How a procedure in dentistry can make patients look 5-20 years younger

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After the publication of my first paper in 1996, I was determined to continue my research. When doing innovative work, as I have said before, one finds that opening one door leads to many others. My aim at this stage was to study the effect of the Dentalfacelift technique on head and neck posture, as I had observed that changing the position of the lower jaw could lead to improved head posture. I was successful in obtaining ethical approval for this study, which is the first step in the scientific method. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts I was unable to obtain any research funding. It seemed that all such funding was awarded to Universities. As my patients continued to tell me how much better they were looking and feeling, I decided to take pictures of their faces to see if I could observe any consistent changes and patterns. As a dentist, I expected the area around the mouth to have improved, but I was surprised to discover that the eyes, skin, jowls, and cheeks also improved. Even the hair quality seemed to be improving. Mike Grace, the then editor of the British Dental Journal was again very helpful and introduced me to a statistician, John Bulman. After gathering my data, John looked at the statistics and assured me that I could categorically say that this treatment could make patients look between five and twenty years younger. It has always been my aim to put any innovative work on a scientific basis, and the second step in this process is to publish one’s findings in a peer reviewed journal. This means that the editor of the journal has asked experts in the field to evaluate the quality of the paper. Articles which fail to meet the standards of a given discipline are rejected and only articles that exemplify the best research practices are published. I was therefore delighted when as a mere general practitioner, my second paper was also accepted for publication in the internationally renowned British Dental Journal in 2002.

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