pittsburgh-dentist.com

Suburban Dental

EIGHT WEEK TUNE-UP

I had heard about Dr. Page in the 70’s. I was attending an orthodontics seminar and a fellow dentist was giving a talk about trace minerals. At the end of his lecture he said, " These are some of the basics for us mortals here on earth. If you want to go to the moon then you need to see Dr. Page. I was a young dentist then eager to travel and learn as much as I could about dentistry and health so I decided to look him up.

Melvin Page, D.D.S. was in his eighties when I met him at his office in St. Petersburg, a lean man with piercing blue eyes. You got the sense that he knew a lot about you just by looking at you. As I was later to learn --- he did! Dr. Page had been practicing his method of balancing body chemistry for over 40 years and he treated over 25,000 patients. I met him at a time when he was starting to teach his technique to interested dentists and physicians.. Dr. Page’s technique was simple and ingenuous He did not treat any specific disease yet the results were beneficial and curative for many. His approach in the broadest sense was to optimize endocrine glandular balance and to make dietary changes for the patient.

When Dr. Page started his work he knew three important things: He knew that gynecologists could often determine some information about a female’s endocrine pattern from body shape. For example a double hip curve is indicative of underactive posterior pituitary function. Also, broad shoulder width relative to hip width is indicative of more male hormones relative to female hormones and vice versa. He had also observed diabetic patients in a hospital setting. He noted that on a controlled diet with insulin keeping their blood sugar values at ideal levels serum calcium and phosphorous were in a constant ratio of 2 ½ to 1. From this Page postulated that minute over function or under-function of the endocrines lead to many degenerative diseases and that treatment could be monitored by checking the calcium/phosphorous ratios. These imbalances weren’t so great as to get your picture in an endocrinology text , but small imbalances, which would nevertheless cause problems.. Page was also familiar with the work of Weston Price, D.D.S who studied the dietary habits of many primitive tribes. He noted that when these tribes deviated from their normal tribal diet and used a modern civilized diet, that many degenerative diseases showed up. With this background Page devised his program of balancing body chemistry.

An ingenious part of Page’s technique was his endocrinograph. Through a system of body measurements, Page was able to determine a person’s inherited glandular pattern. Circumferential measurements were made around the person’s arm at the wrist, ¼ of the way up, 1\2 of the way up..3\4 of the way up and at the elbow. Similarly circumferential measurements were made around the foot, 1\4 up, 1\2 up , 3\4 up and around the knee. .Each leg measurement was divided by the corresponding arm measurement to get a quotient. These quotients were then plotted to form a graph picture of the patients glandular pattern. The knee, elbow and wrist, ankle measurements are really bone measurements so they give information about the sex hormones. The 1\4 quotients give information about the thyroid, the 1\2 measurements about the posterior pituitary gland and the 3\4 measurements about the anterior pituitary gland. Page now had a graph picture of one’s inherited glandular pattern.

Patients were then put on controlled, diabetic type diets for three days and blood tests taken and the Calcium/Phosphorous ratios checked. If the value deviated from the ideal, the endocrinograph told where to supplement or take away from an overactive gland. Minute dosages of supplements were given and follow up blood tests taken to monitor an ideal calcium \phosphorous ratio. Generally 5-7 blood tests were needed to balance a patient.

The thousands of graphs which Page did enabled him to make correlations of the various inherited glandular patterns with different diseases. He concluded that it wasn’t a major glandular problem which led to certain diseases but slight glandular differences that over time lead to degenerative diseases. He concluded that a poor diet also made the problem worse. Page believed that you can do a lot by optimizing your diet but you can’t do it all. Glandular supplementation with micro amounts of hormones are required. Page also found that it is easier to add to under active glands than to take away from overactive ones. It’s my opinion that overactive glands should be treated very early. For example while cancer patients may have other genetic peculiarities that contribute to their problem, almost all of them have an overactive anterior pituitary gland. I therefore I feel that it is vital to deal with this glandular problem at an early age.

Page’s treatment involved the use of micro , almost homeopathic amounts of glandular supplements. With his technique he achieved an international reputation but probably not the recognition which he deserved during his lifetime.

Page made some other interesting observations. He believed that your ancestral diet, the ones that your ancestors ate over two hundred years ago would agree with you best. In America , however we are mostly of mixed ancestry. He `believed however that you could get some clues from eye color. For example, if you have blue, gray or green eyes your ancestors are probably from Northern and Western Europe and were probably hunters and fishermen. Hence you can eat a diet higher in meat fish and eggs, vegetables, no grain , and very few fruits. If you have dark colored eyes, your ancestors were probably farmers so you can eat a diet higher in fruits and grains.

I often encounter people who feel that you can do it all with diet or meditation or a combination of both. Page found that approximately 80% of all people at least in Western civilization require glandular supplementation!. Then you should be checked yearly with a blood test to insure that you are maintaining balance. In order to further understand this work I feel that it is necessary to read Dr. Pages books, Your Body is Your Best Doctor, and Degeneration/Regeneration. Both books are available at the Price- Pottinger Foundation.

I feel that the work of Dr. Page is the most significant for healthcare in the past 100 years for our civilization. Emanuel Cheraskin a physician and dentist who wrote the book Diet and Disease stated that Page should have received the Nobel Prize for his work. As Dr Page said, "Your body is your best doctor" and I like to quote Thomas Carlyle , "Health alone is victory".

We call the Page Method of Body Chemistry Balancing our Eight-Week Tune Up because it usually takes this long to get your body chemistry in balance. We use the tune up as a means to monitor and improve the health of the bone around your teeth and your gums. We take a complete series of x-rays and do a periodontal charting. Localized dental treatment of your teeth and gums may also be recommended. We do not diagnose nor do we treat any medical problems. However when your body chemistry is balanced not only does the bone and gum condition around your teeth improve but so also may some medical problems.