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Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

mcgill.ca

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Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#111

Post by monknomo »

malfist wrote: post #88
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fluoride treatments at the dentist and fluoridated tooth paste are a big factor in my area. A commenter also mentioned fluoridated water, which had the same objective, but it causes demineralization of teeth (fluorosis) and possibly behavioural / hormonal changes ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6520156/ , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512... , https://ec.europa.eu/health/scie…

First, fluorosis isn't demineralization of teeth, it's hypermineralization, way on the other side of the spectrum. Second, you'll get water poisoning before you'd get fluorosis from tap water. I challenge you to find anyone who has gotten fluorosis from tap water alone

So long as the tap water is correctly treated, it's not going to give you fluorosis, but in the event the plant breaks and no one is testing the water, it can happen

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/article/where-water-turned-d...

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#112

Post by tmaly »

mishu2 wrote: post #43

It may still take us some time to reach that goal, but the good news is that we have an effective solution available right now: keeping good oral hygiene is known to prevent both caries and gum disease, and takes less than 10 minutes a day for the average person. If you need more information, we recently developed a free website to get you started: https://lifelongsmiles.hk/

I would be curious to know if you have any knowledge from older books on how diets affected the bacteria in the mouth?

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#113

Post by mishu2 »

poochkoishi728 wrote: post #107
mishu2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you all very much for the feedback, it gives me a new perspective on things. We wanted to show a real case, rather than animations, because we thought it would be clearer for our patients; but we are probably desensitized to watching stuff like this. Would you prefer to see a 3D animation instead, or something else?

We want clean, healthy and attractive teeth and mouths to stare at. Rather than the e.g. inter-dental mouth that triggers disgust even if realistic. Use the attractive models in the video if they have healthy teeth ideally.

Thank you for the feedback, that's a point that several commenters have brought up.

The problem with the interdental brushing video specifically is that we can't show how to use larger brushes on young healthy patients, as they don't have the spaces for it. But I will think about how we can improve that video (the comment above suggested moving it down in the page, to start with the 'gentler' videos).

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#115

Post by culi »

k__ wrote: post #102
Workaccount2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same as your wife. I skipped the dentist for 18 years, and during the earlier part of that span I had pretty sparse dental habits. I went in expecting the worst, but I had 1 cavity, and it was shallow enough to be drilled no novocaine. Nowadays I just brush once a day. Thank you for letting me brag, because the other parts of my body, like heart and lungs, are total shit.

Same. My ADHD makes brushing my teeth daily impossible. Yet, I went to the dentist today (first time after a decade)and had only one small cavity. My partner on the other hand brushes multiple times daily and had surgery last year, because she had a particulary bad cavity. Some dentist say, they don't kiss their kids, so they don't infect them with the cavity bacteria, but I kiss my partner all the time for decades a…

> Some dentist say, they don't kiss their kids, so they don't infect them with the cavity bacteria, but I kiss my partner all the time for decades and my teeth never got worse from it.

This seems absurd. Almost all microbes we consume (including in supplements) are transient. It takes a LOT for a community to actually establish itself. They have to be pretty well adapted to the human oral environment

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#116

Post by psychlops »

amarant wrote: post #110
cubefox wrote: post #60

> We are thus left with a product, Lumina, that cannot guarantee the prevention of future caries "Guarantees" are not strictly needed. What matters most is whether there is a substantial reduction of future caries, not whether it makes you totally immune to it. Say, if Lumina/BCS3-L1 "only" reduces cavities by 50%, it is already half as good (arguably) as a drug which prevented 100%. This would already be large progr…

I feel like this is a trend in online writing lately, and it's leading me to more and more withdraw from online discourse. Whenever someone introduces something that greatly helps with something, there are a bunch of people who start pointing out that, while the new solution is waay better than anything before it, it's not 100% perfect, and therefore "it's benefits are exaggerated" or similar. If the new thing is in…

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#117

Post by culi »

radlad wrote: post #106
fwipsy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I brush and floss every day but the cost is not trivial. Saving ten minutes EVERY day for everyone who brushes would be a massive, massive success. Not to mention it would improve health for people who can't get into the habit.

I suspect you'll still want to brush your teeth for reasons besides cavities.

A simple salt water rinse is enough to deal with halitosis. Much easier and the effects seem to last longer than prescription mouthwashes at a sufficient concentration.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266714762...

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#118

Post by kjkjadksj »

bawolff wrote: post #34

What i don't understand, is why not do animal studies? Like sure that won't answer all questions, but it seems like it would shed some light on if other bacteria cause cavities or not, and if nothing else a basic starting point.

Hard to ethically replicate the conditions of the typical american mouth on an animal model.

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#119

Post by lern_too_spel »

cubefox wrote: post #60

> We are thus left with a product, Lumina, that cannot guarantee the prevention of future caries "Guarantees" are not strictly needed. What matters most is whether there is a substantial reduction of future caries, not whether it makes you totally immune to it. Say, if Lumina/BCS3-L1 "only" reduces cavities by 50%, it is already half as good (arguably) as a drug which prevented 100%. This would already be large progr…

The article makes clear that a 50% reduction is likely massively optimistic.

Re: Reports of the death of dental cavities are greatly exaggerated

#120

Post by cptskippy »

johnyzee wrote: post #63
cubefox wrote: post #60

> We are thus left with a product, Lumina, that cannot guarantee the prevention of future caries "Guarantees" are not strictly needed. What matters most is whether there is a substantial reduction of future caries, not whether it makes you totally immune to it. Say, if Lumina/BCS3-L1 "only" reduces cavities by 50%, it is already half as good (arguably) as a drug which prevented 100%. This would already be large progr…

The tone of the article is for some reason very dismissive and derisive of alternatives to plain dental hygiene. As you point out, if a simple supplement in the form of harmless bacteria could improve caries reduction by even a small amount, it seems it would be a valuable option. There is an existing 'probiotic' that has been around for years and works the same way, and promises the same benefits, as the one describ…

> The tone of the article is for some reason very dismissive and derisive of alternatives to plain dental hygiene.

Putting my conspiracy theory hat on, the dental hygiene industry in the US is for-profit, like the pharmaceutical, and would rather sell you a treatment than a cure.

I tried to have a dialog with my child's dentist about nano-hydroxyapatite. I was interested in their thoughts about it, not as a replacement for fluoride based therapies, but in addition to them. Rather than having a discussion about the merits of both treatments or discussing any concerns about compatibility, the dentist adopted an attitude that was belittling and made me feel like I was an anti-vaxer. The suggested we could just not do any fluoride therapies at all.

It was very odd and alarming.

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