Dental Amalgam contains 50% mercury and is primarily used for tooth cavity treatment about 150 years now. Amalgam was initially known as inert but researches show that the chewing pressure might have caused the release of mercury as gas that can penetrate the blodstream and can scatter around our body.
This release of mercury vapor generated a lot of concerts about its ill effects on health since this can affect the brain when a huge mount of mercury is taken in our body. This can also lead to behavior and psychological instability.
Though significant studies tell that adults are not vulnerable of neuropsychological illnesses due to this, choldren may be more affected to the plausible health risks of mercury vapor release through dental amalgam. This might be due to cummulative exposure to even small mercury amount.
In 1994, Sweden announced the ban of amalgam as dental filling material. It was totally implemented on 1995 (for children) and on 1997 (for adults). Even if the ban didn’t take into effect in a single beat, it is said that only few believed that it doesn’t do any harm in their health. Some of the states in the US and countries followed the banning in Sweden.
The events that happened in Sweden is no less dramatic than what was experienced in Germany. In 1987, only a warning was sent in prevention or avoding of amalgam usage as dental fillings.While on 1993, Degussa AG (largest dental amalgam producer in Germany) announced their stoppage in production of amalgam.
Mercury poisoning may cause hair loss. Dental amalgam has been blamed for early hair loss in both men and women.
According to the article the mercury gets processed from solid to vapor over time. Once this is inhaled, a lot of health problems will occur: one of them is hair loss.
If you feel that the culprit is the dental amalgam, please have it checked by a dentist. Another way to check is to undergo a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, wherein minerals in the hair is examined. Besides mercury poisoning, this test can also check for other signs of diseases.
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Mercury from excess dental amalgams are seeping into the water supply, destroying the environment. The EPA reports that amalgam fillings are responsible for a gigantic 7.4 tons of mercury releases into water supply. Unfortunately sewage plants are unable to filter out the toxin and it goes straight into a local body of water.Â
The dental community can remove the mercury by using an amalgam separator. It’s proven that it removes 96 to 99 percent of excess mercury in an amalgam. Another thing the dentists can do is recycle the dental amalgam.
As a patient, you can request for non-mercury fillings from your dentist. It may not be as a great as the usual fillings, but at least you’ll be saving the environment.
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When dentists are questioned about amalgam restoration in recent survey, 66% told their patients that they have other cosmetic dentistry options. 22% on the other hand, tell their patients on safer and better options but many of them doesn’t use amalgams at all. In contrary though, dentists prefer filling in amalgams. As conducted in the survey, dentists also call amalgam restorations as silver fillings though there are many other terms that they can use for it.
This just proves that a number of dentists still think that mercury fillings are absolutely safe. One thing about amalgam that makes it pretty much anomalous is that it is seen as an old-fashioned material used in dental fillings.
The American Dental Association (ADA) urges its members to read and implement the new ADA Education Material. This brochure includes some points regarding dental amalgam. It says that, “the Centers Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the ADA, have found no scientific evidence that casts any doubt on the safety of dental amalgam.â€
It also identifies the pros and cons of using dental amalgams. The pros being that it’s the most durable and strongest direct restoration today. The cons is that it usually darkens after a time thus not making it obvious someone had a dental amalgam.
To see the brochure please click hereÂ
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As was mentioned in the last post, dental amalgam has its pros and cons. The cons is a controversial one at best.
Mercury is a toxic substance. A lot of people have been wondering why such a poisonous substance be placed inside one’s mouth. There have been a lot of critics against the usage of mercury because according to them it causes quire a lot of health problems like the ones listed below:
- Hair loss
- Gum disease
- Migranes
- Poor memory
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Mental lethargy
- Chronic fatigue
- Eczema
- Asthma
- Arthritis
- Backaches
- Kidney Diseases
- Etc.
It seems that it’s all traced to the mercury content. The American dental association thinks its safe still.Various states in the U.S. are already thinking about banning its use.
We’ll update you on news regarding this debate soon.
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Norway has issued its stand towards the dental amalgam controversy by deciding that Mercury should be kept away from one’s mouth and, therefore, banning dental amalgams all over the country. Norway has advised its dentists to find and use safer alternatives for dental reconstruction. The country has also banned all measuring equipment which utilizes mercury.
Efforts to decrease both human and environmental exposure to mercury poisoning and contamination were done by European countries through proposed restrictions and policies on the use of dental amalgam fillings. However, there are still no credible scientific proofs that mercury exposure from dental amalgam fillings cause serious human diseases in a community.
The effects of mercury poisoning and contamination have alarmed environmentalist on how mercury from excess dental amalgams can reach water supplies and, therefore, destroy the environment. They say that sewage plants cannot filter out the toxin from amalgam fillings which have directly contaminated a local body of water, resulting in disturbing effects on the community water supplies.