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Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

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Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#71

Post by habosa »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #69
dflock wrote: post #26

> detect the earliest signs of cavities and gum disease - then provide evidence-based recommendations and treatments to help prevent them. What preventative treatment is this? If it isn't just "brush & floss", then what is it? If it's so great, why not just tell everyone about it now - why do you need a microbiome test?

I’ll get hammered for my statement because it’s beyond antidotal. I’m also a bit superstitious, and feel I should just dummy up right now. I’ve noticed some people just have good teeth, and others are not so lucky. I’ve been down on my luck for years now. Close to being homeless. I haven’t been to a dentist in over two decades. I still have my all my teeth, except wisdom which I had pulled proactively when I had insu…

There's definitely luck with teeth! My dad and grandpa are both dentists so my family had access to every kind of tooth care on a regular basis.

I don't know anyone who gets more cavities than me and my mom. Seriously every time we go to the dentist we're either getting a new filling or replacing an old one.

I even spent 3 years (for non-dental reasons) eating no sweets and not much changed. We just have "weak teeth". I could maybe take better care of mine but my mom is an obsessive brusher/flosser and it hasn't helped her much.

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#72

Post by phnofive »

TheTaytay wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but some of her claims have been controversial among other dentists. I have a lot of dentist family and friends. Anything that isn't "drill and fill" is controversial to them. :) Dental school these days seems to really stress that everything must be treated with intervention by a dentist that happens to bring money to their practice. They are also super frightened of new technology. There was a technology that was…

We became exposed to this mentality and reluctance to adapt when exploring solutions to our son’s cavities. There is an amazingly effective treatment called SDF that arrests cavities with no need for drilling by painting it on in a procedure that takes about 1 minute. It’s proven to work, is non invasive, and much easier to use to treat a squirming small child. It’s been used for decades in Japan. Only recently did i…

Since Silver Diamine Fluoride is a little newer, it helps to look at Silver Nitrate, which has the same mechanism save for the, you know, fluoride (which is a boon).

Medical management of caries is anathema to assuming seven figures in debt to hang up a license and turn on the lights, and I’m not implying ill will. The first world countries with national healthcare sans dental could use this without coming close to the dental standard of care - a cavity arrested with silver nitrate is actually better to drill and fill since the infection is halted.

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#73

Post by sfjailbird »

psychiatrist24 wrote: post #66
carabiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's Cavibloc, which is supposed to reduce cavity-inducing bacteria. It was developed at UCLA. There's also CloSYS, which is basically a highly diluted bleach that clears your mouth of bacteria. It is ADA approved. There's also Xylitol, which is also supposed to help reduce bad bacteria. I've been using all of these for the past year, and my most recent dental cleaning had almost no tartar buildup, which is really…

But should you simply kill all bacteria in your mouth? Perhaps some are actually useful?

There are many that are not only useful, but essential to oral health.

You can supplement with probiotics, which have been proven in quality studies to improve mouth/nose/throat health, and, to a lesser extent, even prevent caries. The bacteria cultures are known by their shorthand K12 and M18, respectively. In New Zealand this is part of official health guidelines.

On phone so can't look for references but look it up, it is well supported.

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#75

Post by sfjailbird »

heterodyning wrote: post #44

Interesting that there are no commercial 'probiotics' for children onward to adulthood.

There is, look into K12 and M18, species of streptococcus salivarius with proven oral health benefits. They are available as supplements, and in New Zealand they officially use these to treat children with recurring nose/throat diseases. Studies back this up.

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#76

Post by EMM_386 »

TheTaytay wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but some of her claims have been controversial among other dentists. I have a lot of dentist family and friends. Anything that isn't "drill and fill" is controversial to them. :) Dental school these days seems to really stress that everything must be treated with intervention by a dentist that happens to bring money to their practice. They are also super frightened of new technology. There was a technology that was…

We became exposed to this mentality and reluctance to adapt when exploring solutions to our son’s cavities. There is an amazingly effective treatment called SDF that arrests cavities with no need for drilling by painting it on in a procedure that takes about 1 minute. It’s proven to work, is non invasive, and much easier to use to treat a squirming small child. It’s been used for decades in Japan. Only recently did i…

If anyone is looking for more information on SDF (silver diamine fluoride), there is some information here:

https://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/08/05/SilverDiamin...

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#77

Post by verdverm »

david_l_lin wrote: post #23
eaurouge wrote: post #20

> What do you do with my data? > Your privacy is a top priority for us. Our test will pick up some of your DNA - it’s impossible to completely avoid - but we only look at the microbes from your saliva and we take steps in our workflow to throw out human data during analysis. Can you do better than this? What exactly do you do with the data? What do you store? How do you store it? What do you throw away? When do you t…

Short of giving away some of our secret sauce and analysis pipeline, what we do is sequence the nucleic acids in your saliva in a de-identified fashion such that only Bristle scientists can match your sequence data with any potential identifiers. As data comes off the sequencer, we use a bioinformatic pipeline to remove 98%+ of human genetic data prior to any analysis such that its impossible to derive meaningful gen…

Is the data really de-identified?

Would our microbiome data be a sort of fingerprint?

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#78

Post by mrfusion »

bmau5 wrote: post #61
david_l_lin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority of the products marketed today non-specifically ablate the microbiome. While they are effective at reducing the microbial titer as a whole, they are ineffective at specifically targeting pathogenic microbes associated with disease.

I'd just add that we're hoping to develop products that specifically reduce/eliminate oral pathogens while encouraging growth of probiotic species

That sounds great. Does xylitol do that to an extent?

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#79

Post by daniellarusso »

cperciva wrote: post #14

I'm reminded of a medical maxim: Never run a test if it the results won't affect treatment decisions. I'm that vein: Is this really a medical test, or is it just recreational?

In highschool, I had an acquaintance whose father was a dentist, and had developed a ‘bad breath detector’ test.

Re: Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health

#80

Post by petrocrat »

daniellarusso wrote: post #79
cperciva wrote: post #14

I'm reminded of a medical maxim: Never run a test if it the results won't affect treatment decisions. I'm that vein: Is this really a medical test, or is it just recreational?

In highschool, I had an acquaintance whose father was a dentist, and had developed a ‘bad breath detector’ test.

You seemed to stop mid-thought... was there a point you were making here?
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