Titanium Dental Implants Can Cause Galvanization and Galvanic Side Effects
And yet still, there is another cautionary flag documented in numerous studies demonstrating the galvanic side effects of titanium, after metal components of the dental implant come into contact with the cellular matrix of the body, including saliva, blood cells, tissue cells and bone particles.11
Galvanization occurs in the oral cavity in large because of the presence of several factors all combined in one inhospitable environment known as the mouth:
- Saliva – an electricity conductor
- Various Metals – Amalgam Fillings, Titanium Implants, Porcelain Fused to Metal Bridge, Gold Crown, Surgical Steel Post, Etc
- Intercellular and intracellular electric currents
The 3 factors together create a phenomenon akin to an unwanted battery that disturbs (rather than helps) the body’s biological processes. The different metals connected through saliva and charged from the internal cellular matrix create electro current disturbances, otherwise known as galvanization. This is why a metal-free mouth – is the most natural mouth with uninterrupted natural microcurrent flow to optimize health and regeneration processes within the body. Unlike Titanium dental implants, Zirconia implants do not corrode and will not have any impact on taste in the mouth, and importantly, avoid the health disturbing effects of galvanization (electro-current disturbance) which naturally disturbs the body’s energy meridians, inter-cellular electric currents, and causes or accelerates disease processes. Zirconia dental implants are the ultimate alternative for patients who are not comfortable with or are not able to tolerate metal (titanium) implants.
Determining the which dental materials have metals and which are metal free
Perhaps the confusion in materials science comes in understanding the state in which metals are found. The commonly identified metals, such as those in a precious bridge alloy or in the steel used to structure a building or in kitchen utensils or in a foil, are present in a fully ‘reduced’ state. These are the hard, shiny metallic forms normally referred to as “metals”.
But metals can also be present in an ‘oxidized’ state. They will no longer look like hard, shiny metals, but will be a powder (as in common oxides such as rust) or will combine with other chemicals to form a salt (as in the example of sodium metal combining with chlorine to form common table salt). Being in an oxidized form means simply that the metal is present in a different state of being. By various means, we can take common iron rust and convert it back to its ‘reduced’ state to look like a piece of hard shiny metal.
When we look at the metals used in dentistry, they may be in either ‘reduced’ state (bridge or gold crown) or ‘oxidized’ state (composites or ceramics or porcelains). By the laws of chemistry and physics, these metals must be present in one state or the other or there cannot be a dental material (or any other material for that matter). There will certainly be differences between a gold crown versus ceramic versus composite versus prophy paste. However, these differences do not mean that the metals have been taken away from any of these products, but rather, they have been placed in a number of variations of either the ‘reduced’ or the ‘oxidized’ state. The metals are present in any substance you might wish to discuss.
Parties who advertise “metal-free” dental products have overlooked the fact that the materials which lack the hard, shiny metallic nature of “metals” still have those metals present, but the metals are in an ‘oxidized’ state and are combined with other components. With proper chemistry and methods, we can take any porcelain or ceramic or composite and convert the metals found therein back into the reduced hard, shiny form. They were there all along.
Thus, the question to ask when considering the desirability of restorative materials is clearly not whether they contain metals. Simply, they do. All of them. Rather, we would want to ask what state, forms and structures the metals take. Do the metals readily separate from the other chemistries present and do they take any forms which are not desirable. To simplify several hours of lectures from a chemistry class, do the metals dissociate, ionize or become bioavailable when placed into the body?
Frankly reduced metals may be very slow to oxidize or to become ionized. Gold, titanium and platinum, placed in the oral cavity, do not rapidly dissociate to an ionized form. However, silver, copper, palladium and indium may more readily oxidize, separate from a crown or bridge structure, and become attachable (bioavailable) to various organic compounds found in the tissues. Once attached or bound, these metals may take on qualities which can participate in a number of pathologies. They may become toxic in some senarios.
Oxidized metals can also be induced to separate from restorative materials under certain circumstances. They may have been placed into the restorative for purposes of pigmenting (cadmium chloride, cobalt chloride, iron oxide), or they may have been placed to facilitate fusing (silver, tin, zinc) or to give various qualities of luster, lucence and finish to things like ceramics, porcelains or composites. These forms of the metals can be as dangerous as their reduced forms can be. Arsenic, mercury and lead, whether introduced to the tissues as reduced metals or as oxidized salts, are going to be poisonous. Others may have little or no detectable effect on the patient.