A patient came in wearing Invisalign trays that hadn't been changed in months. Something felt off in her mouth. When Dr. Saba finally got her into the chair, she found a fungal infection growing on the tray itself. One rinse with ozone water and the patient felt relief she'd never felt from anything over the counter. That's the moment Dr. Saba knew there was more to dentistry than what she'd been taught in school.

Episode overview:

Dr. Katie sits down with Dr. Saba Rizvi, a wellness dentist with over 28 years of experience at My Dentist For Life in Plantation, Florida, to talk about what happens when a dental practice decides to look at the whole body instead of just the teeth. Dr. Saba's shift started during COVID, when her office needed new protocols to reduce viral risk, and it opened a door she never closed. Today her new patient visits include a live microscope look at saliva and plaque, pH and nitric oxide testing, and 3D CBCT airway scans, and her practice uses a laser called the Fotona for biological extractions and a snoring treatment called NightLase.

What you will learn:

• Why Dr. Saba checks a patient's pH and what it has to do with enamel wearing away
• How ozone therapy is being used for both infection and gum disease
• What a CBCT scan can show about airway health that a regular X-ray can't
• Why Dr. Saba doesn't just place implants, she looks at vitamin D, A1C, and nutrition before and after
• What changed in one patient's face the day after a full mouth reconstruction

Key themes:

• The mouth as a diagnostic window into whole-body health
• Building a team that gets curious about wellness alongside you
• Working alongside her daughter, Dr. Lena, and what that partnership has taught her

Dr. Katie's perspective:

Dr. Katie calls Dr. Saba a "super dentist" for good reason. Full mouth reconstructions, biological extractions, all-on-X implant cases, this is surgery most general dentists refer out, and Dr. Saba is doing it while layering in ozone, laser therapy, and lab work most patients never even know to ask about. It's a real look at what's possible when a dentist decides the mouth and the body were never separate to begin with.

Want to understand what a wellness dental visit should actually check for? Join Dr. Katie's free patient webinar to learn what to ask your own dentist.
 🔗 https://go.drkatieto.center/register

Links:

• Dr. Saba's practice: mydentistforlife.com
• Instagram: @dr.sabarizvi
• Facebook: My Dentist For Life

Guest bio:

Dr. Saba Rizvi has practiced dentistry for over 28 years and leads a four-doctor wellness practice in Plantation, Florida, where she and her daughter, Dr. Lena, work alongside a team trained in ozone therapy, biological extractions, and full mouth reconstruction. She and Dr. Lena also co-host their own podcast, My Dentist For Life.

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.

Most parents already know they should be drinking more water, getting outside, and taking better care of themselves. Knowing that and actually doing it are two very different things, and that gap is exactly where this conversation lives.

Dr. Katie sits down with Dr. Liz Garcia, a dentist and mom of three who took over her father's practice, Arbor Falls Dental and Wellness in Jackson, Michigan, five years ago. Dr. Liz has spent the past few years building wellness into both her practice and her home, and she's honest about how messy that process actually was. This isn't a conversation about doing everything right. It's a conversation about doing one thing, then the next thing, and letting that be enough.

They talk through the small daily habits Dr. Liz leans on with her own kids: a morning glass of water with Celtic salt and lemon, sunlight in the eyes before the day gets going, no blue light once the sun goes down, and protein first thing in the morning to keep blood sugar steady. She shares why she tests instead of guesses with her own children's health, how she navigated the right timing for her son's tongue tie release instead of rushing it, and why she believes taking care of yourself as a parent isn't selfish, it's the whole model your kids are watching.

If you've ever felt like wellness advice is too overwhelming to actually start, this episode is the reminder that baby steps, done consistently, are the whole strategy.

Connect with Dr. Liz:
🌐 arborfallsdentalandwellness.com
📱 @drlizgarcia

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

Work with Dr. Katie:
 

If you're a patient who's ever felt like your dentist wasn't seeing the full picture, join Dr. Katie's free webinar to learn what a wellness-focused visit actually looks like: https://go.drkatieto.center/register
 

If you're a dentist ready to ask deeper questions in your own practice, explore CORE membership, Dr. Katie's protocol-trained AI and monthly live coaching built for exactly this kind of shift: wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

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.

You're wearing a ring or a watch that tracks your heart rate variability, and you have no idea what the number actually means. Most people don't. They just know a higher score feels like winning and a lower one feels like something went wrong.

Dr. Katie sat down with Salim, known online as That HRV Guy, live from the new space at the Center for Wellness Dentistry, and the conversation went somewhere most HRV content never goes. It started with what HRV actually measures, the gap between each heartbeat and what that gap says about your nervous system, and it ended in a place that will change how you think about your mouth.

Salim's path into this work started young. He lost his father to cancer at seven and never really processed it, and then his grandmother's breast cancer diagnosis years later sent him searching for answers about what was actually driving disease. That search led him to cellular inflammation, and from there to the realization that chronic stress, not stress itself, is the number one driver behind it. He built a framework around that discovery, ART of the Heart, Awareness, Regulation, Transformation, and five pathways for raising HRV over time: sleep, hormetic stress, reframing, intentionality, and community.

He also shares the story behind his own HRV crash from 170 to 30, a bike accident that dislocated his shoulder right after he'd asked the universe for less doing and more being, and how a single reframe with his coach tripled his HRV back to 97 in 24 hours. It's a real look at how directly the mind and the nervous system talk to the body.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• What HRV actually measures and why chasing a higher number misses the point entirely
• The five pathways to raising your HRV baseline, and how each one works
• Why chronic stress is the root driver of cellular inflammation
• How nervous system stress shows up directly in saliva production, gum health, and nutrient absorption
• Why the mouth has been missing from the biohacking conversation, and what that's costing people

Key moments:

• Salim's origin story and how grief led him into HRV research
• The five pathways framework, explained one by one
• The bike accident, the shoulder injury, and the 24-hour HRV shift
• The nervous system's connection to saliva, digestion, and oral health
• Salim's top three daily non-negotiables for nervous system health

Dr. Katie's perspective:
This conversation confirmed something Dr. Katie has said for years, the mouth is never separate from the rest of the body. Salim's work gave language to a connection she sees in her chair every day, patients whose stress levels show up in their gum health long before they show up anywhere else.

Connect with Salim:
Instagram: @thathrvguy
Website: thathrvguy.com
Course and integration journals available at his website

For patients:
Join Dr. Katie's free patient webinar to learn more about whole-body dentistry: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

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.

Most people assume that if you're a professional athlete, your health is already dialed in. Cold plunges, red light therapy, personalized nutrition, elite sleep tracking. But there's one thing almost nobody on the team was looking at, and it turns out it might matter more than anyone realized.

Dr. Chad Kasperowski has been the team dentist for the Washington Commanders for 17 seasons. He's treated hundreds of professional athletes, and what he found when he started paying closer attention to oral inflammation changed the way his entire team thinks about recovery.

Why This Episode Matters

Chad ran his own informal study, comparing clinical data from his players against how quickly they recovered from injury. What he found was striking. Players with signs of oral inflammation, things like gum disease or partially impacted wisdom teeth, were consistently the ones taking longer to get back on the field. Nobody had connected those dots before. Not the athletic trainers, not the team physicians, not even Chad himself until he looked.

That's the story at the center of this conversation, but it opens up something bigger. Most dentistry is reactive. You wait until something hurts, then you fix it. Chad is part of a small but growing group of dentists thinking proactively instead, using tools most people have never heard of to catch problems long before they become painful, or in this case, before they start showing up in an athlete's performance.

What You'll Learn

• Why oral inflammation can quietly affect recovery time, even in people who otherwise do everything right for their health
• What diagnostic tools like salivary testing, phase contrast microscopy, and CBCT imaging actually reveal that a standard cleaning and X-ray won't
• Why Chad believes most professional athletes and their families are missing a piece of the wellness puzzle they didn't even know existed
• The truth about mouth guards, why custom-fit matters far more than most parents and coaches realize, and why compliance, not protection, is the real problem

Key Moments

• Chad's exploratory study on oral inflammation and injury recovery, and what the data actually showed
• Why the average NFL career lasts about three years, and what that means for long-term health planning
• How airway and sleep issues show up in professional athletes, and what dentists are uniquely positioned to catch
• Chad's honest take on custom mouth guards versus the boil-and-bite versions from the sporting goods store

Dr. Katie's Take

What stands out most in this conversation is how simple the underlying idea is. If oral inflammation affects the rest of the body, and we already know it does, then it makes complete sense that it would affect performance and recovery too. Nobody had bothered to check. Chad checked, and what he found should change how every parent, coach, and dentist thinks about the mouth's role in overall health, not just for elite athletes, but for anyone trying to feel and perform at their best.

Connect with Dr. Chad: 

• Champions for Oral Health, Dr. Chad's practice in Northern Virginia championsfororalhealth.com
• Follow Dr. Chad on Instagram: @DrChadKasperowski

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

Work with Dr. Katie:

If you're a patient who's ever felt like your dentist wasn't seeing the full picture, join Dr. Katie's free webinar to learn what a wellness-focused visit actually looks like: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

If you're a dentist ready to ask deeper questions in your own practice, explore CORE membership, Dr. Katie's protocol-trained AI and monthly live coaching built for exactly this kind of shift. wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

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.

Dr. Katie recorded this one live at the Beyond Biohacking Conference, and she almost didn't get through her own introduction without gushing. She'd just spent three days in Scottsdale with her guest before this conversation even happened, and it showed.

Sports chiropractor Dr. Sean Drake works with elite athletes and high performing executives, the kind of clients who fly across the country for three, four, five days at a time. What he's found after years of doing this work is that the body almost never breaks first. The nervous system does. And once that happens, everything else, sleep, relationships, performance, starts to unravel with it.

Why this episode matters

Dr. Katie has said for years that working on the teeth alone isn't enough. Dr. Drake says something similar about the body. He's built his entire practice, Modern-E Athlete, around a distinction he makes early in this conversation: a provider treats the symptom in front of them, and a healer treats the whole person. That difference shapes everything else he shares here, including why he sometimes sends new clients home on day one if they aren't ready to do the work.

What listeners will learn

• Why nervous system safety, not physical strength, determines how far someone can go in their body, their career, or their healing
• The four pillars Dr. Drake uses with every client, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, and why skipping even one keeps healing from holding
• Why breathwork, something that costs nothing, ends up being the hardest modality for people to stay consistent with
• How Dr. Drake helped one client go from a Whoop score in the 40s to the 90s, sleeping through the night for the first time in years

Key moments and themes

Dr. Drake opens up about his own path into this work, including a car accident, an addiction, and a divorce that pushed him into what he calls the worst depression of his life. He's honest that none of what he teaches now came from a textbook. It came from having to find his own way out first.

He also talks about why he built breathwork into his own daily practice, twice a day, every day, and why he believes most people avoid it for one simple reason. Feeling your emotions is uncomfortable, and breathwork doesn't let you skip that part.

Work with Dr. Drake:

 🌐 moderneathlete.com

📱 @drseandrake

Dr. Katie's perspective

Dr. Katie connects Dr. Drake's work back to something she talks about constantly with her own patients. Breath doesn't exist in isolation. It moves through the airway, it shapes the nervous system, and it touches the same whole-body systems she looks at every day in her own practice. This conversation reminded her why she started asking these bigger questions in the first place, and why healing anyone, whether it's a tooth or a nervous system, takes more than fixing what's on the surface.

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

Work with Dr. Katie:

If you're a patient who's ever felt like your dentist wasn't seeing the full picture, join Dr. Katie's free webinar to learn what a wellness-focused visit actually looks like: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

If you're a dentist ready to ask deeper questions in your own practice, explore CORE membership, Dr. Katie's protocol-trained AI and monthly live coaching built for exactly this kind of shift. wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

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.

At 24, Dr. Linty was told she had a 30% chance of surviving. A priest came to give her last rites. She said not today, and meant it.

Episode overview:

Dr. Linty is tell the story underneath everything she does in practice. What started as a childhood full of unexplained illness turned into a malaria diagnosis that spiraled into acute respiratory distress syndrome at 24 years old. The doctors ran out of options. She didn't die. And that experience became the reason she now asks patients questions most dentists never think to ask.

What you will learn:

• Why Dr. Linty starts every new patient conversation by asking about their birth, their childhood, and old injuries they've long forgotten
• How her father's 55 years living with diabetes, and her own family's decision to avoid it, changed how she talks to patients about genetics and epigenetics
• Why a patient can have picture-perfect teeth and still be dealing with an airway issue or gum recession they've never noticed
• The difference between practicing as a dentist and stepping into the role of a healer, and why that shift changes everything about how you treat people
• How she decides who's the right patient fit, and why letting the wrong ones go is sometimes the most caring thing she can do

Key themes:

• Survival, faith, and the moment that becomes the turning point of a life
• Genetics is not destiny, epigenetics gives you more control than you think
• The mouth holds a record of your history, if someone knows how to read it

Dr. Katie's perspective:

This episode was recorded live at Beyond Biohacking in Austin, and you can feel that energy in it. Dr. Linty's story is proof that the dentists doing the deepest work usually got there through something personal, not a new piece of technology. It's a reminder that wellness dentistry isn't the next CE course or the next toy in the office. It's a way of seeing people that has to be lived first before it can be taught.

Guest bio:

Dr. Linty practices at Ohio Holistic Dental Center, where she treats patients through a wellness-focused lens that looks at the whole body, not just the mouth. She's a returning guest of the show and previously joined Dr. Katie to talk about building a wellness-minded dental team.

Work with Dr. Linty:

• Dr. Linty's website: ohioholisticdentalcenter.com/
• Dr. Linty on Instagram: @Dr.Linty

Work with Dr. Katie:

If you're a patient who's ever felt like your dentist wasn't seeing the full picture, join Dr. Katie's free webinar to learn what a wellness-focused visit actually looks like: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

If you're a dentist ready to ask deeper questions in your own practice, explore CORE membership, Dr. Katie's protocol-trained AI and monthly live coaching built for exactly this kind of shift. wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

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.

Dr. Jennifer Wu thought she was doing everything right. She was working out, training for half marathons, eating what she thought was a healthy diet, and going to her yearly wellness exams like clockwork. Then, in her third trimester, she walked out of an appointment with a preeclampsia diagnosis and blood pressure so high she was put on bed rest immediately.

The delivery went fine. The blood pressure never went back down.

Her doctor put her on blood pressure medication and told her to expect it for the rest of her life. No explanation, just a prescription and a shrug. She was in her late 30s, feeling good otherwise, and confused about why her body seemed broken with no real reason given.

It took 15 years, and a friend's referral to a functional nutritionist, before anyone looked past the blood pressure number itself. Within one conversation, the nutritionist flagged her blood sugar as the likely driver. For the first time in a decade and a half, someone had an actual answer instead of a shrug.

Why This Episode Matters

This isn't just a patient story, it's the story of a dentist who lived the exact frustration her own patients feel every day. Dr. Jen realized she couldn't keep practicing dentistry the way she'd been trained once she understood the mouth-body connection Dr. Katie teaches. She went back to her own practice, Sunnyvale Wellness Dentistry, and started asking different questions.

What Listeners Will Learn

• Why 15 years passed before anyone connected Dr. Jen's blood pressure to her blood sugar
• How she brought whole-body health into her new patient exams, including pH, nitric oxide, vitamin D, and airway evaluation
• What she says to existing patients who notice the exam looking different than it did a year ago
• How she got her team, hygienists included, bought into a wellness-based approach without losing trust
• Why she calls herself a former "tooth technician" and what changed that
• Her three non-negotiable daily wellness practices, from strength training to protecting quiet morning time

Key Moments

Dr. Jen describes what it felt like to be a patient whose doctors "gave up" and told her high blood pressure was just normal. She talks candidly about the shift in her own practice once she started reviewing patients' blood work and asking about sleep and airway health, questions dentists were never trained to ask. She and Dr. Katie also talk about why public trust in dentistry has eroded, when patients keep coming back with the same cavities and nobody asks why.

Guest:
Dr. Jennifer Wu, DDS
Sunnyvale Wellness Dentistry, drjenniferwu.com
📱 @drjenwu

Dr. Katie's Perspective

Recorded live at the Beyond Biohacking conference, this conversation is a reminder that root cause thinking doesn't stay in one lane. If it's true for a patient's health, it's true for how a whole practice should be run. Knowledge shared with a team isn't optional, it's the gift that builds trust between the front desk, the hygienist, and the patient in the chair.

For Patients:
Join Dr. Katie's free wellness webinar: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

For Dentists:
Explore CORE membership, protocol-trained AI and monthly live coaching built for practice transformation like Dr. Jen's.

www.wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

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.

Two of the most costly words you can say might just be "I forgot." That's what memory expert Jim Kwik tells Dr. Katie To in this episode, and once you hear why, you won't think about your brain the same way again.

Jim Kwik has spent 14 years speaking at biohacking conferences around the world, and in this conversation with Dr. Katie, he lays out exactly what he teaches on stage: 10 practical, science-backed pillars for building a sharper, more resilient brain. Dr. Katie brings her own clinical lens into the conversation too, connecting what Jim teaches about brain health to what she sees firsthand under the phase contrast microscope, including early markers of cognitive decline that show up in the mouth years before a diagnosis ever does.

What you will learn:

• Why your brain doesn't come with an instruction manual, and what to do about it
• The 10 pillars Jim uses to build and protect a "limitless brain," from brain foods to sleep inertia to stress management
• What digital dementia is and how outsourcing your memory to your phone might be weakening it
• How oral inflammation and the mouth-brain connection show up clinically, long before symptoms appear

Key themes:

• Treating the brain like a muscle instead of a mystery
• The difference between knowledge and applied knowledge, and why most people stall out between the two
• Self-talk as a program your brain runs, whether you meant to write it or not
• Why community and purpose matter as much as diet and exercise for long-term brain health

Guest bio:

Jim Kwik is a memory and brain performance expert, keynote speaker, and host of a podcast with hundreds of millions of downloads. He's spoken at biohacking conferences for over a decade and is the author of the new book Limitless Daily.

Links for Jim:

• Jim Kwik: jimkwik.com
• Limitless Daily book and 366 challenge: limitlessdaily.com

Dr. Katie's perspective:

What struck me most in this conversation is how much overlap there is between what Jim teaches for brain longevity and what I see clinically every day. We look at patients' saliva under the microscope and we can actually see spirochetes present in people who are already deep into Alzheimer's. We wish we could catch that 20 or 30 years earlier. That's exactly why conversations like this matter so much to me, because the brain and the mouth are never as separate as people think.

For Dentists
If you're building or renovating a practice with a wellness-first patient experience in mind, this conversation gives you a real framework for getting the workflow and sensory design right from the start. Explore CORE membership to build the full system around it: wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

For Patients
Curious what a truly whole-body dental experience feels like, not just looks like? Join Dr. Katie's free webinar: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

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.

For years, activated charcoal has been the default recommendation for anyone going through amalgam removal or heavy metal detox. It works, but it doesn't discriminate. It pulls out the good with the bad, leaving people dehydrated and depleted of the electrolytes their body actually needs. Dr. Katie's practice ran on activated charcoal for decades, until she found a cleaner way.

Episode overview:

In this episode, Dr. Katie sits down with Dr. Catharine Arnston, founder and CEO of Energybits, to talk about the real story behind spirulina and chlorella and why they've become part of Dr. Katie's safe mercury removal protocol. Dr. Catharine's path into algae started 17 years ago when her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and told to eat an alkaline diet with no real guidance on what that meant. Her research led her to spirulina and chlorella, two of the most studied and nutrient-dense foods on earth, and she's spent the years since building a company around sourcing them the right way.

What you will learn:

• Why chlorella pulls out heavy metals, glyphosate, and mold without stripping the minerals activated charcoal takes with it
• How algae farming actually works, and why where and how it's dried changes everything about its nutritional value
• The specific protocol Dr. Katie's practice uses before and after amalgam removal, and why timing it around sleep matters

Key themes:

• Real food versus supplements, and why bioavailability changes the entire conversation
• What clean sourcing actually looks like when a product absorbs everything in the water it grows in
• Detox support that goes beyond the mouth, including gut health, sleep, and energy

Dr. Katie's perspective:

We used activated charcoal in this practice for years because it was the only trusted option we had. But watching patients get dehydrated from something that was supposed to be helping them never sat right. Once we found a source of chlorella clean enough to actually trust, the shift was immediate. This is the kind of thing I want every biological dentist to know exists, because our patients deserve better than a workaround.

Links:

• energybits.com
• Watch for Dr. Catharine Arnston's upcoming book, Love Your Health to Bits (October 2026, Amazon and Audible)
• IG 📱  @energybits

Guest bio:

Dr. Catharine Arnston is the founder and CEO of Energybits, a company built around medical-grade spirulina and chlorella grown and dried without high heat to preserve their nutrient profile. She started the company 17 years ago after researching alkaline nutrition for her sister during breast cancer treatment, and has since worked with physicians, cardiologists, and biological dentists to bring algae-based detox protocols into clinical practice.

For Dentists
If you're building or renovating a practice with a wellness-first patient experience in mind, this conversation gives you a real framework for getting the workflow and sensory design right from the start. Explore CORE membership to build the full system around it: wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

For Patients
Curious what a truly whole-body dental experience feels like, not just looks like? Join Dr. Katie's free webinar: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

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.

Most dentists design their office once and live with it for years, without ever asking why certain rooms feel tense, why patients seem anxious the second they sit down, or why the team feels drained by 3pm even on a normal day. In this episode, Dr. Katie To sits down with Julia Kappler, CEO of Kappler Group and fourth-generation leader of an 80-year family design and millwork company, live at the Beyond Biohacking Conference, to talk about what's really happening underneath dental office design.

Why This Episode Matters

Julia's company has spent decades inside healthcare spaces, and her perspective goes far beyond paint colors and cabinetry. She and Dr. Katie get into how a space affects the nervous system before a patient ever opens their mouth, and why so many practices are still built around workflows nobody has questioned in decades.

What You'll Learn

• Why design is about more than what you see, and how sound, smell, and visual experience shape how safe or anxious a patient feels
• The real story behind why instrument washers "fail" in most dental offices, and the overlooked fix that has nothing to do with the equipment itself
• How to protect your vision when building or renovating a practice, so cost-cutting and outside opinions don't quietly erode what you set out to build
• Why workflow inefficiency doesn't just slow a practice down, it accumulates in the body of every team member who works there
• The three daily wellness practices Julia relies on to stay grounded while running a global design company

Key Moments

Julia shares her personal path into healthcare design, shaped by growing up in a family business and a lifelong fascination with psychology and the brain. She and Dr. Katie talk through the real differences she's observed moving from Germany to the U.S., particularly around regulation and water quality standards most American practices have never questioned. The conversation moves into a story about her instrument washer, an example that says everything about how dentistry tends to remove a problem instead of asking what's actually causing it.

Dr. Katie's Perspective

Dr. Katie connects Julia's design philosophy directly to her own experience building a wellness-based practice, pointing out that a beautiful space means nothing if the person running it isn't practicing what they preach, and that patients can feel that the moment they walk in.

For Dentists
If you're building or renovating a practice with a wellness-first patient experience in mind, this conversation gives you a real framework for getting the workflow and sensory design right from the start. Explore CORE membership to build the full system around it: wellnessdentistinstitute.com/core-membership

For Patients
Curious what a truly whole-body dental experience feels like, not just looks like? Join Dr. Katie's free webinar: https://go.drkatieto.center/register

Connect with Dr. Katie:
🌐 thewellnessdentist.com
📱 @drkatieto

Connect with Julia Kappler:
🌐 kapplergroup.com
📱 @kapplergroup

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.