List: Sorry for the long post, but I believe Bob Baratz makes several goods points here. Roger
Subj: Re: [healthfraud] Chewing Gum Releases Mercury From Dental Fillings Date: 12/27/00 11:11:24 PM EST From: [email protected] (Robert S. Baratz, MD, PhD) To: [email protected] (healthfraud) >>HF Participants: Comments please. Roger >>Stockholm - Heavy gum chewers risk breaking down the amalgam in their dental fillings and having dangerously high levels of mercury in their blood and urine as a result, a study published in the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet on Friday said. >>The study was undertaken by the Sahlgrenska university hospital in Gothenburg, west Sweden. >>"In our study we found out that people who chewed gum for at least five hours per day had significantly higher mercury levels in their urine and blood," medical researcher Gerd Saellsten was quoted as saying. >>The test group included 17 people with at least five amalgam fillings who chewed gum an average of five hours per day, and consumed seven pieces of gum. >>The test group was compared with a control group of equal size comprising people with the same number of fillings, but who chewed gum only 30 minutes per week on average. >>A comparison of quicksilver levels between the two groups yielded clear differences. >>The heavy gum chewers had twice the amount of mercury in their blood and three times the level in their urine and breath exhalation than did the infrequent chewers. >>The mercury levels rose in proportion to the number of amalgam fillings the subjects had, the study showed. >>Mercury damages the brain, central nervous system and kidneys in humans. @@@@@@@@@@@ Amalgam--does it shine, and if so, how much of the time, and better yet, is it mine? OK, some comments on gum chewing and the report referred to in the above post. 1. Not published in a scientific journal. The local newspaper is hardly the place for a scientific publication. Evaluation of a bit of science requires access to the materials and methods and the data, so the study can be scrutinized for design, methodology and accuracy. We don't have any of that cited here, and thus can't evaluate the "study". 2. Studies done in the past which were controlled and accurately monitored showed that gum chewers do release a tiny bit more mercury than those who don't chew gum. But the amounts in either case were not "toxic" or even dangerous to anyone. People with amalgam fillings do have a greater exposure of mercury than those who don't have such fillings, but the numbers in either case are very small. Studies have shown that having a relatively large number of fillings with large biting surface areas may mean that a person gets exposure to twice the mercury found in the normal diet. Big deal? I like to consider this like penny stocks. You buy a stock for 0.5 cents. It doubles in value. It is now worth 1 cent. How much does one cent buy? What is one cent worth? I prefer the $10 stock that is now $100. I'll settle for the $100 stock that is now $200 if I want to double anything. You get the idea. @@@@@@@@@@@@@ A more interesting question is: why do people who chew gum appear to release a bit more mercury than those who don't? If one understands the mechanism of mercury release from amalgam the answer is somewhat obvious. Amalgam is a solid solution where a (usually powdered) metal alloy of silver, copper, tin, molybdenum, and perhaps a little zinc (depending on the brand) are mixed together with inorganic pure liquid mercury in a closed container.. A series of chemical reaction occur and these materials now make a series of mercury salts. The chemistry of these is complex, and I am oversimplifying by calling them salts, but the chemicals react and inorganic metallic mercury is virtually all consumed in these reactions. Perhaps a little bit here and there remains dispersed throughout the material. Consider, if you will, that making amalgam is like making concrete. You mix cement, stone, sand and water and end up with a totally different material. What is clear, is that there is absolutely NOT gobs and gobs of "free" mercury floating about in amalgam, as commonly alleged by the anti-amalgamists. The ratio of mercury to alloy by weight in modern amalgams, before mixing, is about 45:55, but can be less, and as little as 37% mercury with 63% alloy. Modern amalgams are NOT "half mercury" as many anti-amalgamists claim. Once mixed, they have little to no mercury (as pure liquid metal) since the mercury combines to form complex salts. I can say table salt (NaCl) is "half" chlorine--a deadly gas. But, in fact, that is not true. It is half chlorine as a chemical which is largely combined with sodium. In solution it may ionize to Cl- but it doesn't release chlorine gas. By the same token amalgam is not half mercury. The anti's just don't want to understand simple chemistry that most people learn in high school. We know the surface of amalgam rapidly corrodes in the mouth and the corrosion products block release of any material from within. Also, the surface of amalgam is coated with saliva, a further impediment to release of anything. And, if anything is released, it is first dissolved into the saliva. Why would chewing, and gum chewing in particular release mercury? Using very sensitive instruments--barely measuring a few parts per billion or less--researchers can detect small amounts of mercury--equivalent to what is in a normal diet--being released from fillings after heavy tooth grinding. First, let me say, most people don't do this. Second, there are no data which show that this mercury actually enters the body. If it did, it would likely be swallowed, as part of the saliva, and not inhaled. By dissolving in saliva, mercury (metallic, inorganic) would combine with saliva and become mercury salts again. The potentially harmful form of inorganic mercury to the body is mercury vapor, as it may possibly be absorbed from the lungs and circulate before it is reacted with body chemicals and changed to mercury salts. Remember, inorganic mercury metal (and vapor) is uncharged. The valence is zero. Those who talk about this mercury moving in electrical fields, etc. do not appear to understand simple electrochemistry. Teeth can have heavy forces produced on their surfaces. You can close with a biting force of tens of pounds, and maybe higher.. Now reduce that force to just the square millimeter or two of the tip of a cusp and you have quite a concentrated force in a tiny area. Thousands of pounds per square inch equivalent. Applied to a filling surface that would produce frictional heat and thus may cause the amalgam to decompose, i.e. back to mercury and the alloy. That is the theory behind mercury release from amalgam that fits what is known scientifically. There are numerous materials scientists who can confirm the decomposition of amalgam with high heat. Amalgam does not "leach" liquid mercury. Mercury liquid, even if it was there in quantity, would not dissolve into saliva. There is very little free mercury within a hardened amalgam, if any. Once released, free mercury in these small quantities still must get past the corrosion layer on the surface of the filling, and through the saliva film (as discussed above), before it could potentially be inhaled. It could also be exhaled! Since most chewing is done with the mouth closed and saliva mixed on the surfaces of the teeth (and little to no air inside the mouth), vapor release is unlikely. Also, after chewing, we reflexively swallow. Thus, the tiny amounts of mercury that might get released by the above mechanism are unlikely to be absorbed as vapor. Mercury metal (inorganic pure mercury) is poorly absorbed from the gut. Mercury salts, Hg ++ and Hg+++ can ionize from these salts, may be absorbed. They do not pass the blood brain barrier, but distribute in the blood and are excreted by the kidneys. People who chew gum reflexively have cyclic chewing movements, which become learned behavior, and may be continued subconsciously. Some of these movements can occur during sleep. If someone is chewing gum 5 hours per day, they are doing a lot of tooth grinding--even though--AND THIS IS IMPORTANT--the gum sits between opposing teeth so they DON'T TOUCH--and can't grind against each other. Even so, they occasionally do gnash their teeth, and grind, and probably do it more than people who don't chew gum. Thus, gum chewers have more opportunity to cause mercury to potentially be released. If you follow all of this, together with what is known about inorganic metallic mercury, then you can reach the following conclusions: a. Naturally occurring, small amounts of mercury are found in most of the earth's soils and waters; and thus enter the air, water and food we consume. Most of this mercury occurs as mercury salts. Everyone gets a small dose of mercury every day. We evolved in this environment and our bodies can handle it quite easily. b. Tooth fillings MAY double this small amount of daily exposure. Penny stocks doubling in value. Neither the regular exposure or the dental exposure are considered harmful. There are strong data to support this view based on the know effects of high doses of mercury, in controlled experiments. Even at exposures thousands of times higher than the normal daily exposure or the dental exposure, no adverse health effects occur. Some studies show subclinical effects at these high doses--you can see minor changes in microalbumin, for example, but no clinical significance has been attributed to these changes. In other words--So What! c. Gum chewers MAY increase the dental exposure slightly, but the data are weak, and suggestive of an exposure of swallowed mercury salts, which the body handles quite easily. The quantities are quite small and considered harmless. Still penny stocks. There are NO DATA to show that these swallowed mercury materials are converted to organic mercurials, a claim commonly alleged by anti-mercury crusaders, and often repeated by a number of quacks and others of similar ilk. d. A number of patient anecdotes, wild claims, and the like have been regularly perpetuated and circulated relating hundreds of illnesses and conditions to dental amalgam fillings. Most of these have their roots in somatoform patients, quacks, religious zealots, and people who seem to be against anything they consider "unnatural". In my experience these people are extremely inconsistent in their beliefs, and lack logic and science in most of their pronouncements. For example, prominent naturopaths claim one should not take water through copper pipes as they may deliver unwanted metals to the body. The same people claim PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes are safe and should be used instead. Copper is a normal body constituent and is entirely natural. PVC is not. Besides PVC contains unreacted vinyl chloride which is a known carcinogen. The same people decry all dental metals, especially amalgam, but include stainless steel, and other alloys. Instead they suggest one use "plastic" fillings. As most students of dental materials know composite dental resin plastics contain up to 20 or more reactive organic compounds including epoxies, free radical generators, organosilanes, titanium dioxide (which the naturopaths decry in other contexts as bad for you since it has titanium--a basically inert metal, however), and whole groups of reacted, unreacted, and partially reacted methacrylate compounds. These are hardly "natural" and much less so than naturally occurring gold, silver, copper and other materials used in dentistry. But as I have said many times, this is not about science. ....And as I have also said many times---follow your mother's advice--chew your food, but chew it slowly. Robert S. Baratz, DDS, PhD, MD -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. 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