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  4. What are your thoughts on performing the MELISA test for possible titanium and zirconium metal sensitivities to help patients who are concerned about a dentist placing either titanium or zirconia implants in their jawbone? I know this is out of the scope of many practitioners, but as a periodontist who implements nutrition with periodontal treatment, this question is raised frequently.

What are your thoughts on performing the MELISA test for possible titanium and zirconium metal sensitivities to help patients who are concerned about a dentist placing either titanium or zirconia implants in their jawbone? I know this is out of the scope of many practitioners, but as a periodontist who implements nutrition with periodontal treatment, this question is raised frequently.

Chris Kresser: We have used the mercury MELISA test, and there are a few papers in the literature that support the methodology, but they were done by the same person who is offering the testing, I think. Don’t quote me on that, but when I looked a little bit into it, I couldn’t find a lot of independent replication of the methodology, and there’s not a ton of research correlating the results of those tests with clinical outcomes, as far as I could tell. Having said that, the methodology seemed sound to me when I looked at it, and it seems like a reasonable test, and when you consider with mercury, for example, how all of the things that determine how someone is reacting to mercury, the absolute amount of mercury in the body is only one of several factors to think about. You have to think about what kind of mercury it is, whether it’s organic or inorganic, because they have different effects. You have to consider the person’s ability to detoxify both organic and inorganic mercury. You have to consider their genetics and epigenetics, as I wrote about in my recent article about kids and fish consumption and mercury. You have to consider their gastrointestinal function. You have to then also consider their immunological response to mercury. If someone has only very small levels of mercury in their body, low levels, but they are reacting to it as if it’s an antigen, then even a small amount of mercury can be problematic. I think there’s probably something to that, and it’s something I also think we need some more research on, particularly correlating results with clinical outcomes.

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