In this episode, we discuss:

• How periodontal disease develops and impacts the body
• Recognizing symptoms of periodontal disease
• Conventional and modern treatments for standard chronic periodontal disease
• How to prevent gum disease
• Emerging technologies in periodontal care
• The future of frequency medicine and personalized care

Show notes:

Hey everyone, Chris Kresser here. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. Over the years, I’ve talked about the importance of oral and periodontal health, not just for the health of our teeth and our mouth, but for our overall health. We now know that there’s a strong connection between periodontal disease and everything from heart disease to autoimmune conditions, because the bacteria in the mouth can get into the bloodstream and then provoke a systemic inflammatory autoimmune reaction.

Today I’m really excited to welcome Dr. William Levine, or Bill Levine. He’s a board certified periodontist with 35 years of experience in treating oral inflammation. He is also on the cutting edge of treatments like PRP, infrared light, laser photobiomodulation, and even PEMF, as we discuss towards the end of the show, as a way of safely but effectively treating oral and gum problems. It was a fascinating conversation. We talk about the overlooked role of gums in health, why it’s so important, how to know if you might be suffering from gum disease that could be affecting your systemic health, the best ways to prevent gum disease from happening, the most effective treatments, and then, as I just mentioned, some of the newer treatments that we can look forward to in the coming years. I really learned a lot, and I hope you do too. Let’s dive in. ^p^p

Chris Kresser:  Dr. Bill Levine, welcome to the show. Pleasure to have you.

Bill Levine:  Thank you very much, Chris. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

How Periodontal Disease Develops and Impacts the Body

Chris Kresser:  I’m excited about this topic. I’ve spoken with a couple of other physicians in the past about the important role of periodontal health in overall health. And I actually just saw a study a few days ago come out. I’m not sure if you saw it. It was, I think the title was something like, is heart disease infectious? And the premise was that bacteria in the mouth due to periodontal disease then travels into the bloodstream and can eventually cause heart attacks and other heart problems. This isn’t a new finding, of course, but it was timely, because I was thinking about our podcast coming up in a couple of days. So maybe let’s start there, not necessarily with that specific study, especially if you haven’t seen it, but just a broader overview of what is so important about periodontal health above and beyond just the health of our mouth.

Bill Levine:  So first of all, I actually had seen that article because it was of interest, and it’s an interesting finding that actually surprised the world. It’s not new, this information. It keeps pouring into us over the last 20, 25, years, which is quite a long time in the healthcare area. But even as dentists, we didn’t quite realize the impact that dentistry, or let’s say oral health has on our systemic health. Well, let me sort of start the story by describing what’s going on in periodontal disease, and then we could sort of, it will shed light, really, on the impact it has on systemic health.

Periodontal disease basically comes from the fact that our teeth are anchored into our bone and yet that has to be a sterile environment. Yet they function in the oral cavity, the mouth, which is a completely unsterile environment. So the way it manages it is, there are a special group of cells that surround the neck of the tooth, glue on an adhesion, it’s a biological glue and a cellular glue that seal off the internal sterile area from the mouth. But in order to maintain that sterility, they often get subject to different attacks, of infections, trauma and various other potential insults, which can damage the seal and therefore penetrate within. So they have an array of very potent localized means, cellular and vascular and chemical in a sense, but biologic chemicals, to fight off these damaging insults, and at the same time, help quickly repair the seal and reset it. But sometimes what happens is the area is under such continuous insult that it’s sort of like a computer in overload, and it goes into overdrive. And that immune function which is designed to protect you actually starts to cause damage. And the damage that it causes results in a loss of bone and the loss of the seal, and then they develop spaces between the gum and the tooth. The gum may stay where it is, but the seal is still there.

Anyway, what we’re left with, I was describing, is the environment in the destroyed bone from the chronic activation of the inflammatory system. So now let’s sort of drill down for a brief second as to what that looks like. It’s a space between the gum and the tooth that has an environment that’s great for growing pathologic bacteria. It’s warm, it’s got plenty of nutrients. It’s protected from your brushing, and it’s protected from the immune effect because [there’s] less vascularity there. And at the same time, the tissue that’s adjacent to it is inflamed, permeable and ulcerated. So those bacteria then are spewing bacteria into your bloodstream at the capillary level in your gums, and they’re traveling throughout the body in a reasonably significant amount, on a constant basis. So what happens is these pathologic bacteria can both have an impact in different areas in the heart, let’s say, by lodging the bacteria in cardiac plaques and activating them by enlarging in certain irregularities, like different valves that are not functioning perfectly, and they could actually cause a significant amount of problems.

But there’s another aspect of the problem. Remember what we said earlier, the inflammatory response of the body, which, in a sense, is supposed to protect you, is activated. So you have all these inflammatory mediators which are driving the inflammatory process locally, but they’re also leaking into the bloodstream. So you’ve got a big rise in what we would call your inflammatory profile in a negative way. So the body is constantly stressed now because it’s reacting to both chronic infection and a constant pro-inflammatory, or inflammatory driver that’s stimulating the system. So in general, it affects your health overall. So yes, it affects cardiac effects, and we’ve actually found oral bacteria lodged in blockages in the heart as part of the problem. And they’re, by the way, activating an inflammatory response in the cardiac tissue that’s next to that. So it’s a complex of arrays, but both infectious and inflammatory, which causes so many different diseases, not just cardiac. Also, it impacts on fetal health in pregnant women. This is highly significant. It impacts on an increase in dementia. It increases an impact of cancer susceptibility, rheumatoid arthritis and regular arthritis. I can go on and on and on, but basically, you have a large area of sepsis and pro-inflammatory mediators affecting your system, which will have a big effect in this.

And so that’s why oral care and prevention and periodontal treatment specifically is so critical to maintaining your overall health. And people often don’t pay attention to it, frankly, because it’s really hard to imagine that it’s so significant. But the level of significance is right up there with obesity and smoking.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, I think that’s such an important point. I just want to linger on that for a minute, because many people now have heard and understand that inflammation is at the root of almost all modern chronic disease, and I think they understand that on some level, but then they may not be aware that gum disease is one of the primary sources of inflammation, and it’s often hidden. You mentioned the association with gum disease and rheumatoid arthritis, which, of course, is an autoimmune disease, and you mentioned the immune inflammatory effects that gum disease can have. We’re really suffering from an epidemic of autoimmune disease now. Some estimates suggest that between one and four and one in six women have some kind of autoimmune disease, and it just continues to increase every year. And when I, in the clinic, if I saw a patient with autoimmune disease from a functional medicine perspective, we were always trying to uncover the root cause of that overly aggressive immune response. And the gut was, of course, often one of the main places to look, but the other end of the digestive tract, in the mouth, was another primary place to look. That was not work that I did myself because I’m not a dentist, but I would often refer people to dentists and periodontists to get a workup if they were suffering from any kind of autoimmune condition. Because if they have that as a trigger, it can be very difficult to recover or reach any kind of remission in autoimmunity, because you have that trigger that’s constantly firing and dysregulating the immune system.

So we can move on from here. This is a good segue to how people can figure out if this is affecting them? First question is, will there always be obvious symptoms in the mouth that would alert them? Or is it possible that this is going on and they may not be aware of it?

Recognizing Symptoms and Diagnosis

Bill Levine:  Great question. And so I think 90 percent of the people will notice if they have gum disease, because the gums will be swollen to different degrees, obviously, depending on the severity of the disease. Generally, the swollen tissue will be inflamed and bleeding. So the classic, easy to diagnose symptoms would be sensitivity to the gums, a little bit swollen gums, bleeding when either you brush, eat, or just spontaneously. Those are really easy to notice and really easy not to pay attention to. Because you rinse your mouth out, you’ve stopped bleeding. So we move on, and everybody’s busy. But you should have that as a yellow light that you need to schedule a visit with a health professional, in this case, a dentist.

Chris Kresser:  And will a dentist be able to pick up on this typically? Or does someone need to see a periodontist? Does a referral happen to the periodontist only if the gum disease is advanced, or if there is gum disease? How does the process typically work? Is this something that would be picked up during a typical dental exam, I would assume?

Bill Levine:  In theory, yes, it should be. Not every dentist pays attention to those signs and symptoms as much as they should. But so yes, your periodontist will always pick it up. A good hygienist will almost always pick it up. The dentist will generally pick it up. And if you have a good dentist, someone you trust, and you ask him, specifically, do I have gum disease, the least he’ll do is send you to the hygienist in his office to help, and she can pursue it from there. I don’t think every case needs to go to a periodontist, but I think that you will always get care from the periodontist if you need it. So, but advanced cases and moderate and advanced cases should certainly go there. That’s already a sign you have some bone loss, and you don’t want to ignore it, because it’s going to progress. And it’s actually, [with] today’s technologies that are available, we can reverse a lot of this. So the more we have to work with and the earlier we pick it up, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to help you keep your teeth for the rest of your life.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah. Ben Franklin had it right. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Bill Levine:  Absolutely.

Chris Kresser:  If it’s too late for prevention, meaning you already have some signs, certainly earlier is better than later in almost all cases with any kind of progressive chronic disease.

Bill Levine:  Completely agree.

Conventional and Modern Treatments

Chris Kresser:  Let’s move on to that next step. So let’s, if we’re going along the timeline here, someone’s gone to the dentist. They’ve discovered that they have some form of gum disease. What are the treatments that can be applied here and how effective are they?

Bill Levine:  So let’s talk about standard chronic periodontal disease, the way we described it earlier. Because there are other forms of periodontal disease that I’m going to leave out of this matrix, because they’re treated quite differently. There’s gum recession, which can be sometimes very severe, and potentially put the tooth at risk for survival and esthetically compromising. But if we go back to the story that we spoke about earlier, where they have breakdown in the bone, a space which we actually call a pocket, because if you think about it, it’s like a pocket where it looks like the gum is covering it on the outside. But actually there’s a space between the outside and the shirt, in this case, the outside of the gum and the bone. And so what we need first, is to help to reset the system. We need to reduce the bacterial population and switch that bacterial population over from being a pathologic bacteria to being a healthy bacteria. Those two factors are the basis to start the process. And then you hope that the immune system will also reset itself, which 85 to 90 percent of the time it will do. If your cleaning is thorough, and you deactivate the insult to the system which is activating it, then it will reset itself, naturally.

It will take time, though and it’s not a simple one session cleaning, because there’s damage here. So the first thing you need to do is go through a thorough schedule of whatever your dentist determines will be necessary. Once that’s the case, you need to remain on a maintenance program with the periodicities [that have] to be set up based on the severity of the disease and the compliance of the patient. That’s really the concept behind it. Now, let’s say, for example, we do that and we’re not able to reset the system, or not able to clean out all the insults. Well there’s, thank goodness, a lot of treatments that are available. In the old days the treatment was, if the deeper cleaning doesn’t work, then let’s do surgery. Which wasn’t illogical, but it’s hard for the patient. It’s an invasive procedure, which not everybody wants to undergo. But nowadays we have and are doing a lot of much more conservative work with laser therapy and different kinds of therapies to switch over the bacterial population, sometimes probiotics to shift the microbiome back into a healthy one. So there’s a lot of different opportunities, and thank goodness the field has progressed, and patients should really just be aware of what options are available to them before they commit to surgery.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, it makes sense. Surgery is sometimes necessary, but perhaps a last resort, before other things are considered. Let’s kind of go backwards now and talk about prevention. Because, as we both agree, it’s better to prevent it if you possibly can. So what are some of the steps that people can take on a day to day basis, from oral hygiene and basic habits to prevent gum disease from happening in the first place?

How To Prevent Gum Disease

Bill Levine:  So the first thing is, we want to stay consistent with our story, which is important to remember what the etiology or the cause of periodontal disease is. And you said it a bunch of times yourself. It’s not an autoimmune disease, but it is an inflammatory disease. And so basically, what you want to do is prevent the insults to the tissue. That’s the first thing. So assuming you have no disease at this stage, you need to brush effectively, and then you also need to remember that your teeth have four sides, not including the side that you’re chewing on. So that means when you’re brushing, you’re only cleaning the tongue side or the cheek side or the lip side, but you’re not cleaning between the teeth. So you need to either choose your weapon in a sense that you’re going to use. Some people use floss very effectively, but some people find it very difficult. Some people use what’s called interdental cleaners, which are little devices which can go in between your teeth. And if you use them gently, they certainly don’t cause damage, and they cause a tremendous amount of benefit. So again, you need to figure out what works for you, but make sure that it works for you and that you’re doing it on a consistent basis. Because remember, the mouth is naturally a habitat that is filled with bacteria. Bacteria like to lodge in places, that’s what they do. Hours after you’ve cleaned the surface off, they’re beginning to reform, so you need to really remove them a minimum of twice a day. And I think that should be enough, certainly if you’re doing it in an efficient way.

Chris Kresser:  How about diet? Other factors, exercise. Just curious what research suggests in terms of lifestyle.

Bill Levine:  It’s a good question. There’s very little data supporting exercise and overall well being, for a very simple reason. Nobody’s really doing that research, because it’s really hard research to do. Because it’s such a hard thing to measure, and the switch will be small. But I completely agree with you, I believe, even though you didn’t express your opinion here. But you have, the healthier you are, and the healthier your immune system knows how to react, then the healthier the response will be. Because, I want to make an important point here, inflammation is not all bad. Inflammation is also good. Let’s say, for example, you have trauma to your body, you actually need an inflammatory response to take care of it. So what we do is we divide inflammation into two constructs. One is reactive inflammation, which is a response to a trauma, resolves and it’s helpful in resolving the trauma. The other one is chronic inflammation, or dysregulated inflammation, as you used the term before, where the inflammation actually becomes part of the problem. So if you get a blow to your shoulder and it swells up and it hurts for a little while, that’s fine, as long as it keeps getting better. But when that shoulder, after a month, is still swollen and inflamed, your inflammatory process is not working, and you now need to figure out how you’re going to get that under control.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, I mean, I think that makes perfect sense, in that the body is an integrated whole. It’s not just a collection of parts that are mashed together, and the immune system is what governs inflammation, right? As you pointed out, both healthy inflammation that we need to heal from wounds and other insults, and then chronic inflammation that can cause disease. And the immune system requires a lot of different nutrients to function properly. And many of us have heard of these. Vitamin C is an example, but there are many others, and if we’re deficient in those nutrients, our immune system isn’t going to function well. Another connection would be the gut immune response. We know 70 percent of the immune system is in the gut, so having a healthy gut microbiome will help your immune system to function better.

So that’s definitely something that I would focus on with my patients in the clinic, and would see a bi-directional relationship between gut health and oral health where poor oral health can actually lead to poor gut health, and poor gut health can lead to poor oral health. So it makes sense to me that those things would be connected.

Let’s talk about some other ways to maybe boost prevention. Perhaps we haven’t talked about this yet, actually. What are the risk factors for gum disease? Is there a genetic predisposition? Like, if somebody has identified themselves as potentially at higher risk for any reason, maybe they had gum disease before that has now improved, but they want to take more active steps, whether they’re healthy or whether they’re, they have some history of gum disease. What are those additional steps that could give them more protection?

Bill Levine:  So there’s definitely a genetic predilection for gum disease. But having a genetic predilection does not mean you’re going to have gum disease. So if your parents have gum disease, there’s a likelihood that you are now at risk, and just like if your parents both had heart attacks when they’re a young age, you should be more aware of what’s going on with your cardiac system. So that being the case, if you know you’re at risk, then you should take greater care. Make sure you’re seeing a periodontist or a dentist. In this case, if you feel like the risk is high, make it a periodontist, and then you should try to manage that. But remember, it’s not a death sentence. It doesn’t mean that, because your parents had periodontal disease, you will suffer. You can prevent this. Yes, you’re at a higher risk. Yes, you may need more intervention. Yes, you maybe need a little bit more prevention. We have a lot of cases in our office where that’s exactly what we’re doing. And care in everything, whether it’s functional medicine, whether it’s diet, whether it’s periodontal care, needs to be customized and personalized to the person that you’re treating. Because it’s not simply one size fits all.

Chris Kresser:  Absolutely.

Bill Levine:  So, and that’s that was part of what you’re saying here, in terms of the genetic predisposition. Those patients can be managed and protected as well. I want to dial back to an earlier conversation, because one of the pieces that we use in prevention in our office is a special mouthwash called PeriActive. And the reason I’m suggesting that, and the reason it was developed, and I was part of the development team, is that, if we remember what was the cause, most of the mouth rinses that are out there on the market today are divided into two categories, those that contain fluoride and those that are antiseptic. The ones that contain fluoride are really addressing cavities, and some people should, that’s what they need, because they have a high caries risk and rate. But most patients, and remember, over 50 percent of the population is suffering from active gum disease, and that’s young adults. Those are 35 and over. When you start getting to the numbers of the 60s and the 70s, those numbers are heading up to 75, 80 percent, okay? And that’s significant gum disease. It’s not simple. superficial inflammation. That means there’s been some bone loss.

So we helped design a mouth rinse, which is based on botanical ingredients. What it does is it does reduce the bacterial population and shift it to a healthier population, and it does engage the inflammatory system and actually down regulates the active inflammation and sort of reset that inflammation so you’re going to have less destruction. And at the same time, it actually activates the repair mechanism so that we can actually rebuild that tissue, heal that tissue, make it more robust and healthy. It goes back to a healthy lifestyle. Tissue that’s more healthy and stronger and denser collagen and better organization of the vascular channels and all the positive aspects that we’d like to see in healthy, vibrant tissue is more able to resist destruction, resist periodontal disease, and respond appropriately to it effectively. So that’s why we, that mouthwash is a big asset, and in our practice, that’s our go to product. So going back to what we use, we’d recommend a, excuse the pun, but a steady diet of twice a day brushing, flossing, or some interdental cleaning and PeriActive mouthwash.

Chris Kresser:  And can that be used even when there is already mild gum disease present? Is it both a preventative and something that can help with treatment?

Your gums may hold the key to whole-body health. In this episode, Dr. William Levine reveals how oral inflammation drives chronic disease—and explores cutting-edge treatments like lasers, PRP, and PEMF. #chriskresser #revolutionhealthradio

Bill Levine:  It’s actually a great question, and I’m going to answer it in a bit of an elliptical way. I want to dial back to what we described. Remember that pocket that we described, filled with bacteria and inflammatory activity. PeriActive works by penetrating directly through the gums. So we’ve actually measured what we call inflammatory biomarkers inside that pocket and we see that if you use PeriActive, you will have a big drop in the inflammatory biomarkers. So it will actually change the bacterial population, even inside the pocket. So yes, it’s good as a therapeutic, it’s great as a preventive, and it’s important to use.

Emerging Technologies in Periodontal Care

Chris Kresser:  Excellent. So when you think about the future of oral care and periodontal health, what are some of the things that are exciting for you, that are new developments, new treatments, things that you think will move us forward to the next generation of oral care?

Bill Levine:  I would say two new technologies that we’re using actively in the office now are actually fascinating. One is the technology we’re using. We’ve extended and expanded our laser team, and we’re using different lasers. Some are lasers that are active in killing bacteria without using chemicals, and that’s terrific, and others are active in actually removing the hardened bacteria, the calculus and the inflamed tissue from the area, and that’s a second step. So by using those different types of lasers, we’re actually reducing the amount of periodontal surgery that we’re needing, and it’s incentivizing people to continue treatment and to stay compliant. Another interesting thing is really not for preventive care, but it’s a technology that has been worked on now for a very long time, for 25 years or so, but it’s really now come to the fore because, and it’s so logical. What we do is before we do something like an extraction or a specific type of treatment that we would need tissue repair on, we take the blood from the patient, we actually centrifuge it out, and take out from them the healing elements that are normally active in your bloodstream, but we don’t have, the bloodstream, they’re very dilute because you don’t need them. But on the other hand, we know we’re going to need it, so we take them out and we place them right into the area. We actually have sped [up] the process of healing of both bone and tissue. So that’s been a lot of fun as well.

I think downstream, we’re going to do what you were describing earlier. As our increase in knowledge of AI increases, what we’re going to see is a very clear analysis of the bacterial population, the inflammatory mediators, and a personalized analysis of your risk factors, what steps need to be taken care of. But I see that about a decade from now, because it’s going to take a little time to actually organize what data we need, how we use the AI algorithms to analyze that, and when the data comes out, developing a universal system that, because it can’t be a customized, personalized system. Because we have to build a, it has to be a personalized program, but not a personalized system. So that diagnosis is going to lead to an enormous amount of specificity in the treatment. In other words, how often should we visit the hygienist after we’ve stabilized your disease? Well, you may have a low risk profile. I may not need to see for six months. On the other hand, you may have a high risk factor, and you may need to be seen every two months. Well, these are important things to know and that so I think that’s downstream, and it’s not far away with the progress in medicine today.

Chris Kresser:  I’m glad you brought up laser and PRP. I just had a PRP shot in my foot for plantar fasciitis, and I’ve used PRP in other contexts, and I found it to be a pretty incredible healing modality. What about infrared light? I’ve seen some papers recently about red light therapy and some, even some consumer devices where there’s like a tray, a dental appliance you can put in your mouth that emits red light. What do you think about the research on that?

Bill Levine:  The infrared light is actually part of what we call the diode system of lasers. Because the diode system of lasers has two unusual effects. One of them is that it’s great as an antibacterial because it’s absorbed by chromophobes, which means that the bacteria are absorbing them. It’s killing bacteria. And if you don’t use a high frequency or a high energy level, Y watts, you’re actually dealing with a very, relatively non dangerous instrument that if used carefully with special safety goggles, because that’s critical, absolutely critical, because it can damage your eyes, and then you can actually do great things with it. And now it’s not using a drug, so there’s no resistance. There’s another factor, though, in the diode lasers, if used at low frequencies. The diode lasers that do something called photobiomodulation, or PBM, and PBM actually can stimulate the body to really respond and heal on its own. So you’re both reducing the insult and stimulating the body to repair. And that’s an area that’s really now just gaining traction in dentistry and in the world. And it’s, in a sense, because PBM, or the biomodulation, is something that was really hard for us to believe. But it’s there, and clinically we’re seeing it, the data is not as strong as the clinical reality. And it’s like the guy saying, well, I know the data isn’t supported, but my gosh, it’s been helping my patients tremendously. So we use a lot of that.

Chris Kresser:  Lack of evidence is not always evidence against. Sometimes.

Bill Levine:  Correct, absolutely. So be open minded, but careful. What did Obama say? Trust but verify?

Chris Kresser:  Something like that. Yeah, yeah. And, then for me as a clinician, when I think about it, the other element is, what is the risk? If the risk is low, but the upside, or in some cases, almost non-existent, but there’s significant upside, then I’m more willing to give that a shot with something that’s less proven. If it’s an unknown risk or high risk, then I’m going to be a lot more concerned.

Bill Levine:  I can’t agree with you more, yeah.

The Future of Frequency Medicine and Personalized Care

Chris Kresser:  Along these same lines, just exploring newer treatments, have you seen any of the literature on post electromagnetic field therapy or PEMF? In researching for this show, I saw some papers about PEMF improving the stability of periodontal implants, I saw a paper on PEMF, possibly helping in the context of periodontitis, and I’ve used it myself and recommended it for musculoskeletal issues and other issues where my understanding of it is that it improves microcirculation in the capillary bed, and promotes blood flow. So I’m just curious about that, because that’s another treatment that I’ve found to be pretty low risk in most cases, but sometimes high reward.

Bill Levine:  So I’m going to answer this on two levels, because actually, I have a deep knowledge of that whole area, but it’s not really used much in dentistry, and I’ll explain to you the flaw in it. I actually am, but I’m going to start off by telling you, that is the future. The future of medicine is frequency medicine. There’s no question about it, and it works. But the problem behind frequency medicine is the way you are able to measure frequencies is not yet, does not yet enable us to actually get precise diagnostic measures as to what frequency you need to apply in order to get the therapeutic response that you want. And we’re actually working on that as a separate scientific project in a different company. But the concept is, if we can make more precise diagnosis and assessments of exactly what the frequency that we need is to accomplish a certain biologic task, we can actually not only diagnose it more effectively, we can actually change the process. And we’re seeing some fantastic stuff coming out of our lab, and it’s mind blowing. But it’s no question you touched on what I think is going to be the biggest game changer. I think it’s going to do, frankly, for the healthcare system, what computers did for the world. I mean, computers changed our lives. Health care is going to change. The health care that you see now, in a decade, is going to be completely different.

Chris Kresser:  I’m excited to hear a little more about that, if you have a few more minutes, because this is also an area of interest of mine. What has led to that belief for you? What do you think it will address?

Bill Levine:  There is data that EMF, different frequencies of EMF, can actually do and make significant physiologic changes. At the same time, it’s not predictable. And the reason it’s not predictable is we’re not sure what frequency is correct, because the frequency is customized by the person’s personal status and the amount of noise is clouding the frequency reading. We’re really off topic here, but it’s okay.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, we like to go in different directions here. I mean, it’s still connected to dental health, maybe not yet, but as you’re saying, it very well may be in a few years.

Bill Levine:  We’re looking at diabetes now, okay? And in our preliminary studies, we were actually able, with this technology, to actually diagnose changes in diabetic responses, hyper and hypoglycemia, 15 minutes before they occurred. That is so early that actually the patient doesn’t even feel anything. The patient feels absolutely fine. We can tell them in 15 minutes you are going to have a severe hypoglycemic event. You need to drink some juice or have a candy, whatever it is. You need some sugar. We actually have shown in an early stage trial that we can actually reverse that effect, in a sense, and reduce the need for insulin using frequencies that we apply to the patient. So these things are groundbreaking. Imagine the life of a diabetic without needles, without invasive treatment, and on a much more stable level, with just a simple wearable wristwatch. That’s where we’re going.

Chris Kresser:  That’s incredible. Yeah, that’s very exciting, and I look forward to that day, because there are certain areas of medicine that I feel are ripe for this kind of innovation and disruption, where the treatments have been largely the same for the past 50, 60, years or more. So very exciting to hear that you’re working on this. So Bill, before we finish up, where can people learn more about Periactive oral rinse? It sounds like a phenomenal product.

Bill Levine:  I would encourage you to go on the website, read about it, and you can contact us if you need. The website is GetPeriactive.com and the product actually has changed the way our patients feel about periodontal disease and how they respond. So it’s been great for our practice. It’s been great for our patients, and I’m pleased to have been involved in development. It’s one of my issues that I actually take a lot of pride in.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, fantastic. Well, thanks again, Bill for your time. A fascinating conversation. I’m sure everyone has enjoyed it.

Bill Levine:  Sorry for digressing at the end, I couldn’t resist.

Chris Kresser:  Not at all. No. I took you there because the listeners of this show are very interested in the cutting edge therapies and treatments that are being developed, especially ones that are non-invasive and low risk, and that work with the body’s physiology instead of against it. And I think if there’s one kind of general thing we could say about all of the three of the forward looking treatments you’re talking about, whether it’s PRP or photobiomodulation or PEMF, that’s what they’re doing, right? They’re working with the body’s physiology and improving the function of the body instead of suppressing, just suppressing the symptoms with drugs..

Bill Levine:  Yeah. Interestingly, just to digress again, but one of the biggest changes in cancer therapy has been the ability to use the person’s natural immune system to actually fight the cancer, instead of, or certainly supplementing the chemotherapy drugs that we standardly use. It’s an approach that is so logical, you sort of wonder why we didn’t think of it earlier. Well, we actually wanted to do it earlier. We didn’t have the capabilities of doing it earlier. But now that it’s hitting the CAR-T and all the others, this is saving a lot of lives.

Chris Kresser:  Absolutely. Well, thanks again, Bill, and thanks everyone for listening. Keep sending your questions to ChrisKresser.com/podcastquestion. We’ll talk to you next time.