Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / What Your Oral Hygiene Says About Your Heart Health with Dr. Herb Moskowitz

Transcript

What Your Oral Hygiene Says About Your Heart Health with Dr. Herb Moskowitz · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

• 0:00
  Periodontal disease affects most adults in the United States. It doesn't matter that we may have one of the most advanced societies here. Anywhere else on the body, if you're going to get an injection, then they always prep the skin. People with alcohol or something else is an antiseptic agent.
• 0:17
  I don't know of any instance where a dentist, before giving local anesthesia in the mouth, preps that oral mucosa. So bacteria are being introduced into the bloodstream just by the normal activities of your dentist every single day.
• 0:36
  Oral hygiene is more important, I would arguably say, than any other kind of hygiene. Bad oral hygiene is the greatest, you know, one of the leading causes of heart disease. And people don't make those connections. And what most people don't know is that...
• 0:55
  The oral systemic connection is one of the most well-established and most consistently under-acted upon findings in all of modern medicine. The research linking oral health to cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, cognitive decline, and overall systemic inflammation has been building for decades.
• 1:17
  And most people are still using the exact same oral care products that they used 30 years ago. My guest today spent 25 years in clinical dentistry before stepping back and asking a question that most dentists never ask.
• 1:33
  What if the antimicrobial technology we've been using in oral care is fundamentally outdated, perhaps even flawed? And what would a genuine breakthrough actually look like? Dr. Herb Moskowitz is a dentist, a serial biotech entrepreneur, and the co-founder and chairman of IOTech International.
• 1:53
  He co-authored the U.S. patent and global patent applications for a technology that unlocks the power of molecular iodine in a way that has never before been done, delivering up to 100 times more biocidal activity than traditional iodine formulations without staining,
• 2:13
  irritation, or toxicity. He previously founded and led two publicly traded medical technology companies. He's a graduate of the University of Tennessee Dental School. Andy has spent the last decade making the case that the mouth is not a separate system. It is the front door to everything else. Dr. Moskowitz, welcome to Age Defiantly.
• 2:38
  Thank you so much, Far. Aren't you always impressed when you hear all about yourself? I'm exhausted having heard you even say it. Exhausted? You lived all of this. And I think it's fantastic because one of the things that I love focusing on when we're talking on this podcast is just innovation. Because we tend to think, I mean, I hate to say this, but most people's knowledge of science ended in the 12th grade.
• 3:03
  And once that got locked in, that's what they believed. And I think the more I discover about science and health and wellness and everything in this entire space of longevity, the more I realize I say people have asked me, what have you learned lately? And I often answer and tell them that I don't know what I've learned, but I can tell you a list of things I had to unlearn.
• 3:27
  that the things that I thought I knew, in fact, I didn't know or they didn't have the type of foundation that I thought they did. And it sounds like you built an entire career on unlearning dentistry.
• 3:40
  In fact, that's really part of the hardest of my casts today is trying to undo the dogma that had been instilled in the dental profession for many, many years. Because what people learn in school, dental school, dental hygiene school, they take as gospel.
• 4:06
  And it becomes ingrained and also through repetition because they've been using the same thing that they're describing the same thing. In their minds, it's become the gold standard. But they don't think...
• 4:22
  necessarily, except for the early adopters, and that it's time to move on and that there is significant progress. For example, from the time that we hardly ever now use sulfa drugs, but there was a time that before penicillin came along, where sulfa was the antibiotic of Troy's.
• 4:48
  But not any longer. But the transition from going from sulfur to anacillin took decades, decades. And that's the same thing with new technology. It's adopted in layer and layer and layer until finally it's achieved mass penetration. But it's a long time in coming. Well, what I love about that too, though, is that you spent a career as a practicing dentist.
• 5:15
  So you were in the office. You were working with patients every day. You didn't just try to like storm an industry and say you're doing it wrong. Like you're one of the people, right? You were one of the people that was trained that way. Yes. But it actually was thrust upon me. I had a very successful practice. I was busy all the time and I had a very nice lifestyle. So I had no problem with what I was doing.
• 5:45
  Mine had to do with simple arithmetic. And my simple arithmetic was that I was only helping one person at a time. And I became introduced to, at the time, a new technology at the beginning of the stem cell revolution.
• 6:06
  where I knew if that technology could become commercialized, which was rolling living tissue in the laboratory, that the benefits to mankind would so outweigh what I was doing that literally instead of my helping one person at a time, then I could be helping thousands of people at the same time.
• 6:30
  So you got out of practice to go into that business, which was what? Well, it wasn't a company at the time. It was a technology. I was introduced to a technology, and I was introduced by a dear friend and business associate who lived out west in California.
• 6:54
  in Arizona and who had two relatives who were researchers in the New York area. One was a cell biologist, professor of cell biology, and the other one was a hematologist.
• 7:11
  And they had actually, in their own garage, had developed a new technology for growing living human tissue in the laboratory. It entailed a three-dimensional matrix because up until that time, whenever cells or tissue would grow.
• 7:33
  were attempted to have been grown in the laboratory. It was usually done in something like a Petri dish, right? And so it was kind of two-dimensional. And the cells grew to what they call confluence, which means that it's reached its pinnacle. Because in order for, and this was the innovation, in order for it to achieve sustained growth,
• 7:58
  then you needed a three-dimensional matrix where to grow them because that's the way it grows in the body. And they developed a three-dimensional matrix, which was made of mesh, which looked kind of like muppy bars. And these cells would grow in and out of this latticework and done.
• 8:20
  And eventually they grew up, well, at that point, it was just a novel innovation in the laboratory. But at the time, we talk about its possibilities for bone marrow transplantation.
• 8:37
  and using what they call hemopoietic stem cells for that purpose. These are the cells that morph into other types of cells. These are the progenitor cells that become the bone, that become the cartilage cells, that become the bone cells, and they differentiate into different cell lines. But if we could grow up
• 9:04
  stem cells for a person, and they could use their own stem cells. If we harvested the stem cells while they were young, before they were diseased,
• 9:18
  and cryopreserved them, stored them in liquid nitrogen, that those stem cells would be available five years later, 10 years later, 30 years later, whenever they needed it for their own stem cell transplant. And actually, this is not, when we think of stem cell transplantation, we may think of some major operation. It's not. To harvest the stem cells
• 9:45
  All it requires is a, what we did at the Coyne was a bone marrow aspiration. There was a syringe and needle harvesting some cells from the hip bone. But it could even be taken from the blood. So it's just taking a vial.
• 10:02
  of this stem cell rich of blood, cryopreserving it, liquid nitrate, for as long as it was needed. And then when it was needed,
• 10:17
  harvesting, thawing out that sample, and then growing up that sample in the laboratory to transplantable plantings. Now, would you, first of all, I had a couple of questions for you. One, what year was this? Because a lot of what you're saying right now sounds pretty normal.
• 10:39
  Right. You're talking about at the time, this was 1986. Right. So talking stem cell transplants and, you know, harvesting human tissue in 1986 is very different 40 years later.
• 10:57
  In 2026, when the stem cells are ever, I mean, you were on the cutting edge. Cutting edge. It was considered unbelievable at the time. Yeah. And let me tell you what. By the way, to finish that cycle. So once the stem cells were grown to transplantable quantities in the laboratory,
• 11:24
  Then they are simply infused as an IV injection. So coming out for the sample, very easy. Going back in, very easy. This is not a big deal. And I want to stress this, though, because you were already a successful dentist at the time. And stepped away from your practice, practically early retired, to go into lab work.
• 11:51
  Yes. Yes. Some would call that crazy. Well, actually, I wasn't doing the lab work. Okay. Okay. So we had a very, very highly skilled team who were already immersed and ingrained in this area. I was there to bridge the science to the business community to establish a company to make this commercially viable. So you went from dentist to CEO? Yes. Yes.
• 12:15
  And that ended up exiting that company later. Uh, about three years later. Yes. Which is amazing. And then ended up from exiting that company. You started another one. Yeah. But now you have a down tutorial, itch. Yeah. What was, what was the next step from there?
• 12:31
  So with this company, the company was called Marotech. It eventually changed its name to Advanced Tissue Sciences. And it made some important. As it turns out, we never wound up.
• 12:49
  producing the stem cells for bone marrow transplants. But part of the reason is within a few months of having gotten started, we were side-blinded by the New York State Department of Education. And the reason we were side-blinded by the New York State Department of Health
• 13:15
  And the reason for it was because we started to advertise for people to store, to publicize the availability of a step-cell storage facility, and at the time...
• 13:33
  So when we started to advertise that, because this technology was a first of its kind, then it was considered to be by many in the profession.
• 13:50
  to be undoable, that it's not possible to do it because just like with any innovation, it hadn't been done before. So the New York State Department of Health actually requested that we shut down our marrow bank.
• 14:11
  Not because we were doing anything wrong. The mayor was not a particular state. It's a licensed facility by New York State. But because they didn't like the political idea that we were offering something that we may not be able to deliver on. Like you were organ harvesting or something. Yeah, right. Like that we may be a scam. Yeah, yeah. Because we're advertising something we can't deliver on.
• 14:35
  I want to pivot from there because you ended up going into the tissue, but then your career followed a path that led you where you are today, which is you started back into oral health. So dentist turned human tissue harvester.
• 14:51
  You went back into the oral house category, which probably was more in your wheelhouse in that capacity. But what led you back into that? There were a few events. So at that point already, I had already left the full-time practice of death district.
• 15:08
  And I was, in addition to starting some companies, I was also funding some companies that startups, medical technology startups. One of them was an iodine company. And they made an important breakthrough. And they had patents, an important breakthrough where they were able to develop the solutions which contained high levels of molecular iodine.
• 15:38
  And even though I had practiced dentistry for quite some time and used covidone iodine in my practice, my knowledge of the actual chemistry of covidone iodine was very, very limited because there was no reason for me to know, granted, other than it's an FDA-approved product and it's a standard of care and it's a well-accepted antiseptic agent.
• 16:03
  when I got involved with this other startup company, which made pioneering breakthroughs in molecular iodine chemistry, I began to learn a great deal about molecular iodine. And in fact, I joined, I not only helped the finance, I became a director of that company and spent a number of years advising that company and, uh, uh,
• 16:32
  The drawback to the limitations that that company had was they could not get those high level of molecular iodine solutions to be stable for any long periods of time.
• 16:45
  They had important applications. For example, one of the applications was as a bovine teat disinfectant. So you have the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires any milk that's going into the human food chain as being sold in the United States, that the cow teats must be disinfectant before milking. Otherwise, bacteria would get into the milk.
• 17:15
  So there were antiseptics that had been using or disinfectants that had been used for that purpose. And as it turns out, the iodine, the molecular iodine was a much better antiseptic. So that company was able to commercialize a product which was used to disinfect cow udders.
• 17:38
  but they never got it to be stable. And therefore, the farmers who had these very, very large commercial dairy herd, 500, 800, 1,000 cows, they would mix up these powders to form the molecular iodine. And when they were finished with that milking session, they would have to throw it away, any excess, because they couldn't get it to be stable,
• 18:08
  So I want to unpack that real quick because you're using words like povidone, iodine and molecular iodine. And I want to make sure we make that transition for people because I think we all know about iodine. And when we were kids, you know, if you got a cutter or scratch or something like you put iodine on it because it is an antiseptic and it would make sure that there was no infection in the area. But povidone, iodine you used in your dental practice and some people still do.
• 18:37
  as an antiseptic during oral surgery and that kind of stuff. But you're not talking about povidone iodine right now. You're talking about a different form of iodine, which has a different molecular structure. And you're calling it molecular iodine. What's the difference between those two things? Okay. So let's go back in time a little bit. And let's start with this concept.
• 19:05
  Iodine has been in continuous therapeutic use for thousands of years, thousands of years. In fact, it was early Chinese physicians.
• 19:20
  that over 5,000 years ago, that first recorded a therapeutic benefit with the use of iodine-rich compounds. They didn't know it was iodine at the time because they, oh, but empirically, they knew it was having an effect. And what they did was they took ground-up sea urchins, they took ground-up seaweed,
• 19:49
  And they put it together in a paste and they wrapped it around patients' necks and it reduced the size of their goiters, enlarged thyroid glands. Again, they had no idea that there was iodine in it. It was wonder like I was the first person to do that. So it was trial and error. So...
• 20:11
  And it wasn't until 1811, I believe, when iodine was first discovered as an element by a French researcher, Courtois. And we talk about the progression of innovation. It wasn't until at least 100 years later.
• 20:30
  that we get to know something which we call iodine, a tincture of iodine. Tincture of iodine is an alcoholic solution of iodine. Why? Why did they make tinctures? They made tinctures because iodine dissolves very readily in alcohol, but not in water.
• 20:54
  It's almost insoluble or only sparsely soluble. They'll be interested in it. So that's why we had tinctures of iodine first. This is the little bottles with the skull and cross polish on it, right? Very highly effective because it had good quantities of iodine. What?
• 21:13
  It's unfriendly to patients, very patient unfriendly, because if you got it on an open wound, it would be the alcohol that would be burning and stinging. Okay, sir. So if you had that applied to you on an open wound, you wouldn't forget it. You knew about it.
• 21:33
  Yeah, because that was tincture of iodine. So if tincture of iodine, you could still buy it today without a prescription. You could get it in any pharmacy, maybe some supermarkets. Okay. But a major innovation.
• 21:47
  which, as we talked about the povidone iodine, as it turns out that it was actually NASA scientists who actually developed the first povidone iodine. And the reason they did that is in 1955, they were looking for...
• 22:10
  a disinfectant agent to bring aboard space missions because they had no idea what type of microbes they would encounter in outer space, right? And they didn't want a pandemic brought back to Earth
• 22:25
  by releasing some extraterrestrial microbes, you know, and that's running loose on Earth, right? So they wanted the most powerful, fastest acting, broad spectrum antimicrobial agent available. And after an intense search, they decided to use iodine.
• 22:49
  above any other type of antimicrobial agent. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So NASA, but they had a problem because at the time, the only types of iodine that were available commercially were tinctures of iodine, alcoholic solutions of iodine. And since alcohol is both flammable and explosive, they couldn't take it on spacecraft. Yeah.
• 23:19
  That's why NASA scientists actually wound up combining, physically complexing a large organic molecule called polyvinylpyrrolidol, which is a very hydrophilic molecule, water-loving molecule, which goes into a water solution very, very rapidly. In fact,
• 23:49
  It also had this polyvinyl pyrrolidone, this large organic molecule, also has the ability to physically attach or complex iodine molecules to it. So when the polyvinyl pyrrolidone goes into solution, it almost grabs the iodine molecules, kicking and screaming, into solution with it because they don't want to go into solution by themselves.
• 24:17
  And that's what made available water-based solutions of iodine. The first variant of that, polvidone iodine. They call it polvidone iodine because of the polyvinyl pyrrolidone, that large organic molybrew.
• 24:34
  which is the one that was holding the iodine there. And it's allowing it to dilute. And allowing it to stay in solution, right? So now you have water-based solution, which were a major, major innovation, and as allowed, and because of it's completely patient-friendly,
• 24:55
  and because it's so effective, has become a standard of care and infection control around the world. So, povidone iodine is used in medical office, used in hospitals around the world. It's well accepted. So, it's all the properties of iodine without the sting of the alcohol base. Exactly. So, how does that differ from molecular iodine? Right. Mm-hmm.
• 25:19
  So the problem with hovedon iodine, as good as it is, it's not as effective as we would still like it to be. And why do I say that? I say that because...
• 25:34
  There have actually, well, I'm going to give you an example of that in a minute. But the important thing to consider is that povidone iodine, we call it povidone iodine as if it's one thing. It's not. Povidone iodine is actually a dynamic equilibrium of several different species of iodine.
• 25:57
  You have hypoiobisacin. You have triiodide. You have iodide. You have iodate. You have molecular iodine. Molecular iodine is the divalid molecule of iodine, I2. There's two atoms of iodine. And here's where it gets crazy.
• 26:24
  In povidone iodine, which is sold in pharmacies, is sold in supermarkets, no prescription needed. That iodine, that povidone iodine is a 10% concentration.
• 26:40
  10% povidone iodine contains 31,600 parts per million of total iodine. Of all the different iodine species in povidone iodine,
• 26:56
  all encompassed within that 31,600 parts per month. It gets weird here. And it's also, it's difficult to even get your mind around, is that of the 31,600 parts from looking at a total iodine, in povidone iodine, only two to three parts.
• 27:17
  parts per million actually kill germs. It's not. Only two to three parts per million kill germs. The rest of the iodine molecules in there are, for all impensive purposes, are worthless. They stain, they cause toxicity, but they don't kill germs. So for decades, researchers have been trying to
• 27:44
  suppress the other types of iodine in povidone iodine and boost up the levels of molecular iodine. In fact, if they were able to just pour some molecular, additional molecular iodine into povidone iodine, they'd have much more powerful or much more effective solutions.
• 28:10
  So, but they haven't been able to do that. And why have they been able to do it? Because molecular iodine is inherently unstable. So,
• 28:22
  Molecular iodine will tend to morph or change into one of the other forms of iodine, depending on the conditions, right? So, even if you were able to add more molecular iodine into polvidone iodine, it would change into the other species, and you'd want, that's why I call it a dynamic equilibria.
• 28:44
  It won't change from that equilibrium. It keeps going back to that equilibrium of only two to three parts per million, because that's all that they will accept in that molecular, in that povidone iodine solution. So the povidone iodine, I'm learning so much here, it's ridiculous, 31,000 parts per million of...
• 29:06
  different species of iodine. All the different species. And you're saying two to three are actually killing bacteria. I know the two to three, is that the molecular? It is molecular iodine. But one species, the only biocidal or germicidal species of iodine is molecular iodine, bi-2. So even when we're talking about overdone, it's because-
• 29:29
  It's only biocidal activity is from the molecular. It's the molecular iodine that's inside. Just those two to three parts. So this is like the highest concentration is what you're talking about. It's like if this was povidone iodine, it's like you've got this whole bottle and just this little part here is the part the skillet germed. So the rest of this window dressing.
• 29:48
  So what you've gotten into them is being able to isolate that molecular iodine so that the other 31,000... Isolate it, concentrate it, and stabilize it at high levels. So that's kind of incredible to me. So we've been trying to do that for decades. So you've done it. Yes. But you've been able to do this. So career number three, and my garage is none the better for it.
• 30:17
  So career number three, you've shifted from dentist to tissue harvesting. Now you invested in the company and ended up getting involved with that one particular company intimately that is stabilizing and isolating molecular iodine from the entire mix. No. Well, yes, in general, but we'd start investing in the company. There was no company. This was a concept.
• 30:44
  Well, but you'd invested in it, is what I mean. Like you said that you had- I started it. Well, you said that you'd invested in a bunch of other companies. I was like companies. Oh, this was not one of the- This was this, I started. Oh, okay. That's a lot. Perfect. Okay, I thought you meant that this was one of the companies that you'd invested. Oh, no, no. Oh, so you just went- It was just a pop it around. So we've stabilized molecular iodine. You've figured out how to use it because it's in antiseptic as well as antigermicidal.
• 31:13
  Now you've kind of made this loop back into dentistry because now you're like there's clinical application for what you've just isolated. So I'm looking at it and saying 25 years at the dentist chair, frustrated with some of the things that you've seen.
• 31:30
  You stepped away from that to make a greater impact on the world in what you believed was going to be the breakthrough in the tissue science. But then it ended up becoming iodine. And now you're bringing this technology back to the dental world. So you kind of left for a minute only to come back, I'm going to say a bit of a hero, because you came back and solved a problem that no one had been able to solve for decades.
• 31:55
  What was that reintroduction like? Because I have to imagine, you know, it's that, you know, prophets never welcome in his own land type thinking. But as you come back into the dental world and say, hey, look, I discovered something.
• 32:10
  I'm guessing everybody didn't just rush to you with open arms, right? They probably questioned whether or not it was even accurate or what you were saying was true. Is that right? Okay, so yes. The introduction of our products or technology first was something which was...
• 32:32
  in many respects, it was almost like NIH, not invented here. In other words, we're happy doing what we're doing, and we have solutions for what we do, and we don't need another maltrance, or there's plenty of maltrances out there. But that's because they don't understand
• 32:59
  The magnitude of it or of importance, and I'm going to give you an exact example of that. I mentioned before that pulvidone iodine is not as effective as we would like to be, even though it's a fabulous antiseptic as other antiseptic scolp.
• 33:21
  There was a number of years ago, there was a Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. There was an outbreak of the spinal meningitis. And they finally traced it to the anesthesiology department. And what they found was that...
• 33:44
  Before they gave spinal anesthesia, they did what they call a pre-injection skin prep, where they swabbed the back with povidone iodine, the standard of care and infection of it all, to knock down the bacterial load on the skin of the back so that there isn't a bunch of bacteria which are being dragged into the spinal fluid, whereas the needle goes into the spinal fluid.
• 34:15
  And as it turns out, the bottle of polvidone iodine that they were using was contaminated with bacteria. And that is, there were bacteria that were living inside the antiseptic box.
• 34:31
  Okay, sound weird? Doesn't even have sound weird. Okay. So the way they found out about it was they wound up confiscating every open bottle, every open multi-use bottle of pulveridone iodine in the hospital.
• 34:49
  brought it down to their pathology department and examined them microbiologically. And they found that fully 10% of those bubbles of polvidone iodine were contaminated with bacteria. Bacteria were living in the polvidone iodine.
• 35:06
  You know that there have been recalls, what they call contamination recalls by FDA for antiseptic rinses, for claxidine gluconate oral rinse. There have been FDA recalls. There have been FDA recalls for povidone iodine. Why? Because of bacteria living within it.
• 35:33
  Well, for one reason is because even though hovidone iodine is effective, it doesn't make it a sterilant. It doesn't kill all forms of microbial light. Some microbes are more difficult to kill than others. So the easier to kill microbes were destroyed. But there are other microbes that can exist in that type of embargoing and do.
• 36:02
  Didn't do. There was a recall of hand sanitizers, alcohol hand sanitizers that went out to hospitals around the United States. And in Aurora, Colorado, while people were using hand sanitizer to protect their hands in a hospital, four people died from it.
• 36:30
  because of spore contamination, because alcohol does not kill spores adequately. My goodness. And during the time of the manufacture, some spores happen to get into that particular production load of alcohol and sanitizer. So, yes, this happens more frequently than we'd like to think about.
• 36:52
  So you've taken molecular iodine, you've introduced it to the dental market as an oral rinse. And I know you run a company now that actually sells this product at retail and to dental practitioners online and so on. But I want you to talk to me real quick, because I think, and I talk a lot about this type of stuff. And in fact, I was talking with my own dentist the other day, and we got in this conversation about iodine, because I'd already learned more about your product.
• 37:23
  Molecular iodine being introduced into oral rinse is great because you're killing germs and killing bacteria and whatnot that exists in the mouth. But I want you to talk to me about, I don't think people prioritize oral health the way they should. And yet I speak a lot about cardiology. And one of the things that comes up a lot is that bad oral hygiene is the greatest, you know, one of the leading causes of heart disease. And people don't make those connections like that.
• 37:51
  What is the connection that you see and the necessity and who are the most at-risk people when it comes to this? Right. Okay. So the mouth is, in many respects, is like the gateway to the rest of the body. And when we tend to compartmentalize...
• 38:13
  Well, you go to your cardiologist for this. You go to your orthopedist for that. Or you go to your dermatologist for some other thing. Well, these are all maladies or these are all conditions that are affecting the body one way up or different parts of the body. But as it turns out,
• 38:33
  When we go to the dentist and we learn techniques for cleaning our teeth or maintaining oral hygiene at home, then it's not just a matter of what are we doing for our dental pelt. Because we should think about this, is over 500 different varieties of microbes that inhabit the mouth.
• 38:57
  A number of them are pathogenic. A number of them are disease-caught. A number of them are beneficial.
• 39:05
  In the mouth, hopefully, there's a balance right between these, which we call the oral microbiome. And this is the totality of the environment for which we have all of these bacteria, viruses, fungi. And remember, many of them are good and are helpful and important.
• 39:31
  For example, some of them produce nitric oxide, right? Right. So, but when our gones get inflamed, as an example, and they bleed, now whether that bleeding is when you're flossing or whether you're brushing or when you're eating or just for no reason at all.
• 39:58
  The blood is not just getting into the mouth, but the bacteria in your mouth are getting into the bloodstream. It's a two-way street, right? Now, it is now considered...
• 40:13
  that cardiovascular disease, a standalone cause of cardiovascular disease, is periodontal bacteriasis. That is a shower of bacteria that gets into the bloodstream from the mouth.
• 40:30
  Well, I heard a doctor recently was actually having the conversation about we would never, you mentioned a back surgery and about how we would put povidone iodine on the incision area before doing the incision and so on. But we also...
• 40:47
  do oral surgeries we do root canals we do all of this kind of stuff in our mouths when it's a septic area like that the mouth is filled with bacteria and we're doing surgeries on it where we're opening wounds in a septic field and not paying attention to the fact that that's going to have systemic consequences we would never do that anywhere else in the body
• 41:11
  Yeah, well, I'll tell you something else you wouldn't do anywhere else in the body. That anywhere else on the body, if you're going to get an injection, then they always prep the skin. People with alcohol or something else is an antiseptic agent, right? Right. Okay. I don't know of any instance where a dentist...
• 41:33
  before giving local anesthesia in the mouth. Preps. Preps that oral mucosa before giving the anesthetic injection in the mouth. So bacteria are being introduced into the bloodstream just by the normal activities of your dentist every single day.
• 41:57
  So something that you said in there clicked for me when you were talking because I completely understand the mouth-body connection. I mean, the fact that you're talking about anytime you bleed, you're introducing bacteria into the bloodstream also, which I had never really heard that before. But it makes sense how that's the system.
• 42:17
  But I always think of dentistry specifically about teeth. And I think we think of dental care as brushing and flossing and everything to keep our teeth looking nice and healthy.
• 42:34
  But we ignore the entire microbiome. And that may be everything related to like, I use a copper tongue scraper and all of this other kind of stuff. And it's like, and I've heard recently that using floss is even bad, that we should be actually be using water picks and these types of things. But we don't often, I think most people don't think of the mouth cavity as being its own microbiome.
• 42:59
  We hear a lot today about a gut microbiome and the need for, you know, making sure that we've got prebiotics and probiotics and postbiotics and everything imaginable to keep a balance of of of flora in the gut and bacteria and everything else. Yeah.
• 43:17
  But we don't treat the mouth that way. Like, talk to me. Like, I get it. And I really want other people to understand that distinction, that it's oral hygiene is more important, I would arguably say, than any other kind of hygiene. And yet people spend, you know, an excessive amount of time on hygiene everywhere else on the body.
• 43:42
  Right. So let's talk about the two major diseases of the mouth, one of which is dental caries or tooth decay, and the other of which is periodontosis or gum disease.
• 44:03
  We hear things and we're taught things all throughout life. Don't have a sugary snack or don't drink soda because these things will give you cavities. Or you can have sugary snacks all day long. You can drink soda all day long. But it's the bacteria in your mouth.
• 44:33
  are not metabolizing those sugars to convert them into acids which will leach out the bone or leach out the enamel to become cavities.
• 44:49
  you're not going to have Tanbis and you're not going to have periodontal disease. So the quality and the distribution of the different types of bacteria in your mouth is critical to whether your mouth is going to have an acidic EH or whether your mouth will be acidic or whether it will be more neutral
• 45:13
  And whether it will be more conducive to tooth decay, whether it will be more conducive to periodontal disease. So these areas are things that we don't pay attention to, but they're going on whether we pay attention to them or not. It's happened. So it's whether we just recognize it and do something about it or steer it.
• 45:38
  that's going to either help us or not help us. But I just want to get back to this business about bacteria getting into the bloodstream.
• 45:49
  When the bacteria get into the bloodstream, which can cause cardiovascular disease, this happens in four different ways. Those bacteria in your bloodstream will, number one, if you were to examine a microscopic section of arterial plaque in your coronary artery,
• 46:16
  look at it under a microscope, you will see those same periodontal bacteria, which came from your mouth, embedded into that plaque in your coronary arteries. Okay. So number one, it contributes to the dental plaque. Number two, these bacteria from the mouth
• 46:39
  cause the change in the low-density lipoprotein profile. So people who have periodontal disease or gum disease on average have twice the levels of low-density lipoproteins in their bloodstream than do people who don't have periodontal receivers. Right.
• 47:04
  These lipoproteins become stickier. They bind more readily to your arterial walls. And also, the arterial walls become more porous. And they allow penetration.
• 47:20
  So all this adds up to periodontal disease or periodontal bacteremia becoming what is now recognized as a single standalone cause of cardiovascular disease. And we're just focusing on cardiovascular disease. The same thing is true that these bacteria get through the blood-brain barrier and they also affect...
• 47:48
  Alzheimer's disease. They also affect rheumatoid arthritis. They also affect respiratory disease. They affect your immune support. Just about every major system is affected by the bacteria from the mouth. So it's critically important for your overall health to be taking care of your mouth. And what most people don't know,
• 48:16
  is that you as an individual can do more for your dental health by what you do every single day at home than what a dentist or a dental hygienist can do for you in the office. Why? Because the destruction occurs every single day at home, right? So if you're looking to prevent a problem,
• 48:41
  then you would be more conscientious about what you're doing at home. Let me just make one other point, because this is also a critical point, is that many people, I would even say most people, think that they're doing a good job in their oral hygiene at home, but it also has to do with what they're being taught
• 49:08
  And this gets back to the original thing about what dentists learned when they were in school and what dental hygienists learned when they were in school, which has been helpful over the years.
• 49:21
  But the world has changed. Right. Right. And there are better things to do so that you may be going through the motions, thinking you're doing the right thing at home. And you are doing them. But they're not effective or sufficiently effective. And that's a critical thing. So what you're doing needs to be effective. And that's actually what we're teaching dentists and dental hygienists,
• 49:50
  and try to make them aware of the latest research and the latest testing, which shows what is working. Well, and it gets back to where we started. This whole idea of unlearning is actually just as important as learning, that you've got an entire, you've got a platform where you're... Big resistance, big resistance. I don't know how many times I go to, I give a webinar,
• 50:16
  to dentists, dental hygienists, and I'm frequently asked at the conclusion of the webinar by many dental hygienists. I understand that this absolutely makes sense, but I can't convince my dentist to change in the office.
• 50:35
  What should I do? Or how can I convince that? And I want to kind of answer that question for them at this point. And that is, obviously, you can't change the dentist. You can one at a time as you're teaching webinars and having an education platform where that's possible. But you actually also run a company called Iotech. And Iotech, you put this molecular iodine and you said that what you're doing every day for your oral health is more important than anything that the dentist or hygienist can do.
• 51:05
  But now you actually have a product that includes this molecular iodine, which people can use every day, right? This is everyday use. So the technology that you spent a career developing and the isolation of molecular iodine is now available for somebody for everyday use. What are the types of results you find for people who are using molecular iodine on a daily basis? Okay, so let me give you an idea.
• 51:36
  There's a periodonts, a gum specialist, who has been treating dozens and dozens of these patients in the office and also having the patients at home use an antiseptic gel.
• 52:00
  in a specially made custom trays that these patients are wearing overnight. And in those trays, they use a hydrogen ferroxide gel. And they've been doing this for a number of years.
• 52:18
  So in a pilot clinical study that this periodontist that I'm talking about has performed, he hand all of those patients, in other words about 50 by zero patients,
• 52:34
  who every day have been using hydroporoncide gel in trays at home for their periodontal condition. Now, when a patient goes to a gum specialist for treatment, then it's not just a casual thing. They've been referred by their own dentists, and now it's serious. So they're trying to salvage what they can, right? So these are serious conditions. That periodontist switched over
• 53:03
  every single one of those patients, from using hydrogen peroxide gel to using a molecular iodine gel, which we provided for, that's how I know about. And in every single case, the Gums showed improvement for every single one of those patients, all 50 some odd patients.
• 53:30
  Just by switching over from hydrogen peroxide, which was considered the standard of care, to molecular iodine, which is superior. Well, and I'm interested because you're talking about an oral rinse, and I think that often gets thrown into the category of mouthwash.
• 53:51
  And yet most people talk about mouth and they think of mouthwash as being that, you know, minty fresh feeling afterwards. But in fact, that's not the point that you're actually talking about health. It's not about minty fresh feel here.
• 54:08
  You know, if you keel back the layers of the onion, you will see that there is such a huge difference between what is a nice tasting mouthwash and what it can do for your health compared to something that is truly effective. Well, because one is just cosmetic.
• 54:27
  Yeah, yeah. Let me give you an example. There was some testing was done with heriodonol bacteria. And these bacteria that were chosen for this testing were two of the baddest of the bad guys.
• 54:48
  One was, uh, uh, Pravotella intermedia, and the other one was a Fusobacterium nucleaeum. These are two of the most, um, egregious of the periodontal bacteria, the most destructive. And, uh,
• 55:06
  In this testing, they were comparing the efficacy of seven different antiseptic rinses, all of which are used in professional dental offices, right, different active agents in each one, right? And one of them was the molecular iodine rinse. In this testing,
• 55:31
  they used as a, what they call an organic challenge, fresh human whole saliva, because saliva, the salivary proteins actually neutralize most dental rinses, most mouthwashes. So that even though they may be an antiseptic mouthwash, the difference you'll find by just, you're just testing in the laboratory and testing in your mouth,
• 56:00
  It was like two different worlds because one has saliva and one doesn't. Right. Right. So the results you get from just laboratory testing, what they call clean laboratory testing without saliva, are completely different than what you'll find in the mouth. So this testing was done with fresh human also to ensure that the conditions would be realistic as of current amount. The difference between...
• 56:27
  The efficacy of these different seven different antiseptic rinses ran from within 30 seconds of exposure time, the molecular iodine rinse completely wiping out those destructive bacteria, complete it.
• 56:45
  to one of the rinses, not having any biocidal activity at all. This is what's being billed as an antiseptic rinse, that within that 30-second timeframe, which is the time that we normally rinse with, no biocidal activity at all.
• 57:04
  The difference was stark. It went from complete activity over here to dozens of times less effective, to hundreds of times less effective, to hundreds of thousands of times less effective, to no biocidal activity at all. That's the range of rinses we're talking about. So when you talk about a cosmetic rinse...
• 57:26
  That's what it boils down to. It's just, it's masking thing. It makes you feel good. And that's exactly where I'm going with this. And that is, there's a difference between what we think and is the unlearning of mouthwash is antiseptic to understand that it's really doing nothing in most cases, as opposed to, you know, rinsing, you're rinsing your mouth, using an oral rinse, mouthwash, whatever we want to call it.
• 57:49
  is not a cosmetic activity it it's a house activity that needs to be treated that way this this is part of your health care plan this is not just cosmetic and and i think people do that it's the listerines the axe the the colgate varieties they're cosmetic they're not doing anything from a health perspective they're just giving you a nice taste and
• 58:14
  And that's not the point of this, right? Like the point of this is that you're actually trying to make an impact on your oral microbiome because it is affecting every other system of the body in one way or another. And partially, as you mentioned, through the transition of bacteria into the bloodstream, the blood into the mouth, et cetera.
• 58:34
  All of this builds into a pretty compelling case for that front door that you're talking about. People aren't paying attention to the front door and what goes in through the miles affects the entire body. And it's not just boonk, but this entire ecosystem needs to be cared for.
• 58:52
  Well, let's think about this, Flare. Before we're even allowed to go to school as children, we have to have vaccinations, right? So that we don't get one of these diseases and we don't spread it so that the community doesn't get involved. So we're required.
• 59:12
  by the authorities to have a certificate of vaccination for a different potential thing. Some of these things that we're being vaccinated for, for example, the chances of us getting them, if we weren't vaccinated, are very, very slim. But because it's a serious disease that we don't want to take chances if there's something that can help to prevent it.
• 59:39
  So if we're talking about that society recognizes that we're required to do these things for even if there's just a slim chance that you're going to get it, periodontal disease affects most adults in the world. Right. Most adults in the United States. It doesn't matter that we may have one of the most advanced societies here. In fact, periodontal disease has been increasing in the United States.
• 1:00:09
  And we've known about periodontal disease for decades and decades. Yet it's still, we still have difficulty and we certainly don't have it under control. If you speak to a periodontist, they will tell you there is no such thing as a cure to periodontal disease, that the best they can try to hope to do is to halt its progress.
• 1:00:33
  right, is to maintain it. But they'll never talk in terms of cure, right? So whatever and because periodontal disease in particular is so prevalent and because it's going to affect most of us, even if we don't get it, even if we don't have it, the chances about getting it are more than likely.
• 1:00:58
  Right. So it just makes sense. Well, and as you said, periodontal disease is a direct link, proven link to cardiovascular disease. It's a slippery slope. Right. And cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer of people in the world. So we've got an unknown connection and we're still not dealing with the problem. And I mean, to me, that sounds like the real pandemic, Kirk. Like this is something that actually can be interrupted.
• 1:01:26
  And most people don't even know that there's a thing. So, which is, again, the reason for having you here and having this conversation, because you're sounding the alarm on something that most people don't even realize this problem. And I'd arguably say most people using their drugstore.
• 1:01:41
  mouthwashes think they're doing the right thing. They've been taught by a dentist who was taught that that's the way you take care of things. And we've got a broken education system here that needs reeducated and we need a little bit of unlearning to take place.
• 1:01:56
  both on the dentist part, the hygienist part, but also on every individual's part. And I like that idea that unlearn oral health care. We need to do a little bit of unlearning on this as well. Herb, I can't thank you enough for having this conversation where we're able to unpack some of these things because you're talking about something I think most people don't even think about, much less able to get them engaged with the conversation because it's not a problem until it's a problem.
• 1:02:24
  Yeah. But Mark, let me just add one more perspective to this because I think this will just bring it into focus because we're not just talking about antiseptic properties here. I don't know if you're aware of it, but there's a condition called fibrocystic breast disease, which is pretty widespread in Western countries.
• 1:02:53
  It's almost non-existent in Japan, almost non-existent. It's a very painful condition. And in Japan, what they found out is that Japanese women who almost never get fibrocystic breast disease in Japan, when they relocate to, let's say, Europe or the United States and adopt a Western diet,
• 1:03:20
  They develop fibrocystic breast disease at the same rates as their Western counterparts. Okay. Now, because of that, it's been theorized or hypothesized that it's the diet in Japan that's helping to control a fibrocystic breast disease. The Japanese are generally much healthier than Americans.
• 1:03:47
  They live five years longer. They have less heart disease. And there's several other important health parameters which attest to that. The Japanese diet, on average, has twice the level of iodine in daily dietary intake than does the U.S. diet. Oh, interesting. Twice the level. In certain areas of Japan, like Hokkaido, Japan, it's 50 times as much.
• 1:04:14
  50 times as much, well, well above what they call the tolerable upper limit by the FDA designation for different drugs or different nutrients, well above that. Those are the same people that are so much healthier than we are. Yeah, I mean, so because of that hypothesis,
• 1:04:39
  They took molecular iodine tablets. This also goes to show how safe it is because molecular iodine, we talk about how wonderful it is as destroying mycos. It's also essential for our health because it's an essential nutrient. We suffer from iodine deficiency diseases if we don't have enough iodine in our diets. So they took molecular iodine tablets, and in the United States, they ran a clinical study
• 1:05:08
  With 1,000 women over six months, every single day, they ingested, swallowed a single six milligram molecular iodine tablet, right? Every single day for six months. That's the equivalent of drinking six ounces of a maltrance, an electroiodine maltrance. And...
• 1:05:34
  They wanted to see if it would help to reduce the incidence of fibrocystic breast disease. That was the purpose of the study. This was an FDA sponsored study. It was controlled, it was blinded. Every week there were blood tests taken, they were examined by their physicians on a regular basis. And what they found was it reduced the incidence of fibrocystic breast disease.
• 1:06:02
  This is the iodine. So here's an instance where iodine is being used for something other than for antiseptic purpose, for killing germs. It has nothing to do with killing germs. We see things that have to do with wound healing.
• 1:06:19
  We see things that have to do with bolstering the immune system. Right. There has been research that has shown that iodine, that molecular iodine is helpful in helping to retard or to inhibit breast cancer cell lines, prostate cancer cell lines.
• 1:06:43
  When surgeons do a, when they do cancer surgery for the stomach, they paint the tissue after they've done the surgery before closing up the patient. They paint the tissue with iodine, not because they want to disinfect the area, but because they want to make sure that there's any aberrant cells that they haven't gotten to.
• 1:07:12
  that they don't metastasize. So they're trying to take the cord. So iodine has multiple benefits, including one of the major ones is boosting the immune system, which also has to do with what it gets in mind. So there's a multiplicity of benefits to iodine. And I think we're just scratching the surface with the research and what it can do for us.
• 1:07:37
  Well, and iodine is a natural substance. We're not talking about something that's made in a laboratory. We're talking about naturally occurring false cure. Almost all the food we eat, which is surprisingly visible. And we keep coming back to how healthy natural is. Go figure, right? Right.
• 1:07:52
  Herb, I can't thank you enough for joining us today. For those of you who are interested in learning more, I know we ran a little bit long here, but interested in learning more about Dr. Herb Moskowitz and the things that they're doing at his company called IOTech, as well as all of the research related to molecular iodine and its multiple implications to our health.
• 1:08:14
  The biggest one that we've talked about here just being oral health and making sure that we're treating our mouths and our oral hygiene as that front door to everything that is happening systemically from the connection to cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, and all of the other things that you mentioned. Like it comes in through the mouth before it spreads to the rest of the body. And we don't.
• 1:08:36
  treat our mouths the way that we would an open wound someplace else. And yet most people with periodontal disease are walking around with open wounds of their mouth, really. And I'm not talking about sores. I'm talking about gums.
• 1:08:49
  that are allowing things in and out of the bloodstream. Herb, thank you again for being here with us. For more information about everything that is going on in Herb Moskowitz's life, and as well as links to his company and their social media handles, take a look down in the show notes below, and you will be able to link through that stuff.
• 1:09:06
  I strongly encourage you to take a look at what this oral microbiome has to do for your overall health. And I dare you to take the challenge of using molecular iodine oral rinses for a 30-day, 60-day, even 90-day period of time and see how it affects your overall health. And I'm curious to see which dentist says the next time you go visit. Thanks for joining us on Age Defiantly. And we'll see you on our next episode.