NANOBACTERIUM SANGUINEUM

Dental pulp stones are tiny concretions that can be found in the dental pulp chamber, the vascularized, central portion of the tooth – the region that your endodontist drilled out when he did your root canal. Dental pulp stones are not found in the young, healthy mouth; rather their presence is associated with age and poor dental and/or periodontal health. Dental pulp stones contain a matrix of organic material, upon which is deposited calcium, in the form of carbonate apatite, the same stuff that we will find in kidney stones and calcified vascular wall plaque. Dental pulp stones are an example of pathological calcification. What causes them? Could Nanobacterium sanguineum be involved?

Ciftcioglu and her research team set out to find out. They interviewed 18 patients with advanced periodontal disease, from whom pulp stones had been extracted. She found that these patients, all of whom demonstrated pathological calcification in their mouth, also harbored pathological calcifications elsewhere in their bodies, at a frequency far greater than that of the general population. What’s more, it seemed to be a family affair; their parents had more than their fair share of stones and soft tissue calcium. Why should this be?

	Patients	Mothers	Fathers
Kidney Stones	28%	17%	33%
Urinary Sand	33%	6%	0%
Gall Stones	11%	39%	17%
Soft Tissue	6%	28%	6%

Their next step was to react the stone material with fluorescent monoclonal antibodies raised against the cell wall of N. sanguineum. As tissue N. sanguineum will always encase itself in a calcific shelter, the stones were first decalcified with HCL, as we would not expect an antibody, endogenous or experimental, to be able to get at the cell wall of a bacteria through a carbonate shell (you can’t stick your hand through concrete – first you have to crack through it, then you can reach in and grab things). All of the decalcified stones lit up with the anti-nanobacterial antibodies – thus N. sanguineum is present in dental pulp stones.

Then they examined teeth, both healthy and pulp stone containing, with light and electron microscopy. The normal teeth looked good, while the pulp stone teeth (fig. 1) contained round, calcific masses, with a size and shape similar to that of the shelters surrounding Nanobacterial colonies grown in tissue culture. Finally, a healthy tooth was incubated with lab stock N. sanguineum. One month later (fig. 2) the previously healthy tooth didn’t look so good. The now unhealthy appearing tissue contained numerous hollowed out calcospherule like structures, identical in appearance to Nanobacterial shelters grown in tissue culture or recovered from kidney stones.

Dental pulp stones thus contain N. sanguineum, and lab stock Nanobacteria seem to thrive when inoculated into teeth, and why not; Nanobacteria are calcium dependent organisms. Ciftcioglu has observed that Nanobacterial growth is enhanced when calcium is provided to their growth medium. Fig. 3 shows a “crop” of Nanobacteria, growing robustly on calcium rich dolomite.

When was the last time you went to the dentist? It’s probably been over a year, so when the hygienist cleans your teeth, it will probably feel like she is scraping off small rocks. The dentist will come in and saw something like “the plaque on your teeth has calcified”. Funny, that’s just what I say to my patients after their heart cath – “the plaque in your artery has calcified”. Ciftcioglu’s team carried out EDAX (Energy Dispersive X-Ray) analysis of dental plaque and Nanobacteria grown in tissue culture; the EDAX signatures are quite similar.

Dental research studies tell us that animals drinking from a common water supply are more likely to develop caries than are animals that drink from a non-common source. Treatment with some, but not all, antibiotics provides protection. Dental pulp stones and calcified dental plaque is caused by Nanobacterium sanguineum. Pulp stone patients and their family members are more likely than not to harbor pathological calcium elsewhere. We know that N. sanguineum crosses the placenta, and it is present in saliva. Dr. Mezo’s registry study includes heart disease patients, treated for vascular calcification with the nanobiotic NanobacTX, who noted concomitant improvement in gingivitis, dental plaque, and periodontal disease. More work needs to be done here, and many studies will spin off from this, but in the meantime, when a young man comes to the door to take out one of my three daughters, I ask him “young man, do you or anyone in your family have dental pulp stones, kidney stones, or heart disease?” If he answers affirmatively, I follow up with “well, I don’t want you kissing my daughter”. If instead he instructs me that his family history is negative for these ailments, than I say, “I still don’t want you kissing my daughter”.