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Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

lanternbioworks.com

261–270 of 312 posts

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to get too conspiratorial, but dentists make their money on cavities, not cleanings.

If you want to more or less permanently stop gum bleeding pre-brush with a dilute (50 to 200 ppm) solution of hypochlorous acid generated from vinegar acidified salt water (0.8-2%) with salt concentration (saline is 0.8-0.9%) then hit it with a $5 Aliexpress USB electrolyzer for about 30 seconds. The biofilms come right off, your toothbrush ceases to accumulate biological matter, and hypochlorous acid does not begin…

Or just rinse (water pick even better) with a dilute bleach solution (0.25%). Make the solution fresh each time or every 24 hours, since sodium hypochlorite tends to decompose easily.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9292655/

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#262

"This has, to our knowledge, caused no ill effects since." That's the kicker. Damn near everything has side effects. How and why the FDA approves some things but not others is a quagmire, but the truth is that almost everything has side effects. Sometimes it feels like every approved drug ad you see on TV will have some lawsuit 20-30 years later. Look at where we are right now with ozempic. We know one of the side ef…

You also need to weigh cost/benefit though. Everything may have side effects, but the mere presence of side effects is not alone grounds to not use something. For the particular case of ozempic, the effectiveness appears so strong, and obesity causes so many complications and such a massive loss of QALYs, it's probably worth it even if there is an increased risk of thyroid cancer, unless that increase is really huge.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conflicts with some advice I have previously heard, so would be interested in any hard research for or against. I was told that if you vomit, you should not brush or rinse your mouth. You are only moving the low pH stomach acid around your mouth and exposing more teeth to the acidic environment. Instead you should try to neutralize the acid (baking powder or similar). On one hand, I could believe you are just sp…

That doesn't sound like a conflict to me. People actively resist allowing vomit to touch most of their mouth. We tend to do the opposite with soda. So swishing with water after vomiting puts vomit where it otherwise wouldn't have been, while swishing with water after drinking soda only dilutes the places that soda already was. The brushing thing has to do with the effect acid has on enamel. I doubt you could find a d…

Perhaps I am an explosive vomit-er, but mid-act, I have little concern to what area of my mouth is being exposed. I would consider my entire mouth to be vomit coated. Whereas soda would be mostly concentrated to the bottom fraction of my mouth, predominantly on my tongue.

Acidic vomit or acidic soda seem like roughly the same thing. Either it should be diluted and swished or not.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#264
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully the patent has run out by now and others can get in on the action and make it affordable. The patent has run out, and in the ~20y since it expired no one has tried to revive the idea. Why are you faulting the people who are finally picking the idea back up instead of all the people who could have but didn't over the last ~20y?

I’m faulting them because it’s nothing more than a get rich quick scheme. Another comment even noted they are slightly tweaking it so they can get another patent for it. The government should be funding this and making it available to the general population at an affordable price instead of just having the free market “figure it out” and making something affordable only to the ultra rich. But the US is a country wher…

The impression I have from your comment is that you think that the US is unusually bad at this? Which seems a bit hard to square with no other country having sorted out a caries vaccine either. Including many rich countries with socialized medicine.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#265
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brushing your teeth and using mouthwash wipes out the majority of the micro biome. Application of the new strain shortly after could totally replace it wholesale. That said, I can’t imagine there’s not other side effects that just aren’t known yet. The sample size and reporting (as far as we know) is just too small and meaningless.

Does brushing and mouthwash really eliminate your microbiome? I heard it does precious little. Most of the microorganisms live below the gumline and surfaces. If that were true it would eliminate caries! Please post links

Mouthwash (WITH alcohol) daily almost completely eliminates the need for daily brushing and flossing. This was later retracted by demand of the ADA to only say "as good or better than flossing"; from here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894074/ "mouth rinses would be considered to be “at least as good as” daily flossing if the upper limit of the 90% confidence interval" there are a number of studies on this topic and they all seem to generally be in agreement. Mouthwash even once a week is really good for dental hygiene. They make alcohol free mouthwash but it's hard to argue with the antimicrobial properties of alcohol and the price difference is neglible.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#266
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! These are friends of mine. There is much more detail in the Google Drive (linked from the About page): https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/18ZDSe92LgLmS0sUb...

If your friends are looking for feedback, you can pass on that at least one person on the internet finds it in very bad taste for them to describe the delay in treatment as a "civilizational embarrassment" while planning to charge $20k for a dose. The pricing point seems equally a civilizational embarassment to me.

Not just embarrassing. A disgusting example of the worst parts of humanity.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#267
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you have to take birth control constantly and a lot of very young women end up having it. You could easily wipe out a generation of fertile women if you didn’t do it correctly. On the flip side, old men (usually) that sometimes need to use a pill doesn’t seem all that dangerous.

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Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#269
post #69

So within the existing population today there exist individuals who essentially never get cavities. The hypothesis for this has been 1. they don't eat sugar, or only fibrous foods, etc. 2. They have a genetic difference that builds stronger enamel or similar. I have never heard of anyone discussing bacteria in the mouth as a possible difference. Be interested to see if there is a natural strand that some people have…

I'm 40 years old. Never had cavities. I eat plenty of sugar.

Scientist lurkers in the thread take note. We have a couple for the first cohort for testing to see if their mouth biome differs from base population. Inquiring minds want to know!

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#270
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those people who naturally are more or less immune to cavities. My dentist tells me it is because of the pH in my mouth. I _do_ have to brush my teeth etc... though, because i tend to have a lot of plaque if i don't. Apparently either it is cavities, or plaque. You must take care of your teeth!

I have very strong (and ugly) teeth. The few "cavities" that I had, were actually made by dentists (they do that, y'know), and have resulted in a couple of crowns. Otherwise, my teeth are great. I now have a dentist that doesn't make cavities, and she seems almost disappointed, when she checks me. But gum care is every bit as important as tooth care (take it from me, you don't want a gum-scraping), and that is why I…

> The few "cavities" that I had, were actually made by dentists (they do that, y'know)

You are the only person I have ever heard entertain this idea, so it would be better to spell out how this happened than assume everyone knows it.

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