Adam Torres and Ben Javid DDS discuss biological dentistry.
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Show Notes:
What is the difference between a regular dentist and a biological dentist? In this episode, Adam Torres and Ben Javid DDS, Co-founder of Smilebody (Holistic Dental + Medical Wellbeing), explore Smilebody and biological dentistry.
About Ben Javid DDS
Dr Ben completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Physiological Science. His passion for the sciences coupled with a love for drawing and painting, was a perfect base for a successful career in cosmetic dentistry.
He continued his education at the University of Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry (UOP) in San Francisco. This is the only three-year dental school (usually four) in all of North America. He graduated from UOP with honors, a love for cosmetic dentistry, and a thirst to learn more.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Dr. Ben Javid, and he is the co founder over at SmileBody.
Dr. Ben, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Adam. It’s wonderful to be on the show. Alright, so I understand, correct me if I’m wrong, I think it’s a, it’s a brother team, right? You’re Dr. Ben and then the other one is Dr. Sean, did I get that right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We’re a brother team. We’ve been doing it together for together for over 20 years.
Wow. All right. So , I gotta start off with this one. I don’t have any brothers, so I’m just curious. What’s it like working with your brother, man? You’ve been doing it for over 20 years, so I know it’s gotta be working out. You know what it is? Any partnership. There are challenges, you know, just like marriage or anything else, you have to, you have to communicate, you got to work together, you got to compromise.
And, but obviously when you’re, you know, working, having a good relationship with your brother, he’s also like my best friend. We’re very close. You know, there’s that trust factor and you know, I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be able to work with my brother and, and be partners and, work on our dreams and passions together.
It’s a blessing. Yeah, what a blessing. I had a feeling you’d say that. That’s why I asked. So shout out to the other half of the team. That’s amazing. Well, first off, I we’re going to definitely get into smile body. So, I’m excited to talk about that. And then also some of the differences.
So, I want some education for me and for our audience, of course between maybe what’s the difference between a biological dentist and a regular dentist. And I mean, just, you know, to get into what you’re doing over at SmileBody overall. But first I understand Dr. Kate which I’m very grateful for who she’s always supporting the show in Mission Matters, referred you over to the show.
I know there’s a Biohack Your Beauty event this Thursday the 19th over in Glendale, and you’re gonna be doing a keynote there. So maybe, maybe just start talking to me a little bit about the event and, and the keynote. Well, Dr. Kate’s a friend and she is obviously in the wellness World and in putting together.
There’s a second biohacking event. And, you know, our paths crossed actually had our last event where I was involved. I was on a panel on her last event, and we hit it off. She became a patient and we just she asked me to do this event. And what happens is, you know, her goal is to get, you know, leading practitioners out there to inform.
Her audience or people about technologies and treatments for health and well being and biohacking. And of course she centers it around beauty, but really a lot of these it’s, it’s just real wellness and beauty, obviously, if you’re healthy and well from, from inside out, that’s where you really are beautiful as opposed to just, you know you It’s old fashioned, just do some plastic surgery , and look beautiful that way, but inside you’re toxic and unhealthy, you know, , it’s more of a, that’s more of a superficial beauty, but when you’re, you know, really healthy from inside out, then you know, it’s a whole nother ballgame.
Yeah, well, , it’s, it’s real wellness. It’s real health and wellness and that, you know, that makes a big difference. Yeah, very well said. Dr. Ben, I want to go a little bit further back into your career for a bit here. Like, , what led you to go into, into dentistry and what led you kind of on this path?
Like, where’d that start for you? Well, you know, the brother relationship is what got me started in this path because he’s, he’s 7 years older. He went, he went to dental school. I wanted to originally be a medical doctor. And he said, you know, you’d be really good at dentistry because I like to draw and paint and had the artistic side and he said, you know, you’d be good with your hands and I think you’d really love it took a marriage between the medical and and and that artistic side that you have.
So. I started out you know diving into the world of cosmetic dentistry actually when I first graduated from dental school and because of the artistic side. So I was we were both, Sean and I were pretty big in cosmetic dentistry, but at the same time, we’re very big in personal development and we started working really about health and wellness and, and fitness spiritual, mental, all kinds of health and wellness.
We over the past, you know, 20 years and that kind of pushed us in this direction because I guess , I’m jumping the gun into what biological dentistry is because it’s an evolution. It’s a growth It’s a lifestyle living where health and wellness is part of who you are and then that spills over into your practice.
And that’s the difference between biological dentistry too, is because when you’re looking at the whole body health, not just like fixing teeth as far as cavities goes and making them functional and getting people out of pain. And I can get into that further as far as what is biological dentistry. No, that’s it.
I think that that’s a great transition. Actually, I want to go further because when I think about dentistry or the way it was kind of like my, my upbringing of it, like, I didn’t really in retrospect now, many, many years later, I mean, I’m starting to understand more about it to make the connection between the, you know, The healthiness of your mouth and just what you’re in taking and everything and how it all works in your system.
So I’m learning this as I get older. But in the beginning, like I was, you know, dentistry, I didn’t, I didn’t really quite understand. So where does this concept like of biological dentistry, like where did that come from? Like, where does that come from? Well, it started by probably. really far back would probably be the original researchers behind what looking at root cause of problems, you know, the and looking for What they have you ever heard about Weston a price?
He’s probably the original father and density. was a dentist and a researcher and he tried to figure out why People are having so much cavities , and teeth problems where the endogenous people that were never exposed to the westernized lifestyle have perfect teeth, have straight teeth, have strong teeth, and they have poor hygiene.
You know, as far as we consider hygiene. So he started going throughout the world on a boat, you know, at the time in the ship and kind of, and he started doing research in the indigenous cultures that were never exposed to Westernized culture. , and he found that you know, it really. Your diet is the biggest factor of, of oral health, and your oral health has a huge impact on your systemic health.
So that was the start of it, of biological dentistry, and it’s, and it’s catapulted from there to where we are now, and I feel like still it’s at the baby stages even now, even after, you know, almost maybe a century from then. And You know, because we’re realizing more and more how much , your mouth affects your systemic health and to talk about what is biological dentistry, we are looking at.
That connection, the connection between the mouth and the body. I mean, now, you know, obviously the oral microbiome and the gut microbiome and how they’re related and how they affect your systemic health. There, there, if you’ve ever heard of meridians of how every tooth is connected to a certain organ systems, and even like you might have a tooth infection and it might be causing a actual.
organ issue, like a heart issue or even breast cancer. And so we’re conscious of this now because scientifically we can prove it. But so that connection is really important in biological dentistry. The toxins, as far as what treatments we’re doing, your diet, and what you’re putting in your body.
In dentistry, there’s a lot of materials. that are used that are toxic, like metals for example, or treatments like now in biological dentistry, we really avoid root canals root canals are very often get infected and people, patients don’t know, and the only way to really find these infections is with some new current technology called comb BMCT scans.
And we find these infections routinely as part of our process for when we do exams as opposed to just doing the regular two dimensional x rays. , and our goal is to, you know, find a root cause of issues, not just you know, address symptoms with medications, which has become the, you know, the mainstream system of medicine is that, you know, either do surgery prescriptions to help patients.
Our goal is to get to root cause. So biological dentistry is focused on nutrition. Addressing toxic load on the body that could be causing other systemic health issues. , and really the you know, that connection between the mouth and the body and how it all connects to each other.
Hmm. Can you, I want you to, like, if you can juxtapose that, like, so what you just described versus like traditional dentistry, just to kind of solidify that in people’s head, because I like to make that separation. Mm hmm. Yeah, I can give you specific examples. Like, for example, you know a very common problem is people get, have grinding.
People grind their teeth and if you or someone you know have grind your teeth the dentist probably gave you a night guard to wear. A night guard is just like a plastic appliance you put on your teeth and it does an important job of protecting your teeth from rubbing on each other and keeps them from chipping and breaking.
So superficially, it did a job. But you know, as a biological dentist, I want to look deeper and try to figure out, well, why are you grinding in the first place? if you look at current research there’s a huge link between grinding your teeth and obstructive sleep apnea. So in our office, if we see a patient that grinds your teeth, we recommend a sleep study. We looked a little deeper. Never heard that one before. Yeah. Like when you say like a difference, like I don’t, I mean, I’ve been told, I think I’ve, I’ve heard many people say, Oh, do you wear a night guard if you, if something happened or whatever, and somebody who’s grinding, but I’ve never heard somebody say, you need a sleep study.
Because we’re looking deeper and I’m you know, years ago I got my diplomat in sleep medicine also, so we treat a lot of sleep apnea. So I’m conscious of airway and sleep apnea and the health issues that are directly linked to it, which are profound, you know, profound health issues are directly linked to it.
So the chips or broken teeth, however horrible that is, we don’t want chips or broken teeth, but The health issues that are related to the obstructive sleep apnea are diabetes, stroke, heart disease. I mean, you have an increased chance of a heart attack by 23 times when you have obstructive sleep apnea.
You know, when we see this red flag that is grinding, instead of just giving you a plastic appliance, we will look deeper. This is, this is an example of, of, of how biological dentists would be different. When you, let’s say you have some bleeding gums. You know, your dentist or hygienist might tell you, you should be brushing or flossing more.
But, yes, hygiene is important. But as I mentioned in the Weston A. Price model, your nutrition is more important than your hygiene. Because guess what, those endogenous people, That had have, you know, much better nutrition because they’re not having to process foods, the gluten, the wheat, the sugar and alcohol and of course, the seed oils, which is a big thing of our that’s affecting our health right now, those, those endogenous people are not having any cavities and they have no oral hygiene.
They don’t have toothpaste and mouthwash and you don’t really. brushing their teeth properly either, but they have no teeth problems. You have to dig deeper and look at the nutrition. So I’d rather my patients do have great nutrition, have a great oral microbiome balance that comes with good nutrition.
And they’re going to have rock hard teeth without even flossing, you know, or anything, but obviously I’m a big fan of good hygiene of brushing. Of course. Yeah. And don’t do it. It doesn’t mean going backwards. It just means adding, right? Yes. So yeah, nutrition is first, you know, that’s because again, you’re getting healthy from within.
Then you have a good balance of, of when your oral microbiome and your gut microbiome, which then will produce much better results in the mouth. Yeah. And in your every other level of health as well. That makes so much sense. And when you say it that way, that to me, that does sound like a little bit of a different conversation than any that I’ve ever had with a dentist, just in general.
And I love my dentist, by the way, but I just, I just have never had that. There’s a traditional dentist, like, for sure. Like, I’ve never even heard some of the other things that you’re talking about. And I can give you more examples than that. I mean, there’s a lot of examples where you can dig deeper. It’s the same is true for kids in ADD ADHD.
I mean, ADD ADHD is highly linked to airway issues for kids. Sleep apnea, obstructive airways. And a lot of times, these kids are just medicated. And with, and they really should be checking their airways and check to see if there is obstruction from adenoids and tonsils, and they’re not doing that. It’s not a commonplace common thing to do.
So, again, these are things that as a biological dentist, especially trained in sleep and airway, , we look at again, to see what is the root cause. So this is, this is really more of what we’re all about. And again, it’s a lifestyle. It’s not just like, something you learn at a weekend course, you know, or, a week long course.
Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, it’s gotta be in the culture of your practice. And so is that, and so , talk a little bit more about SmileBody just as a whole. Cause I know it’s at least from my understanding of how it’s marketed, it’s holistic dental, right? And medical. Yes. So, so exactly. So this principle that we just talked about is how we’ve been practicing for many years now.
And. Yeah. What we realize is that, again, we have to bring together this thought pattern of bringing medical well being and dental well being under one roof so that doctors are communicating with each other more. Now, for example you might know Dr. Pompa. He’s a speaker in the he addresses cellular detox and his first for patients that have major health issues, a lot of health issues that they can’t solve.
And his first step in the process of getting a cellular detox is see a biological dentist and check for sources of toxicity in your mouth that you’re, that are being missed. Because these sources of toxicity. are a lot of times causing these health issues. Now, having that in mind, if we collaborate, if medical doctors and the medical side collaborate more with their dental team and other, , other aspects of your oral health, they look at all these other aspects, you achieve much better results with your patients.
Now, that’s why Dr. Pompa, we work, with them regularly. He refers patients to us and we, We evaluated his patients for oral health toxicities from, you know, infected root valves and something else called cavitations or heavy metal toxicity, metals coming from their mouth. Now, having that in mind, we realized from years ago that, you know what, we all have to collaborate more.
So the term smile body refers to bringing in the mouth and the body and treating both in one facility. So it’s based on holistic dentistry and medical well being treatments under one facility. So, and bringing in technologies that are more up to date, like I mentioned the cone beam CT scan for evaluating root canals or checking for these sorts of toxicities in the mouth.
This is cutting edge technology that it’s a lot of times not used in the mainstream dentistry. And other technologies with lasers and , other things that are used in biological dentistry. But we’re marrying that into overall health and wellness technologies like IV therapy hyperbaric therapy, red light therapy and you know, photobiomodulation.
These, these are cutting edge technologies that can optimize your health. And so for us, we’re bringing that all under one roof with the MD medical director, nurses, naturopaths, all under one roof, so we can all work together. , and we feel that this is the path forward for not just for oral health, but medical care as a whole.
So this is our new model that we kind of created that we call SmileBody because we’re bringing all that together in one facility. So this is the, this is the facility that we have now and we call it SmileBody. Wow. And this took years to build, right? Like this, I’m just thinking about like out loud, like this ecosystem that you’ve built.
I know you’ve been practicing for, you know, a couple of, for decades now, I believe. And so now, ,, you’re expanding your, I think you have another, another Another location coming up right in November as well, like as well, like, you’re like, talk to me about just like, how this concept, because originally, I don’t know, like, when you started in dentistry, you couldn’t have started at this concept.
It had to build over time. Or am I off? Or am I off? Yeah, absolutely right. Because the vision that what you’re saying is big, like that’s outside of the normal model, in my opinion, like that many different individuals are that different things under the roof. So talk to talk to me about how that vision got executed, man.
It’s highly. We research this a lot throughout the whole world. It’s really not being done. And I feel like it’s the right way to go for, for healthcare. I mean, if you think about it, there should be just, you know, it all, all doctors should be collaborating more, you know, talking about, but anyway, so it didn’t just happen.
I started out like as a cosmetic dentist involved in four surgeries and doing implant dentistry. And then because of my personal views I gravitated to this side of dentistry I gravitated to before I even realized there was such a thing. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
It probably snuck up on you just a little bit, huh? Because you keep researching in that direction and that direction. And then I started seeing there’s academies for this kind of perspective. And we started going. And for academies and so on so forth, but there is no academy that for what we’re, what we’re talking about as far as building this kind of facility that has not been done before.
There’s academies for biological dentistry, but now we realize we want to build something special. And we built this clinic, , which is actually we didn’t build a second clinic. We built a new clinic and moved into it. This is a 7, 000 square foot. Facility that’s bringing in these biohacking treatments that I mentioned, like hyperbaric and red light therapy and so on and so forth and, different kinds of IV and photobody modulation and ozone treatments and all these kinds of treatments that are with health treatments and vitality and longevity treatments, because we realize that if we bring it all together, we’re going to get better oral health.
If we improve the oral health, we’re going to improve longevity and vitality and overall health. So, because they’re so highly, highly interconnected, we felt like, you know, we have to do this. And after, you know, Sean’s been practicing for you know, almost 30 years now, and my brother and I, for me that’s almost 24 years.
And at this point, you know, we loved doing our practice as it is. But we realized a need to actually create this. We realized that this is something that should be done. It’s not just like it would be nice, and we felt like this, we’re drawn to it. . It’s been a mission to create such this thing.
And I have to tell you, it’s almost like a spiritual experience creating this thing because it’s been a momentum carrying us in this direction that’s bigger than us. I get that by the way. That’s why I asked the follow up question because I was like, this is bigger than, you know what I mean? It is spiritual.
I feel it. I mean, that’s what it feels like. We didn’t know it going in. It was kind of like a dream, but as we kept going, all these wonderful people coming into our space. Yeah. Was like it was just meant to be and that’s what it feels like and we feel very blessed to be able to have this opportunity to actually create this and we built this facility and it’s we’re now in the new facility and adding in all the some of the final pieces right now and in fact, we’re going to have a official grand opening November 2nd and it’s going to be Not a regular ribbon cutting battle, but it’s going to be a wellness conference where we’re going to have speakers like Dr.
Pampa and some other people that are in the wellness field. Kate’s going to be involved Dr. Kate and also Ben Azadi and some of the, one of the, some of the leaders in the field of wellness. Are going to be speaking and talking about the technologies that we can now use in this kind of facility like this one.
That’s going to be an example of what is possible. So it’s going to be an amazing event. I’m really excited about. Because a lot of work has gone into creating this whole, this facility, creating a new experience. Not just a facility, but a new experience for patients as they go through this.
Well, dang Ben, Dr. Ben, I feel like the only thing that’s missing there is like, you know, the most important part. Where’s my podcasting room? My studio? No, I’m just playing. Actually, we need a podcasting room for you, buddy.
I’m not even kidding. We have a media room we set up too for doing podcasts. Oh, there we go. There we go. So then I, I’m remiss and I take it back. It’s missing nothing. Nevermind. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta join us for a podcast in the studio, in the actual facility. Oh, I’m, I’m so in. That’s amazing. And that, that’s great.
I love it. I love it. I was not expecting you to say that. So that just, that made my day. See, see, for everybody that’s listening, even the, your dentist’s office needs a podcast studio. Obviously I’m a big proponent of podcasting. Well, we feel that the, the right now podcast is the leading edge way of getting information to people from the horse’s mouth without having to filter it.
So, you know, , we feel that, you know, , , we’re doing podcasts here and there now a lot. And ultimately, you know, that’s the way to get this kind of information out to people. So that’s why that’s the right. I love it. It’s amazing. It’s great. Well, this is just a great story overall and I, and I can 100 percent see why Dr.
K introduce you to us because you’re, you’re the real deal and you’re doing something different and interesting. And I’m, I’m definitely happy to bring this to my audience. That being said, Dr. Ben, if somebody wants to. To learn more about smile body any of the listeners or connect, how do they reach out to your team or get more info?
Well our social media platforms were on all the platforms, Instagram and YouTube and Facebook and all those it’s my small body. So it’s at my smile body. So look for us there. Of course, our website is mysmilebody. com and of course, you can call us, the old fashioned way of just calling us you can give us a call, it’s we’re, we’re right here local in L.
And I can give the number out at 661 222 2242. So a lot of twos and, , but yeah, you can follow us and see really what we have to say. We put a lot of videos out on our social media platforms, educating patients on all these topics. So and we’re proud to do that. Amazing. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put the links , to the social media and the website, all that good stuff in the show notes.
So you can just click on them and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t hit the subscribe or the follow button yet, I welcome you to do so. This is a daily show and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration.
inspiration that can help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Dr. Ben, look forward to seeing you on Thursday. I will definitely be at the Biohack Your Beauty event and I’m looking forward to your keynote. So thanks again for coming on. All right, my friend.
Looking forward to you then. Thank you for having me on.