Wisdom teeth earned their name because they tend to show up during the age of wisdom, between the late teens and early twenties. Early humans had big jaws and needed more teeth for tougher diets, but modern humans tend to have smaller jaws. There are a few interesting reasons for this that we'll discuss in a bit.

Removal of wisdom teeth is commonly advised because we don't have enough space for them. If a wisdom tooth is impacted, meaning trapped inside the jawbone, it is considered by your immune system to be a foreign object and will be a target for your white blood cells. This condition is a chronic burden to your immune system. Further, an impacted tooth can eventually become cystic, which can lead to destruction of jawbone.

We know that a holistic or biological approach sometimes differs from conventional advice. You might be trying to balance the conventional "pro's" of wisdom tooth removal with the holistic "con's" in the hopes of making the optimal health choice for yourself or your teenaged loves ones. Let's briefly review these pros and cons right now. If wisdom teeth are an issue for you, your biological consultation will dive deep and cover this topic in thorough detail so that you can make a fully-informed and well-rounded decision.

Impactions are ubiquitous, and notorious. Over time, the damage they cause can compound. If delayed, later in life, the removal process becomes more difficult, and complication rates rise. These are some common ways in which impacted wisdom teeth cause trouble:

• Chronic burden to the immune system,
• Chronic source of inflammation,
• Damage to neighboring teeth, cavities
• Gum infections (pericoronitis or gum disease)
• Crowding of teeth
• Pain in teeth, muscles, the TMJ, or headaches
• Cysts or even tumors

Impacted wisdom teeth should be removed for these reasons. The younger the age at removal, the better the long-term results, and the lower the rates of complications. This is why you so often find dentists recommending wisdom tooth extraction as early as age 13 or 14 sometimes, although the typical age range is 17-19.

Considering meridians, we know that each healthy tooth has nerve, lymph, and energetic/electrical connections to other tissues in the body. The wisdom teeth are unique because they connect to two pathways, namely the small intestine and the heart. When teeth impact other teeth during chewing, clenching, or sometimes even while talking, the meridian within is activated. This communicates a form of energy to other points on the meridian such as glands or organs. (This is one of the important health benefits of straight teeth and a balanced bite.)

If the wisdom teeth are in proper position and are chewing against each other, then they are functioning correctly on their meridians. In this case removal of the teeth would eliminate the ability to activate those meridians. It has been said that these meridians are already hyper-active and don't benefit from dental activation. Perhaps this is true. But if the wisdom teeth are in fact in good position, cleansable, and healthy, then there's no need to remove them.

But the wisdom teeth usually are not in proper position. To address the question about why our jaws seem to be smaller than they should be, we need to consider diet, nutrition, and epigenetics. Softer (cooked) diets are less demanding on teeth, so the body doesn't put in as much effort into making a robust jaw. This might have started with our recent ancestors and was passed down by epigenetics (which is like turbo-speed evolution). Also, modern diets are processed diets which lack important nutrients such as vitamin K₂ for bone development.

Another very important factor to consider is the jawbone healing process after an extraction. The dental industry assumes bone grows and fills the void left by the tooth removal as we expect. But under most conditions this is not true, and a "cavitation" results. In fact, a study by Tom Levy and Hal Huggins showed 92% of seemingly-healed and "normal" extraction sites were actually cavitations! These cavitations are denied by conventional dentistry, but have been found to be very significant health hazards in modern alternative dentistry. A cavitation becomes a permanent source of inflammation, oxidation, and toxicity which can lead to things like autoimmunity or cancer. (I'll write an article on cavitations in the future.)

Cavitations result when holistic techniques such as PRF and ozone are skipped, or when the periodontal ligament is left behind after an extraction. Cavitations also almost always occur when amalgams are present in the mouth (on any teeth) or there is a significant body burden of mercury at the time of extraction. Cavitations occur after an extraction when the body's biochemistry is off balance, specifically in regards to calcium, magnesium, vitamin A, D, K₂, or when the function of the thyroid or parathyroid is sufficiently compromised. You may already know that mercury (from silver fillings) wreaks havoc on this important biochemical balance and simultaneously targets the thyroid. Fluoride does this too actually.

If you need your wisdom teeth removed, addressing all of these concerns will be discussed in detail in person during your consultation. The combination of biological treatment techniques, sequencing, and a nutritionally-ready body is what we call The Biological Protocol.

If your wisdom teeth need to come out, it is imperative that the biological protocol be used and applied correctly. This helps prevent cavitations and the potential for life-long harm. This is one of the important differences between biological dentistry and conventional dentistry.