#383 How Poor Oral Health Promotes Bad Health - Dr Dominik Nischwitz

Dominik Nischwitz (0:00)

If you see it on an anatomical chart, you can see that the teeth are actually an extension of your brain, and teeth are not just heart-wide fighting instruments. They are little teeny tiny organs. They have a blood supply, they have a liver supply, and an autonomic nervous system.

Siim Land (0:15)

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Dr. Dome, welcome back to the show.

Dominik Nischwitz (1:03)

Thanks for having me, Sim.

Siim Land (1:05)

Yeah, I actually checked before this that the last time or the first time and the last time that we talked on the podcast was three years ago.

Dominik Nischwitz (1:15)

It was already three years ago.

Siim Land (1:17)

Yeah, which is crazy. And yeah, like a lot of things have happened ever since, obviously, but we've met in the meanwhile, we met face to face as well and different events. So I'm glad to have you back on the podcast.

Dominik Nischwitz (1:31)

Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure.

Siim Land (1:35)

Yeah, and we can just give people like a brief, let's say introduction to you again. What is your, let's say, main area of expertise in dentistry?

And specifically, like, you can also explain like what is biological dentistry itself?

Dominik Nischwitz (1:52)

Yes. Okay. So I'm a specialist for biological dentistry, as well as ceramic implants.

And biological dentistry, the way I, let's say, describe it is more a, it's an overlap of the traditional high-tech dentistry with functional medicine and health optimization or slash biohacking.

And our goal is obviously the optimal health for our patients, which I believe starts in the mouth, because that's the entrance to your system. Whereas a traditional conventional dentist sees teeth more as like binding instruments that you can, that actually you work for, drilling, filling and billing is what they usually say. And you either fix bites or smiles. So it's the next level of everything. And obviously we only use stuff that is really biocompatible in your mouth.

Siim Land (2:48)

Yeah, like I think many people don't really realize or haven't known before that the teeth are an organ, which I never thought about it as well until I started seeing your content many years ago. And you're one of the first that I've seen at least to just describe how connected the teeth are to the rest of your body and how the state of your teeth affects your nervous system and in so doing also your biomarkers and blood work and all those kind of things.

Dominik Nischwitz (3:23)

Yes, exactly. So if you see it on an anatomical chart, you can see that the teeth are actually an extension of your brain, like your eyes. Everyone knows that the eyes are kind of like starting in your brain. But the same goes for the teeth. There is one nerve, one of the 12 cranial nerves is called trigeminous, which is quite pronounced. It has from all the 12 cranial nerves, this one seems to take uses the most space in the brain stem. And this nerve has three branches. One goes to the lower jaw.

One goes to the upper jaw and one ends right here above your eye.

And it looks like this on an anatomical chart. And at the end of this nerve branch is always a tooth.

And so you could imagine if this is your computer, you could imagine a teeth being like an external hard drive. And teeth are not just hard, white biting instruments. They are little teeny tiny organs. They have a blood supply.

They have a liver supply and an autonomic nervous system. So obviously, whatever you do with your teeth, on your teeth, as a dentist or as a patient, affects the whole anatomy. It affects your nervous system as well as your immune system, your hormones, whatever you just said, is a big part of your body. It's actually you're working on, like this is the central nervous system bit. It's not the arm. The arm is just an extremity. This is brain.