Breast Cancer Prevention and Oral Health

Bruce Wylde (B.Sc. Hons., DHMHS) is a holistic practitioner who sees a connection between general holistic practice and health issues in general. At the outset of this video he offers comments on his overall approach to holistic care, and later he speaks specifically on the connections he sees between oral health and breast cancer.

First, he describes the origins of his interest in holistic practice, and applies his approach to the prevention of breast cancer, which he sees as largely preventable by managing conditions at the cellular level. He sees the process as one of “guiding” cells to growing properly through nutritional support, hormone control, and psychic conditions.

In the dental context, Bruce Wylde identifies that medical disciplines are compartmentalized, and that someone with a doctor and a dentist would quite likely find those two practices not communicating with each other. The doctor would assume that the dentist would manage all dental issues, and the dentist would assume that all non-dental health issues would be handled by the doctor. This division of roles however ignores the ways in which dental matters can affect overall health, and in particular the incidence of breast cancer.

Wylde sees oral hygiene as integrated with overall health in that periodontal disease resulting from poor oral hygiene can lead to levels of oral bacteria that are too high for normal response by the immune system. A stressed immune system can therefore lead to inflammation, and a resulting cytokine response. While that cytokine response is appropriate for a normal immune situation, the body’s overreaction — expressed in its cytokine response — in turn leads to elevated levels of free radicals. Those free radicals are thought to lead to DNA mutations that can cause malignancy.