Wellness Dentistry: Oral Health for Longevity with Dr. Katie To

18. The Dental-Nutrition Connection: Vitamin C, Magnesium & Longevity with Dr. Thomas Levy

• Dr. Katie To, Biological Dentist, The Wellness Dentist • Episode 18

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0:00 | 30:01

Most of us were taught that healing happens at the chair. Get the procedure, go home, recover. But if you've ever had a patient who did everything right and still didn't heal the way you expected, you already know there's more to the story. This conversation with Dr. Thomas Levy changed the way I think about what's actually happening beneath the surface, and why our patients need more than dentistry to truly get well.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why liposomal vitamin C can match or even outperform IV vitamin C in clinical impact, and why that matters enormously for dental patients who can't access IV therapy.
  • How magnesium deficiency is at the root of nearly every chronic disease pattern we see, including atrial fibrillation, migraines, seizures, and uncontrolled oxidative stress inside the cell.
  • Why not all magnesium supplements are the same, which forms to prioritize and why even the most affordable options still move the needle.
  • The surprising connection between GLP-1 and intracellular vitamin C that Dr. Levy is calling one of the most significant supplemental discoveries of his career.
  • How to build a simple foundational protocol around vitamin C, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin K that supports healing before and after dental procedures.

About Dr. Thomas Levy: Dr. Thomas Levy is a board-certified cardiologist and attorney who has spent over three decades at the intersection of nutrition science, biological medicine, and integrative health. He is the author of 14 books, including the landmark Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins: Curing the Incurable. His work with liposomal vitamin C through Live On Labs has made high-dose vitamin C therapy accessible to patients and practitioners around the world.

Resources Mentioned: Curing the Incurable by Dr. Thomas Levy, Magnesium: Reversing Disease by Dr. Thomas Levy, Live On Labs liposomal vitamin C and magnesium threonate.

Connect With Dr. Thomas Levy: TomLevyMD.com 📱@drthomaslevy

Connect With Dr. Katie To:  thewellnessdentist.com 📱 @drkatieto 

Subscribe and Leave a Review: If this conversation opened something up for you, I'd love for you to subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner.  Before using any products mentioned or attempting methods discussed, please speak with a licensed healthcare provider.  This podcast disclaims responsibility from any possible adverse reactions associated with products or methods discussed.    Opinions from guests are their own, and this podcast does not condone or endorse opinions made by guests.  We do not provide guarantees about the guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Wellness Dentist Podcast. Join biological and cosmetic dentist Dr. Katie Toe as she explores holistic wellness through trending ideas, real stories, and patient experiences. This podcast will inspire you to make healthy lifestyle choices and take charge of your dental wellness. And now your host, the wellness dentist, Dr. Katie Toe.

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Wellness Dentist Podcast. I'm Dr. Katie Toe, and today we have a very special guest. Not only that I've been learning, reading his book, learning from his teaching for years, but I'm personally taking his teaching in our daily life, taking liposomal vitamin C, magnesium, and really helping our patient heal so much faster and better. And introduce to you Dr. Thomas Levy. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_02

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. And I know that you just finished your presentations at the IBDM and the full rooms learning so much about healing protocols and how to optimize this for our patient. Because we know with just the procedure alone, it is not enough to get the person to heal and build bones and feel uh better.

Serendipity Meets IV Vitamin C

SPEAKER_03

How did you start as a cardiologist? How do you connect with biological dentistry to begin with?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, fate and serendipity, I suppose. It was wow. A little over 30 years now. Back in Colorado Springs in the early 1990s. I was, shall we say, a traditional cardiologist. Um reasonably satisfied with my profession, what I was doing, feeling like I was helping patients. Uh but I gotta say, you know, they have the old expression when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I actually spent some afternoons in my office when I didn't have patients saying, you know, what you're doing is okay, but it's not what you want to do for the rest of your life. But I had no idea beyond that what that might mean. And within a few months of that, I met Dr. Huggins at something called an extraordinary science conference, which is about Tesla and alternative forms of energy. We were, I guess, always a bit of mavericks in every part of our lives. And we struck up a friendship, and he said, come by the clinic sometime. And he had a massive clinic in Colorado Springs, and I think something like 55 or 60 employees, and he had patients coming in from around the world, and they come for a two-week stay where they would get what we came to call a total dental revision, which all the things that are involved there, uh good counseling on diet, and an appropriate uh array of supplements. And I still remember uh he he invited me to come over one afternoon, and I saw this little old lady with some neurological condition and in a wheelchair and pretty decrepit looking, pretty unhealthy looking. And she was getting just hours of dental work, all right. And then I poke in and out, and I noticed as the time went on, rather than look miserable, she was getting more and more and more animated, more and more. And by the time all the dental work was done, she was talking to her caregiver and saying, I want you to find me a good restaurant in Colorado Springs, and I'ma eat a good steak on the other side of my mouth. And about that time, Hal walked into the operatory, and I said, Hal, I might have said Dr. Huggis at that time. And I said, What's going on here? And he pointed at the IV. I said, Okay. I've seen lots of IVs by day. Uh tell me what's in it. And he said, 50 grams of vitamin C, five, 50,000 milligrams of vitamin C. And I think, as the British like to say, I was gobsmacked. And I said, What? And of course, I was like every other lay person, and many doctors still at this time that said, Oh, vitamin C, that's good for you, sure, blah, blah, blah. But I saw what was happening, and I saw something that certainly had never seen used as a therapeutic agent. Okay, you know, yeah, vitamins are good for you. Take a vitamin. And literally, and I think this comes from German, Augenblick, and like the blink of an eye, my life changed. Because uh I can't speak to how other people react, but when I see something and I witness it personally and it's overwhelming, my reflex is not to deny it, but to embrace it.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, amen.

SPEAKER_01

And so that at that point in time literally began my four-year odyssey of uh researching several thousand articles on vitamin C and compiling all the information from my book, Vitamin C Infectious Diseases and Toxins, Curing the Incurable.

Law School Liposomes And A New Path

SPEAKER_01

And shortly thereafter, you know, Hal said, you know, why don't you come work with me? And I mean, quite honestly, I dropped cardiology like a hot potato and began working with him, doing medical consultations and also doing follow-up consultations, people after they came out. And along the lines, I also saw how miserable so many people are, miserable at the way they act. And the continual stream of legal BS that Dr. Huggins was going through, he actually had on retainer a lawyer in Colorado Springs that he paid about $50,000, $15,000 to just every month just to keep things going. And somewhere along the line, I said, This is BS, but what you gonna do about it? And he was paying me well. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I just got this crazy inspiration to go to law school. And so I took the LSAT, got in the University of Denver School of Law, and did what I call the 90,000 mile, $90,000 program because you're commuting to Denver for three years. And in any way, haven't really used the law license, except for the fact that it's definitely changed the way I think about things, the way I approach things. And there are a few, a few little potential board actions that I think were thwarted because of my legal background. And then since then, shortly thereafter, uh, I became aware of and affiliated with Live On Labs and liposome encapsulated vitamin C. And that was amazing in and of itself because I was a bit of the arrogant doctor that I hate now. All right. Yeah. And they say, Hey, look, you gotta try our product. And I said, Oh, okay, send me some. And I sort of got some and just tossed it in the closet. But I had closed my at that time at that time my clinic in Colorado Springs, so I couldn't get IV vitamin C anymore on the blink of an eye, and I got the flu. And I felt horrible. And I'd already taken so much regular vitamin C, the diarrhea was nonstop. And I remembered one thing and one thing only, because I didn't know anything about a liposoap. They said it doesn't have a bowel effect. You get all of it. I said, Wow, okay, well, I could take more and not aggravate this further. And I took five packets, five grams, and in half an hour, 45 minutes, I felt better than I'd ever felt after a 50 gram IV. So I said, I think, Dr. Idiot, you need to research a liposome, figure out what's going on. And that was very significant because that allowed the next basically 20 years of my life uh to be supported by Live On Labs and not have to have a clinical practice. I mean, I've written 14 books now. I don't think I could have written one uh if I'd had a you know 50-hour a week practice and then many hours in the hospital. If you can, you gotta have time for that. You gotta have energy for that. I mean, even if you could carve out two or three hours in the evening, your mind is down to a frazzle by the time you've gone through a day. So that brought me up to now, and uh it's just been a continuing, pretty exciting journey. Uh COVID brought around a lot of misery, but it brought around around a lot of realization as to how evil our medical structure is in so many ways. Uh, but it's also made a lot more people aware of things. So that's the real silver lining in COVID. Nothing can justify what they did or what was done. But now more people than ever know before that just picking the doctor out of the phone book or picking a dentist out of the phone book and going there and expecting that your best health and dental wishes are going to be taken care of, now realize not really, not likely.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so that's where we stand today.

Why Dentistry Needs Healing Protocols

SPEAKER_03

Do you believe it's a quiet journey? Because your journey as a cardiologist, then you met Dr. Hal Hutkins and you went to law school, then you work and research and wrote so many books and really bring the live-on-laugh liposomal vitamin C to the biological dentist. And now we have a tool because as a practicing dentist in the state of Texas, I cannot at, you know, prescribe or giving my patient vitamin C in the chair, especially high dose. And so we really appreciate that tool because we'd be able to support the patient. And of course, we work with the medical doctor to support them, but the accessibility and how that you don't have to worry about any issues with the needles and you know the expenses. Yes, it is a barrier, right? And so that is a huge win for the biological dentist. And and you aware, we actually build that in as our protocols and recommendations for our patient. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Ironically enough, then it is sort of ironic, but taking the proper amount of the live on liposomal orally gives you at least as good and in many cases a better clinical impact than the IV. Yeah. At one point in time, it never became official, but we sort of semi-marketed it as IV in a box.

SPEAKER_03

IV in a box, yeah. But you know, I I learned from my functional uh doctor who doing high-dose vitamin C IV for patients that people don't know the source of the vitamin C where they come from. They think all the IVs are the same. And we know that's not true. Yeah. And so can you share with our listeners and audience there's different types of vitamin C that it can get from?

Vitamin C Sources And Purity Myths

SPEAKER_03

Um and why do you don't want just any vitamin C? You want a good source?

SPEAKER_01

Well, vitamin C could be derived from different things, beets, uh, that's right. And uh corn.

SPEAKER_03

Corn, yes.

SPEAKER_01

And uh cassava, cassava, okay. And it can also be synthesized. All right. And that sometimes really puts people off, but let me tell you, if you synthesize something and you purify it, a vitamin C molecule is a vitamin C molecule, is a vitamin C molecule. I mean, and the other thing is now some people, you know, claim they're sensitive to the source of where it comes from. Well, that has to do with two things. One, of course, is purification process. But I'll tell you this uh, with the rarest, rarest, rarest of exceptions. I mean, like at the Reardon Clinic where they've done 200,000 infusions over the last 35 years or so, um they really haven't run across to any significant degree people having sensitivities. I'm not sure. I think there might be other things that some practitioners put in the IV, and then the vitamin C ends up getting the blame. Okay. However, be that as it may, even if you have an IV of vitamin C, that uh you might have some concerns, oh, it might have this contaminant, it might have that contaminant, or trace amounts of this toxin or that toxin, you gotta remember you've got a massive amount of the substance that's most ideal to deal with any toxin. So there's there's really, unless you just have some sort of exquisite sensitivity that you're not sharing with everybody else, it's perfectly fine. And I gotta add this too. I mean, I'm a great IV fan of vitamin C. And when I talk about liposomes and being in some cases comparatively better than IV, that doesn't mean I'm not for IV. I mean, I as I like to say, if I get sick, I want both. Because different forms of vitamin C go different areas, have access to different areas, and have different impacts. So uh uh IV vitamin C, you can get really high doses that can have a quick positive cancer or pathogen-filling killing effect that you won't get as rapidly with liposomes, although you eventually get it with liposomes. And so there's all sorts of considerations the clinician can go through. But it's good for a clinician or patient to have both of them in their armamentarium.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I I know some patients would love to have a port and half vitamin C daily, but I can tell you the liposomal is so much easier when you travel. Sure. I do not travel without it because I know I can just make sure that my immune system is supporting. You're flying, you live in a you sip in a hotel, you meet so many people, but that's a daily immune

Travel Immune Habits And Vaccine Claims

SPEAKER_03

practice, right? You just help you to increase your immune system.

SPEAKER_01

And another important thing, because there's so many people now, understandably, frustrated about vaccinations. I mean, I said in the lecture, and I'll say it again. I, in my personal scientific opinion evaluation, don't think there's a justification for any vaccine, any condition, any time, any person, any time in their life, because it introduces toxins that sometimes have catastrophic effects. And is in my opinion, uh, childhood vaccinations are the primary, primary, overwhelming cause of autism. Forget all the rationalization they're trying to go through. But uh the liposome vitamin C has offered anybody that's listening to this, a mother with little children, and sometimes, and this is really horrible, but it happens, parents are practically, not practically, they're coerced into vaccinations. They're gonna lose their jobs or they're gonna lose the insurance, any sort of a number of things. And even though they don't want to, they will. Well, it's so easy to protect again. Just as we've talked about uh with uh different dental procedures that protect it against them, uh a mother can get a single box of it, 30 packets, and the nice thing too is you can't overdose all it. So people, oh, a little child, what have I, two packets? No, no, and like you're and if you even have an infant, okay, uh you squeeze half a packet and and and uh and put it in a little milk or something like that. There are ways to do that, or in a little bit of yogurt. Point being is just getting the smaller, the less you need, obviously, but a little tiny baby, one packet uh a couple of days before, the day of before and after, and several days more, and you've got virtually absolute protection against a potential horrible side effect. And they got many. Most people don't even realize how many side effects are out of vaccinations, but you can protect all that. And if you're still a vaccine believer, then guess what? It actually augments whatever immune response that the antigen, toxic antigen, is supposed to induce. But it's it's uh it's a it's and it's nice and practical. I mean, people for, oh, I can't get an IV or this, don't need to get an IV. Just get this, and your baby or your little child's gonna do fine.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it goes for the adults too.

SPEAKER_03

Some adult that's no, they would pass out when they say needle. Both of my children, one ton 10 this summer and one just ton four, and they've been taking laposoma vitamin C since they're little, and everyone's shocked how easy they just had the packet and then take it. And uh people were like, Wow, how do they take it? Because it does have some taste to it, but I'm like, you just use that. If this become your own.

SPEAKER_01

She was like about one and a half or two, yeah. And she would see me, the little tiny packet of yogurt they have in Columbia, South America, and I would squeeze the packet in and make it. And then it got to the point there where I'd bring out the yogurt, and I might not think to put the packet in, and she'd oh yeah, you're missing, you're missing, yeah.

Magnesium Deficiency And Which Type

SPEAKER_03

Yes. You last year, um, at the last year conference, you introduced a book about magnesium, and your talk had so many dentists was like, oh my goodness, I will focus on vitamin C, but I forgot about a magnesium. And there's so many confusions about magnesiums out there because there's so many types. In your book, you list all the types there. And I recommend you get the book. Like, if you you think you listen to the podcast and you get all the knowledge, no, get the book, go order the book, read the book. It's a great book, by the way. And so, uh, can you share with us a couple of things that people think they know about magnesium, but they don't?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'm gonna start out by shocking people a little bit.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, please do.

SPEAKER_01

And say magnesium, if you had to pick one supplement, and obviously you don't want to pick just one supplement, but for the sake of argument, if you had to pick one supplement, you take magnesium over vitamin C. Because vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant, and there are many other good antioxidants out there that can support what vitamin C you have. So not to replace it, but support it. So you don't go absolutely devoid of good antioxidant activity if you don't supplement vitamin C. Magnesium, however, number one, everybody is severely deficient in magnesium for a number of reasons, usually the extensive toxin exposure that we have. But number two, nothing compensates for magnesium except magnesium. And magnesium deficiency is at the root and cause of many diseases and a primary aggravator of all diseases. And in a nutshell, it's because elevated calcium levels inside your cell are always the causative and reflective reason for oxidative stress inside your cell, which we said is all disease, oxidative stress. And the only thing that brings that calcium down is magnesium. So the magnesium comes in, the calcium goes out, the oxidative stress comes in, then more vitamin C can go in, and everything's hunky-dory. But uh magnesium is so powerful, and it's also uh a primary uh anti-calcification agent. People are always worrying about kidney stones, calcifying their arteries, all of that is part of it. Vitamin C, magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin K uh are probably your four most important supplements. Okay, so daily, daily, and certainly for sure. I I like to tell people poor, they can't afford you. You give them a list of 15 supplements, they get frustrated, they don't take anything. Well, no, no. Make sure you take vitamin C, magnesium, and vitamin D. Everybody's deficient in those at the baseline, and each one separately will increase all cause mortality, your chance of death from everything if you're low on it. And you can eliminate that by proper supplementation. So uh I'm let me add you know, more things about magnesium is magnesium, low magnesium is the primary reason for all the different vasoconstrictive disorders, like uh migraine, uh seizures from migraine. It's also the primary cause of neurons that get excited and precipitate a seizure, and in the same fashion, cardiac cells that get excited and precipitate arrhythmias. Something I go through in the latest book about magnesium, and I don't think it was in the first book, is a heart cell cannot generate an extra beat if the magnesium level is normal inside the cell. So it's always atrial fibrillation, this epidemic atrial fibrillation, that's all magnesium, severe magnesium deficiency. Yeah, I mean you can give magnesium IV push and terminate atrial fibrillation just like that. Okay, you know. So uh very important because it's a very common condition, has a high morbidity and mortality, and it's so easily addressed. But people have to be vigorous because it's very difficult to completely restore your magnesium, but you need to get it as high as possible.

SPEAKER_03

And not all magnesiums are the same. That's the confusion right now. People are thinking they just go to a drugstore and grab a magnesium supplement. And this is this work. So right now, uh, I know that we're taking the vitamin C lapisomo from Leon Lap. We're also taking the magnesium alteonate from Leon Lap. Why magnesium alteonate?

SPEAKER_01

Well, magnesium threonate uh is I'm not an expert on the literature on it, but it's supposed to be established in the literature as having better increased uptake in the brain.

SPEAKER_03

I see.

SPEAKER_01

And of course, you want magnesium everywhere in your body, but the brain is a good spot to get it especially high level because once again, oxidative stress rules. And uh a lot of people can tolerate a little more oxidative stress in organs other than their brain uh more effectively. So uh, but it's important to emphasize too, as far as magnesium supplementation goes, people say, well, what type of magnesium should I take? Because you have many different forms. That's right. Well, you need to remember there's a cation, the positive part, that's magnesium, and an anion that's the negative part, that's citrate, glycinate, whatever. And that makes them all different. I mean, the anion is a supplement in and of itself, taking a lot of glycinate, magnesium chloride, chloride is very antipathogen, uh, uh citrate, that what they that's what they clean you out for a uh colonoscopy. Yeah. And lots of different forms of magnesium. So uh some are absorbed a lot better than others. But the bottom line is even the cheapest forms of magnesium supplementation like magnesium oxalate, it's still good for you and will still get magnesium in your system. So don't be put off by the fact that maybe you can't afford the most expensive magnesium supplement. Still take it on a regular basis. You'll be doing your body and your health of ARM.

SPEAKER_03

I love that message because most people are thinking, oh, I have to buy the most expensive, I have to buy this type. But the general message is like everyone are depleted or deficient.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

Like vitamin D3, K2, and like people are just like, oh, what form do I take? Like, take some, because your body needs that. And so I love that message because people get too zoomed in on what and when's and the dosage and forget that you know, the consistency, the compound effect day after day is that count. Right. Um, because people again come to see biological dentists, they think that if they're taking that infected toot out, then miracle is gonna happen. No, you need support. You need the vitamin C, the magnesium, the vitamin D3, K2. That's just the basic to cover. So I love that reminder

Non Negotiables Plus GLP 1 Insight

SPEAKER_03

a lot. And so you're talking about this and you traveling extensively, and you're doing a lot of conferences and lots of speaking engagement, and you have so much energy. So, my question for you is everyone curious, what is your three daily non-negotiable in-the-wellness practices for you?

SPEAKER_01

Well, a good night's sleep. All right. Yes. And that wasn't always easy, but one thing helped the other as I made certain changes in my life, certainly in my supplementation, then the sleep started getting better, and the better sleep came back and reinforced things. So excellent good sleep, proper supplementation, uh the interactions on a daily basis with uh a loving family and a handful of friends. And I gotta I gotta throw a little bombshell on you here, too. Okay. And this has been for the past five or six months. I got very tired of having my little belly, and without n really paying attention to everything they're saying about movie side effects, I started on the GLP 1. Oh, okay. And magic happened. I started losing symptoms that I'd had all my life. And after the fact, I said, I think it's about time you did, as they like to say, a deep dive on GLP one. And fortunately in Colombia, it's cheap, it's over-the-counter, so it's oral, no injections. And and lo and behold, I found out without having to go into a lot of detail that the primary function of GLP1 is to set the stage to allow more vitamin C to be pulled into the cell.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. Am I the first one to hear this on podcast right now?

SPEAKER_01

Yes indeed. Yes indeed. And I wrote a paper on it, I did the research. First of all, by itself, it decreases all cause mortality. And that's about the most important study you could have. But then all the all the effects of it, all paralleled effects of more vitamin C. And it was so clear-cut, I terminated the paper with my suggestion, and it remains, and for me, it's been one of the most the single most supplemental phenomena that I've encountered. I recommend everybody take a low dose of this along with their vitamin C, because most people, whether even if they don't consider themselves overweight, can lose a few pounds. Everybody.

SPEAKER_03

I think wind denial. This, you know, we look at everyone BMI and we have American standard and international standard, and our standard is a way so much higher.

SPEAKER_01

And the only reason not to take it is like for my wife's example, she takes one and she gets diarrhea. So I mean, you just have some people that are sensitive. So, but most people, no problem. All right. And if it's no problem, take it like another supplement. Now, it's still a little difficult in the states. The trumprx.gov has brought the price from twelve hundred dollars down to $150 for a month's worth of oral. So it's no longer a financial limitation. You still need your prescription, so you need a doctor that appreciates all this. And I wrote it all up on my website, Tomleavmd.com. You'll see the article because it's uh it's completely changed my life. I'm 75 now, okay? And without being too disclosing, I was up to where I had five times a night had to get up to urinate. Now it's once.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, everything in your body changed. I mean, I talk about all the time in my presentations, and I stick by it. The most important thing for your health everywhere in your body is to increase or normalize vitamin C levels inside the cell. And that's exactly what this does.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. It's a combination. That's yeah, that's the magic, is like the sequence and accompany the right combination. Right. Because by itself it's not as powerful, but you put a GLP one.

SPEAKER_01

And taking the large amount of vitamin C also completely eliminates the possibility of the occasional horrible side effects that they like to scare people with uh in the uh in the popular, yeah, popular press.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. People don't talk about it, but when I see patients in my chairs, a lot of people are taking GLP1 and they see the benefit. That's why they're on it, but they forgot about the vitamin C. Right.

SPEAKER_01

That's very important.

SPEAKER_03

That's a great reminder there.

Where To Learn More And Closing

SPEAKER_03

Thank you so much. My God, I want to keep you on this show because I learned so much, and I'm sure our audience and listener love listening about this, and it's such an honor. Thank you so much, Dr. Levy. And of course, I see you at next year conference. And you keep writing books. We love your books and we love your energy. And thank you, everyone. And please follow Dr. Levy, Thomas Levy M D.com is your website.

SPEAKER_01

No, Tom Levy.com.

SPEAKER_03

We put that on a show note, so please check the website and get in touch and keep learning. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Bye.