Oral Spirochetes, Similar to Syphilis and Lyme disease

Oral Spirochetes, Similar to Syphilis and Lyme disease,

Produce Long-term Debilitating Chronic Inflammatory Diseases

William D. Nordquist, BS, DMD, MS, Inc.

2304 6th Avenue

619/236-7959

San Diego California 92101

Diplomate: American Board of Oral Implantology/ Implant Dentistry

Honored Fellow: American Academy of Implant Dentistry

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Oral Spirochetes: Their Relationship to Lethal and Debilitating Late-life Chronic Inflammatory Diseases: A clearly identifiable correlation has been made between Periodontal (Gum) disease and chronic inflammatory diseases including; heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, and ultimately many cancers. These diseases are manifested throughout life but most devastatingly during the last two decades of life. This is when a great transfer of wealth occurs from elderly patients to their doctors occurs to treat these illnesses. Presently, these illnesses are overwhelming the economies in many countries including the United States. These diseases make life miserable for patients during the last years of their lives.

Even though spirochetes are indigenous in human populations from the beginning of time, the problems with these organisms has reached epidemic portions worldwide due to mixing of different strains of spirochetes from one population of the world to another. When no disease is produced from local spirochetes in an isolated population, distant populations do not have immunity when these strains of spirochetes are spread there due to immigration of populations. Spirochetes are almost conclusively being recognized as the culprits in this relationship between dental and chronic inflammatory systemic diseases. However, the analysis of the DNA of the various strains and epidemiologic studies of dissemination of the specific spirochete strains to different populations has not been funding or completed.   Both are costly endeavors.

Background: Based on the accumulation of years of research relating periodontal disease to heart disease as discussed in the book by William D. Nordquist BS DMD MS, The Stealth Killer: Is oral Spirochetosis the Missing Link in the Dental-Heart Disease Labyrinth?, a direct link between oral spirochetes and chronic systemic inflammatory diseases has been established. The actual mechanism in the relationship between periodontal (gum) disease and heart disease, as well as other systemic inflammatory diseases has become much better understood. Oral spirochetes, similar to those spirochetes that cause Lyme disease, stomach ulcers and syphilis, are implicated as the culprits in diseases including Alzheimer’s and other plaque-forming neurological diseases, diabetes, premature birth, autoimmune diseases, and, ultimately, cancer.

Initial research is showing that all spirochetes including; Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), Helicobacter pylori (stomach ulcers), possibly Treponema pallidum (syphilis), and the sixty varieties of oral spirochetes, all can live and incubate in the gingival sulcus (trough between the gums and teeth). When the first periodontal disease lesion occurs as indicated by “bleeding gums,” these spirochetes can spread via the blood vessels in the diseased tissue.  They travel and take root throughout the body.

The relationship between dental and heart disease has been reported in the scientific literature and national news for several years; however, an understanding of, or probable theories as to why these relationships exist have been absent. Ever since the Surgeon General of the United States published a report on the relationship between periodontal and heart disease in 2000, much study on this subject has been completed. Health care expenditures for the top five most costly health conditions in the United States for 2000 and 2004, has provided insight into the economic magnitude and implications of the chronic diseases caused by oral spirochetes.

Heart disease is the most expensive disease to treat, followed by mental disorders and cancer. Health-care expenditures and lost productivity as a result of death and disability because of cardiovascular disease are projected to be $394 billion in 2005. This condition, caused by a single microorganism, most likely is the major contributory factor in health concerns that cost the healthcare system more than $204.2 billion in 2004 and nearly $1 trillion for the five-year period ending 2003.

Oral spirochetes, due to bacteremias resulting from a lifetime of episodic periodontal disease, are now implemented in numerous atherosclerotic lesions found in blood vessels.  The most infamous of these blood vessels are located in the heart and cause heart attacks.  Statistically, heart disease kills more Americans than all other diseases combined.  By the time most Americans reach a “ripe-old age”, more than 80% have atherosclerotic lesions in their blood vessels.  Similarly, approximately the same number of Americans have various degrees of periodontal disease. Consequently, oral spirochetes, which reside in the gingival sulcus next to teeth, cause more diseases than all other known diseases on earth.

The difficulty with spirochetes is that they produce an only recently discovered protected form, or “spore”, when they are treated with antibiotics.  By the time antibiotics attain a lethal concentration in diseased tissue, the spirochete has transformed to this protected form.  There is no known cure for syphilis, Lyme disease,  or atherosclerotic heart disease once the infection becomes distributed throughout the body and becomes one of the many chronic inflammatory systemic diseases. These diseases are presently incurable because the “spores” cannot currently be eradicated.  The disease always returns when the conditions are right, such as a lowered immune system, during the last two decades of life.

The amount of funding needed to complete the research in this most crucial area of medicine is astronomical and cannot be fully comprehended or calculated at this time. I foresee hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding to completely understand this spirochetal disease model and worldwide dissemination process and learn how to treat it.