The Debate Over Dental Amalgam

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Dental amalgams are a great material that provided major leaps in the world of dentistry. While being such a major advance they have also became an issue of great debate. The mercury in dental fillings has been thought to cause central nervous system complications, an overall diminished well-being in some patients, and Alzheimer. The dental field should incorporate safer filling materials for patients. In this article we will take a look at the history of the silver amalgam and view both the negative and null views of this issue.

Throughout the history of dental medicine dentist have searched for the perfect material to aid in the treatment of the most common problem in people’s mouths, cavities. The material would also be useful in fixing chipped and broken teeth. Dentist needed a material that was strong, relatively low costing, easy to apply, durable, and able to limit the growth of bacteria. In the early 19th century in France dentist found their wonder material and that material was amalgam. The dental amalgam is constructed of a mixture of mercury and at least one other metal such as zinc, copper, tin, or silver. The combinations of these metals are the foundation of what gives silver amalgams their strong make up and shiny metallic appearance.

The earliest use of amalgams in dentistry is still quite unknown to researchers but there are claims that it may have been dated as far back as 659 A.D. in China. Before the discovery of the amalgam dentist tried all types of material to help in the restoration of teeth. Stone chips, resin, cork, gum, turpentine, lead, and gold were some of the early materials that were boiled up and poured on teeth to create fillings. A dentist by the name of Louis Regnart had the brilliant idea t...

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...we have seen the negative views of this debate we will take a look at the views of null opinion on dental amalgams. As stated before over 90% of people have traditional dental amalgams that contain the toxic element mercury. Even though there could be a chance of getting serious side effects many of us have experienced none. While mercury is the main component in dental amalgams and has been linked to several illnesses there is still no solid health consensus that states it is the primary culprit. Cases of people that suffer adverse symptoms and blame them on mercury exposure could have other factors to place the true blame on.

Mercury can be found in abundance all throughout our atmosphere. We receive dosages of mercury every day from the air, foods such as fish, and water. Albeit these dosages of mercury are minute and cause little to no effects on our bodies.

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