Dental amalgam fillings containing approximately 50% mercury have been used for almost 200 years and have been controversial for almost the same time. Allegations of effects caused by amalgams have involved many diseases. Amalgam is one of the most popular dental restoratives, but concerns exist over its safety because of the mercury in its formulation. Small amounts of mercury are released fro...

It was claimed by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR)) in a report to the EU-Commission that "....no risks of adverse systemic effects exist and the current use of dental amalgam does not pose a risk of systemic disease..." [1, available from: http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_scenihr/docs/scenihr_o_016.pdf].SCENIHR disregarded the tox...

The use of DMPS as a diagnostic tool in patients with symptoms allegedly caused by mercury from dental amalgam fillings is disputed. We have previously shown that the mercury concentrations in urine cannot be used in such a way. In the present study, we wished to evaluate the effect on blood mercury levels (B-Hg) following intravenously injected DMPS in four groups of subjects: 19 controls with...

Mercury is a highly potent cell toxin with effects on human and animal nervous systems. Mercury vapour released from dental amalgam is the predominant source of mercury in the human adult and foetal central nervous system in populations of developed countries. Only in small populations with high consumption of methyl mercury containing fish can the contribution from fish consumption reach or su...

OBJECTIVES The impact of dental amalgam removal on the levels of anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO) and anti-thyroglobulin (anti-Tg) antibodies was studied in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis (AT) with and without mercury allergy. METHODS Thirty-nine patients with AT were tested by an optimized lymphocyte proliferation test MELISA for allergy (hypersensitivity) to inorganic mercury. Patie...

14 To examine possible association between dental amalgam fillings and mercury burden, we measured the mercury concentrations in scalp hair samples from 74 female Japanese subjects aged 26-64 years who had a dietary habit of little fish-consumption. The hair mercury concentrations in the subjects with multiple amalgam fillings were significantly higher than those in the subjects with no amalgam...

Human oral mucosa is subjected to many noxious stimuli. One of these substances, in those who have restorations, is dental amalgam which contains mercury. This paper focuses on the local toxic effects of amalgam and mercury from dental restorations. Components of amalgam may, in rare instances, cause local side effects or allergic reactions referred to as oral lichenoid lesions (OLLs). OLLs to ...