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Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

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Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#81

Post by blacksmith_tb »

maxbond wrote: post #23
ravenstine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as if most of us don't have a background in biology or genetics.

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.

It's possible (in a sense the species we see were all the winners of the same process). And it's being proposed to try and push desired traits throughout populations, like disease-spreading mosquitos[1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#82

Post by blacksmith_tb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #28
maxbond wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

Ooh, did you grow your purple tomatoes from seed? I haven't seen any starts in my area yet.

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#83

Post by sleepydog »

nikolay wrote: post #37
SkyMarshal wrote: post #17

A 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.

I can attest to its effectiveness against H. pylori. I've suffered from canker sores most of my life. The two things that have helped were avoiding sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste, and chewing mastic gum at least once a week.

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#84

Post by kleiba »

onemoresoop wrote: post #78
SkyMarshal wrote: post #17

A 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…

Xylitol upsets my digestive system. I try to avoid it as much as I can.

Xylitol is known to be a laxative, so it is only recommended in small doses. You might be extra sensitive to it.

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#85

Post by hgomersall »

echelon wrote: post #46
SkyMarshal wrote: post #17

A 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…

I worry this would impact your gut microflora too. Imagine the downstream systemic effects and diseases this might trigger.

It does impact the gut biome, but current research suggests it's positive, insofar as we can gauge what a positive change would be.

Edit: One can easily find various papers like this: https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#86

Post by gautamcgoel »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #17

A 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…

But don't you need "good" bacteria in your mouth?

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#87

Post by dannyobrien »

Aurornis wrote: post #4

> 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…

Note that Scott Alexander says it's 50/50 whether it works at all: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/updates-on-lumina-probiotic...

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#88

Post by buildsjets »

ivansavz wrote: post #80
buildsjets wrote: post #68

Relating to fluoride's effect on bacterial biofilm - There are several different kinds of fluoride available in toothpaste, and they do not all have the same efficacy against bacterial plaque. Stannous fluoride is considerably more effective than sodium fluoride or sodium monofluorophosphate, but you may need to pay a small amount more for it and actually read the packaging to find it. It's hard to find a website dis…

Very interesting. From that paper, the brand they used as example of stannous fluoride was "oral-B pro expert all-around protection" Do you know of any other brands? I wonder if we can conclude it was the stannous fluoride that made the difference and one of the other ingredients.

I use Crest Pro-Health, from the grocery store. It also happens to be what my dentist hands out in their goody bag, but she did not know about the difference between different forms of Fluoride when I brought it up at a check-up. Probably picks the goody bag contents based on who gives the best kickbacks/perks.

I'm sure that there are other studies out that that compare the active ingredients in isolation rather than as a part of a commercial preparation, that's just the first one I came across that looked to be from a reasonably independent source, rather than a disguised advertisement.

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#89

Post by b112 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #28
maxbond wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

One could just eat other fruits, is there some reason the tomato, other than marketing "antioxidants", need be the purple fruit one eats?

Maybe it's a different question. Does the flavour seem mostly the same? A drop in for recipes?

Re: Reasons not to take Lumina's anticavity probiotic

#90

Post by PaulHoule »

ivansavz wrote: post #80
buildsjets wrote: post #68

Relating to fluoride's effect on bacterial biofilm - There are several different kinds of fluoride available in toothpaste, and they do not all have the same efficacy against bacterial plaque. Stannous fluoride is considerably more effective than sodium fluoride or sodium monofluorophosphate, but you may need to pay a small amount more for it and actually read the packaging to find it. It's hard to find a website dis…

Very interesting. From that paper, the brand they used as example of stannous fluoride was "oral-B pro expert all-around protection" Do you know of any other brands? I wonder if we can conclude it was the stannous fluoride that made the difference and one of the other ingredients.

It drives me nuts that many toothpastes make big claims about what they do but don't clearly link that to the ingredients they contain. One of very few new ideas was the incorporation of Triclosan into Colgate Total which certainly takes a bite out of biofilms

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9220381/

but who knows if it is good for the rest of you.

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