I wrote about root canals in the April 2016 edition of Natural Way to Health. After that issue, I received a few letters from dentists defending the practice.

One dentist told me to leave dentistry to dentists.

I could leave my thoughts on dentistry to dentists if the health of teeth had no impact on the rest of the body. But the teeth and oral cavity are intimately connected to the rest of the body, just like all the other organs and tissues.

I’m not picking on dentists (well, maybe a little bit).

Dentistry’s focus on the oral cavity as if it were an island within the body is similar to the way specialists in conventional medicine practice. Cardiologists are concerned with the heart; gastroenterologists with the gut.

But all doctors should be concerned with how different parts of the body are interrelated — because a problem in one area will affect the entire body in some manner.