Meet David

My wee story

Born, raised, educated and matured in Canada and in full time clinical dental practice since 1987. We moved our young family to New Zealand in 2003 and it was at that point that my outlook began to change. I started to have a look beyond ‘conventional’ medicine and started my journey toward a more holistic viewpoint.

Se about 25 years ago, having done a little reading about actual nutrition, I decided to try low-carb / keto (along with a few other lifestyle modifications) and, as I'm sure the story repeats, it changed my life.

Sometimes you can think you are doing well and then a change or two shows how true health can feel. There was no going back. I started absorbing all the information I could get my hands on and shouting it from the roof-tops. I did some study with ACNEM (Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine), read everything I could find, probed pub-med, endless podcasts...the list goes on. This organically carried into my professional life as I wanted to share my knowledge with anyone who was interested, particularly as it applied to oral health.

I don't mean oral health as in no cavities but oral health as both a reflection and harbinger of systemic health or ill-health. It is not an understatement to state that oral health and systemic health cannot exist without each other.

My research interests evolved to the mouth-body connections in a broader sense. The practice naturally evolved along the same lines as my clients sought guidance through the maze of information and mis-information that is the modern era. Now I find my passion evolving yet again, as I want to reach out to as many people as I can and share some of the knowledge I have acquired through the journey. To that end I thought I would put together something of a guide for my clients; FAQs from my patients, some science and some help through the information forest.

This idea took on a life of its own, as passions tend to do. I now find myself writing a book, building a website, filming content for an online presence, and giving a few talks to groups here and there. This may sound impressive but it is quite embryonic at this point. I'm loving the journey.

 

The premise of my study is the fact that our ancient ancestors enjoyed comparatively marvelous health (if we rule out trauma, infection and child mortality) with far less chronic disease. 90% lower caries rate, very little evidence of gum disease and equally little evidence of other oral pathologies. We haven't had enough time for evolution to contribute; the negative changes in our health, both dental and systemic, are environmental.

We've evolved over 3.5 million years to be healthy. We've learned over the last 30,000 years or so how to be unhealthy. I'm not going to even mention what we've done to ourselves over the last couple of hundred.

 

I have titled my project 'The Primal Dentist'. We'll see where it goes.