Easiest way to determine whether some health fad is dangerous snake oil: search for it on Twitter and determine the overrepresentation of blue checks. Every character at the end of a screen name that comes from a Unicode "symbol" block counts as ten blue checks. The presence of "/dd" counts as 100 blue checks. Simple, effective metric.
Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
51–60 of 160 posts
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#52Whenever this topic comes up on HN it strikes me as bizarre that anyone thinks they can genetically modify a bacteria, release it into the wild - and that it'll stay genetically modified? Like the author mentions, bacteria are constantly swapping genes via horizontal gene transfer. Surely the bacteria in our mouths have found the optimal metabolism for their environment? Why wouldn't we expect our genetically modifie…
> and that it'll stay genetically modified? I honestly think the play here is to have customers continually inoculate with the same, or even improved, versions of their modified bacteria. Possibly with a very strong antibiotic course in between if a clean slate is needed. That would provide ample room to stay on top of mutations and gene swapping in-situ. Otherwise, you don't have a continuous revenue model or a succ…
Or just brush your teeth twice a day.
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#53> I’ve also been disappointed for some months to see how many people I respect (and some I don’t respect) have been using it/promoting it. Taking unapproved drugs is a bad idea, no matter what rationalist bloggers with MDs, porn star/escort/sex researchers, Twitter guys, or conservative firebrands who get sick immediately after taking the unapproved drug tell you. The "rationalist community" has always been quirky an…
To be fair to the anti-FDA people, the number-one source of FDA hate is actually having to interact with the FDA. They are not a pleasant agency to work with.
But I'd still rather have the current state of affairs than no FDA! I don't even have to think about that one!
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#54> I’ve also been disappointed for some months to see how many people I respect (and some I don’t respect) have been using it/promoting it. Taking unapproved drugs is a bad idea, no matter what rationalist bloggers with MDs, porn star/escort/sex researchers, Twitter guys, or conservative firebrands who get sick immediately after taking the unapproved drug tell you. The "rationalist community" has always been quirky an…
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Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough but I do feel like our everyday experience with biology informs this. If you cultivate a certain color of rose and release it into the wild, you wouldn't expect that color to persist, right? Maybe I'm out of touch but I feel like that's intuitive. Maybe the technology is sexy and dazzling and that makes it more difficult to engage critically.
Depends on the plant. I've got two GMO plants in my house right now; glow-in-the-dark petunias ( https://light.bio/ ) and purple tomatoes ( https://www.norfolkhealthyproduce.com/ ). The tomatoes breed true (i.e. the seeds have the gene); the petunias do not and must be cloned via propagation. Roses, fruit trees, etc. are the latter.
How's the glow on those petunias in pitch black? Those look absolutely amazing and the ad is hilarious enough to make me want to pick some up.
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#56Whenever this topic comes up on HN it strikes me as bizarre that anyone thinks they can genetically modify a bacteria, release it into the wild - and that it'll stay genetically modified? Like the author mentions, bacteria are constantly swapping genes via horizontal gene transfer. Surely the bacteria in our mouths have found the optimal metabolism for their environment? Why wouldn't we expect our genetically modifie…
On that note, I wonder how kissing affects our mouth bacteria. Like, does making out with someone transfer enough bacteria between the two people to make a difference?
Babies are born without the mouth bacteria that cause cavities, and generally acquire them from their parents (e.g. kissing or sharing utensils).
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The tomatoes will only breed true so long as they are hand-bred or kept in an environment where no other types of tomatoes are around. And even then mutations will eventually creep in. Same goes with the bacteria, except you may be talking about days or weeks instead of years.
Tomatoes are largely self-polinating. Yes, mutations will creep in, but the gene will persist more based on a) can it be passed down to seeds and b) does it infer an advantage in natural selection?
The vast majority of changes made by humans to food plants, mostly through selective breeding, but also through gene editing, do not infer a selective advantage (except toward more human breeding). Big red fat juicy tomatoes are a disadvantage in the wild, where hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection pre-humans produced small, hardy, efficient, easy to maintain fruits.
Just like with pure-bred dogs, if humans suddenly disappeared it would probably only take a few decades for many species to return to muttier wildtypes.
Sure, some gene-editing is to make the plants hardier. Some of those genes would likely remain.
We're getting rather off-topic, though, which is about whether the bacteria in your mouth would be likely to mutate and/or swap genes with other bacteria in your mouth.
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#58Okay, so what happens if I (french) kiss a person that is taking this bacteria producing continuously mutacin-1140 and ethanol ? Could it take over my mouth, and I would ended up mutacin tolerant, and accelerating my cirrhosis ?
In theory yes, in practice no. Application is unlikely to be succesful without an extremely thorough cleaning of your mouth (think post-dentist). In the absence of dental-visit quality cleaning, the recommendation is to brush your teeth multiple times, using fresh brush heads, which results in an acceptable, but still not 100% success rate.
Infants being kissed by their mothers might get it though, as they lack an already existing micro-biome in their mouths against which the new bacteria would need to compete.
Additionally, if you were in a relationship with someone and were consistently kissing that person over time, it might eventually establish a foothold. But a single kiss, no matter how wet and sloppy, is almost certainly not enough.
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#59Okay, so what happens if I (french) kiss a person that is taking this bacteria producing continuously mutacin-1140 and ethanol ? Could it take over my mouth, and I would ended up mutacin tolerant, and accelerating my cirrhosis ?
Gee... that could plausibly be a risk.
Surely that is analyzed in the FDA application file.
Oh wait, it's not.
Oh wait, there is no file.
Oh wait, they didn't do any significant testing at all.
To quote Dirty Harry, are you feeling lucky today?
Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic
#60A simpler alternative is xylitol. Not a drug, no FDA approval required. It's a plant-based sweetener that cavity-causing mouth bacteria love to ingest, but which provides no sustenance to them. It essentially fills them up and then causes them to starve them to death, helping maintain minimum mouth bacteria. No bacteria, no cavities. Get it in mints or gum like Zellies or PUR (the only two I've found that don't inclu…
Not just xylitol but also mastic gum, which, in addition to cavities prevention, kills H. pylori and strengthens your jaw muscles as it's a bit harder than regular chewing gum.
+1 for mastic, completely nontoxic and it's been used for thousands of years. My cavity problems have pretty much disappeared since discovering it several years ago.