.

Not automatically. An intact filling that isn't cracked or failing is a different situation from one that is, and pulling out sound fillings has its own risks. What matters far more is how they come out if they do. Drilling amalgam releases mercury vapour, which is why biological dentists use the SMART protocol: rubber-dam isolation, high-volume suction, a separate air supply for the patient, and filtration for the room. Regulators have moved on this material — the FDA advises against it for higher-risk groups, the EU has banned it, and U.S. Medicaid programs are being urged to stop covering it. Whether your fillings should come out is a conversation with a licensed dentist who does this work properly.

A cavitation is an area of unhealed or poorly healed bone, usually where a tooth was extracted — most often a wisdom tooth. If the socket doesn't fill in properly, a hollow of dead or infected bone can be left behind. It's frequently painless, which is why it goes unnoticed, and it doesn't always show clearly on a standard X-ray. Biological dentists typically use 3D cone-beam imaging to look for it, and treat it surgically by cleaning the site and encouraging the bone to regenerate. It remains a contested diagnosis in mainstream dentistry — worth knowing before you go looking, and worth discussing with someone experienced in assessing it.

A root canal removes the nerve and blood supply from an infected tooth and seals it, keeping the tooth in place. The debate in biological dentistry is not about whether that works mechanically — it's about whether bacteria can remain in the tiny tubules of a dead tooth, and what that means over time. Opinions differ sharply, and the research is genuinely unsettled. The alternatives are extraction with a ceramic implant, a bridge, a partial denture, or in some cases ozone treatment early enough to save the nerve. Anyone who tells you there's one right answer for every patient is overselling. This is a decision to make with a dentist who will lay out both sides.

Titanium has the longer track record and decades of data behind it. Zirconia ceramic is metal-free, one piece rather than two, and doesn't conduct current in the mouth — which matters to patients who react to metals or simply want none. Ceramic is more technique-sensitive to place and fewer dentists are trained in it, so availability is genuinely limited. Bone quality and the position of the site both affect which is suitable. If metal-free matters to you, it's worth finding someone who places ceramic regularly rather than occasionally.

Topical fluoride demonstrably reduces cavities — that part isn't seriously disputed. The arguments are about dose, about swallowing it, about water fluoridation as public policy, and about young children who can't reliably spit. Biological dentists tend to favour approaches that don't rely on it: hydroxyapatite toothpaste, xylitol, dietary changes, ozone, and remineralisation protocols. Whether that's right for your family depends on your cavity risk, your children's ages, and your water supply.

Ozone is oxygen in a three-atom form, and it kills bacteria, viruses and fungi on contact. In dentistry it's used as a gas, in water, or in oil — to disinfect a cavity before filling it, to treat early decay before it needs drilling, to clean out a socket after extraction, and to treat gum infection. It's minimally invasive and doesn't create resistance the way antibiotics can. It's not a replacement for restorative work when a tooth is already structurally damaged.

Frequently, yes. A narrow palate, a small or set-back lower jaw, or a restricted tongue space all reduce the size of the airway, and a smaller airway during sleep means more effort to breathe. That shows up as snoring, mouth breathing, grinding, waking unrefreshed, and in children as restlessness and difficulty concentrating. Dentists trained in airway work look at the jaws and the airway together — expansion, myofunctional therapy, oral appliances, and referral where a sleep study is warranted. It's one of the fastest-growing areas of the field.

The mouth is not sealed off from everything else. Gum disease is associated with cardiovascular disease and with diabetes, chronic oral inflammation contributes to the body's overall inflammatory load, and the oral microbiome connects directly to the gut microbiome. Association is not the same as causation, and anyone claiming your teeth are the sole cause of a systemic illness has gone past what's known. But the direction of the evidence is why biological dentists look beyond the individual tooth.