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'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

bbc.com

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Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#191

Post by ptaipale »

chiph wrote: post #179
ptaipale wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when we're discussing medical care, the mandatory regulatory approvals are a significant cause of delay and cost. E.g. FDA approvals in the U.S. They are a barrier to entry, and they are a measure to ensure safety of new cures. It's a tough balance.

Based on the history of drugs like Thalidomide, I'll pick safety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#History

Safety is good, but it's not a dichotomy of "absolutely no safety" or "safety trumps all other things".

It seems to me that the safety aspect is currently very strong, on the expense of long time-to-market and high barrier of entry to market.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#192

Post by filoeleven »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #91
eganist wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could discover teleportation tomorrow morning and it would be twenty years before teleporters were common-place. Everything takes time to be fully realized. I can appreciate this example, though in the specific context of teleportation, there'll probably be a few decades tacked on to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising from the question of whether or not the person arriving out of the other end is in fact the s…

You say that now, but when you step up to the machine with the knowledge that you are about to cease to exist, while somewhere else a perfect copy of you gets to go about living your life, I bet you change your mind.

This is why I have no problem walking through wormholes, but will never set foot in a teleporter.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#193

Post by filoeleven »

torinmr wrote: post #85
stplsd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think genetics have a part too. My grandmother was deported to Siberia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithu... ) for 20 years where they have 200 grams of bread a day at best and never brushed her teeth in her life and never had a tooth filling or missing tooth before her retirement, and I have half my teeth missing and I am only 30 years old. Fuck my life.

Could that also be related to diet? I'm guessing your grandmother practically never ate sugar if she was living on 200 grams of bread a day. I've also heard that early modern humans had fairly good teeth for their age despite the presumed lack of dental care, presumably also due to differences in their diet from us.

I just heard a radio piece about how basically all humans had Hollywood smiles (where the teeth lined up perfectly) until the Industrial Revolution, when our jaws began to shrink and there was no longer enough room for all the teeth. I didn't get to hear the part where they discussed/hypothesized whether the changes were due to diet or environment or something else.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#194

Post by TheOneTrueKyle »

I recently got my wisdom teeth out because everyone said I should.

Now my jaw is suffers from paresthesia because of it. Most likely I will never get sensation back in that area. Spent money to become paralyzed...

I don't see the value in going to dentist for slightly less tooth pain so this sounds amazing to me.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#196

Post by blueish »

TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #194

I recently got my wisdom teeth out because everyone said I should. Now my jaw is suffers from paresthesia because of it. Most likely I will never get sensation back in that area. Spent money to become paralyzed... I don't see the value in going to dentist for slightly less tooth pain so this sounds amazing to me.

> because everyone said I should.

Why? Wisdom tooth removal is still surgery, and you and your dentist should have been the ones to decide on whether it was necessary or not.

If the surgery went wrong because of other complications, that's a different issue, but you shouldn't get surgery just because other people are saying you "should".

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#197

Post by logfromblammo »

kalleboo wrote: post #139
Johnythree wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely missing the point. Many areas already have sufficient fluoride. It depends on the natural amount of fluorine in the water, if there's sufficient, then it's fine. It's only in the relatively few areas where there is a deficiency that it's a problem. And of course it also depends on diet. Offsetting your claim are studies which show that where people exclusively drink rain water, there is a higher in…

The countries that don't fluoridate their water don't have minimum levels of fluoride required. Whereas they have maximum levels of fluoride contamination allowed. I'm not one of those "fluoridation is a government plot to make everyone pliable" crazies. Just saying that it's far, far more important to BRUSH YOUR TEETH than to have a fluoridated water supply. Just seems to me like water fluoridation is just one of th…

The active component of tooth-brushing is removal of mutans-type bacterial colonies from the teeth.

Cavities do not form without cariogenic bacteria, provided with a food supply of simple sugars. If you have such bacteria, there are several ways to inhibit cavity-formation, such as by chemically hardening bioapatite with fluoride ions, or by re-mineralizing tooth enamel.

Communities would be better served by mutans eradication efforts, even though they could cost far more than the $1/person-year that fluoridation costs.

If I had the cash and political backing, I would put mutans-specific bacteriophages and tricalcium phosphate in a municipal water supply. I'd then subsidize dental office visits for persons in the affected area, such that anyone desiring fluoride treatments can get them at no additional charge, and offer gratis chlorhexidine/xylitol mouth rinse after every visit.

Kill the S. mutans; end cavities.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#198

Post by TheOneTrueKyle »

blueish wrote: post #196
TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #194

I recently got my wisdom teeth out because everyone said I should. Now my jaw is suffers from paresthesia because of it. Most likely I will never get sensation back in that area. Spent money to become paralyzed... I don't see the value in going to dentist for slightly less tooth pain so this sounds amazing to me.

> because everyone said I should. Why? Wisdom tooth removal is still surgery, and you and your dentist should have been the ones to decide on whether it was necessary or not. If the surgery went wrong because of other complications, that's a different issue, but you shouldn't get surgery just because other people are saying you "should".

Poor choice of words. Still had impacted wisdom teeth and was causing a decent amount of pain. I just would prefer pain over paralysis.

Also, I have had terrible medical assistance my whole life, so I have to figure everything out. Not the doctors/dentists. They're just the hired help I get to do the actual heavy lifting. I honestly don't know their purpose if I have to spend half my life doing their research

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#199

Post by logfromblammo »

nextos wrote: post #18
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #2

As someone with continual dental issues due to an unhealthy high sugar diet and low calcium due to lactose intolerance, I'll be super excited if this becomes a thing.

Try: * Vitamin D3 + K2 (in its isoforms MK4 & 7) from food and synthetic * Toothpastes with low RDA abrasion levels and without glycerine and silica * Irrigate your teeth * Take probiotics like Blis K12 bacteria

I sometimes dissolve cholecalciferol (vit D3) and menatetrenone (vit K2-MK4) with calcium ascorbate powder in my own saliva, and just swish it around in my mouth for half an hour or so. Then I swallow it.

My dentist is thoroughly impressed with my teeth. She can still tell that I don't floss, though.

Re: 'Tooth repair drug' may replace fillings

#200

Post by splawn »

ptaipale wrote: post #191
chiph wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the history of drugs like Thalidomide, I'll pick safety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#History

Safety is good, but it's not a dichotomy of "absolutely no safety" or "safety trumps all other things". It seems to me that the safety aspect is currently very strong, on the expense of long time-to-market and high barrier of entry to market.

.....but we are talking about healthcare. Safety should trump all other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere

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