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Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

lanternbioworks.com

221–230 of 312 posts

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Longevity biotech came from a similar milieu and has been doing very well They're doing well numerically when it comes to funding but is there anyone who has actually lived materially longer as a result of the field?

Ray Kurzweil will outlive us all, if taking 200 pills a day works: https://www.wired.com/2008/03/ff-kurzweil/#:~:text=He%20is%2... .

That is, if he doesn't get clubbed with a barbell by Nassim Taleb.

https://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-anti-kurzwei...

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#223

This is certainly an interesting idea, but there's absolutely no way for anyone to judge whether the claim on this page is bulletproof true, something plausible worth researching more, or just total nonsense. But the fact that there isn't a single link to any scientific paper or evidence whatsoever, or even a single person's name linked to the site (or source of funding or anything ), makes me assume this is just spa…

I didn’t look at that Google drive, but Google search gave me: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12369203 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caries_vaccine As a layman, I would be concerned about trying to control a bacterium called Streptococcus mutans , as that, to me, signals “this thing mutates rapidly”.

As I layman, I am more concerned that drastic alterations to the oral microbiome could have many negative downstream effects on health, from everything to digestion (naturally) to heard disease and neurodegenerative disorders. All of which show some correlation to an altered oral microbiome. We barely understand the connections, but that is obviously an argument in favor of caution.

I'm grateful that there are people out there willing to be guinea pigs for stuff like this, but I definitely wouldn't touch this kind of product until there are years (ideally decades) of usage with systemic scientific investigation into immediate complications as well as long term health impacts.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the rinsing needed, strictly speaking? Is there something special about spitting the water out afterwards instead of e.g. swallowing it?

You should rinse and spit it out in the morning, don't swallow as you will be swallowing significantly more plaque from the over night build up. After initial morning cleaning swallowing should be fine.

Why would swallowing the plaque be significant?

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#225

Where we not here before? GMO bacteria producing alcohol... https://www.cracked.com/article_18503_how-biotech-company-al... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtPNaMphl04 Also lactic-acid keeps other mouth bacteria under control, do we really want to mess with the balance?

And there is little reason to believe that ethanol producing bacteria have a selective advantage. Why would they be maintained in someone's mouth microbiome?

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mutations trend towards stable states. Stable states further trend towards states where fast mutation becomes disabled because it's in a "good" stable zone. Symbiosis is the ultimate stable state. You can get stable states in intermediate zones like hiv infections, but these zones are not as good as symbiosis. They have potential to kill off a weak population, additionally humans are actively combatting the virus. In…

But here, we move this organism to a state of which we don’t know whether it’s stable. If it isn’t, it may take a while to get back to a stable state and, in-between, it could be nasty. Also, I would think the Spanish flu, the Hongkong flu, COVID-19, etc. are examples of cases where “trending towards stable states” had fairly dire consequences.

>But here, we move this organism to a state of which we don’t know whether it’s stable.

We have to test the stability in experiments. Logically though we can assume it's stable as all the macro evolutionary pressures make sense here. When a virus kills, it's almost always a fluke one off mutation.

>Also, I would think the Spanish flu, the Hongkong flu, COVID-19, etc. are examples of cases where “trending towards stable states” had fairly dire consequences.

Yes they are trending towards stable states. But these are huge anomalies of conditions involving death. Likely instable states of mouth bacteria basically involve the newly introduced bacteria dying off or having new side effects. Again this has to be measured. I think it can be easily done with primates getting fed human diets.

I think you're just reacting to the fear mongering headlines of killer virus. What's going on here isn't living at those extremities and is ultimately a different topic. Cavities in our mouths are also stable states, the goal is to push it out of this zone into the ultimate stable state of symbiosis.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#227
post #173

"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…

Source on Ozempic causing thyroid cancer?

Only thing I could find was a study in mice (which you should always take with a heap of salt) showing an increased incident, and a modest correlation in human studies but with a lot of caveats and a disclaimer that the study was in no way conclusive.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#228

Doing a couple Google/Twitter searches for this company it's pretty obvious it's coming out of the Berkeley-area EA/rationalist cluster, which automatically makes me pretty skeptical. These people don't exactly have a stellar track record of medical startups (recall all the hype around MetaMed, which delivered precisely nothing).

Their org chart includes "Aella", who is apparently acting as their "media advisor" [0]. That tells you just about everything you need to know about this organization. [0] https://nitter.net/Aella_Girl/status/1705772547781140541

So... people who are into sex work, fetishism, etc. aren't capable of being competent professionals?

Not saying this company is or is not legit, but this doesn't seem like a reasonable vector for criticism.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#229
I would like to clear some things up about how cavities/ caries come to be. Source: my GF is an experienced dental hygienist with her own office in Prague, Czechia. You can assume that nobody is immune so the whole genetic resistance angle is a myth. With that cleared up, how does a cavity/ caries come to be?

When we eat or drink the bacteria gets nutrients (any form of sugar) and builds up plaque and the bacteria create an acid. Because the plaque stays on our teeth above and even slightly bellow the gums (gingiva) and the bacteria likes to live there the effects are strongest where the plaque is. The bacteria and the resulting acid over time cause demineralisation, dissolves the calcium in the teeth. After some time this leads to decay which we describe as cavity/ caries. Also, the plaque can solidify into a build-up of tartar/ calculus which further provides a nice habitat for bacteria, causing gingivitis (inflamation of the gums - they become red and swollen) spreads the sulcus, basically splitting gums from the teeth over time which results in periodontitis, which is basically loss of the bone and other problems below the gums. Periodontitis can also exacerbate other illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, possibly some allergies (active research). This can really only be fixed by a professional dentist or dental hygienist since removing the tartar, especially under the gums, is a precise and demanding. The procedure can be painful without local anesthetics.

If you don't want all that do brush your teeth correctly each day. The 2 minutes number is myth again - do brush until the teeth are free from plaque. It is easier with a sonic/electric toothbrush, e.g. by Phillips or Oral B iO should be ok too. The brushing technique is very important, most people do this wrong. The brush should be at 45° to the sulcus (half of the bristles is on the gums the other on the tooth). Obviously also brush the top of the teeth. Each tooth basically has 5 surfaces, top and 4 sides. Don't forget to use correctly sized interdental brushes. Your dentist or dental hygienist should be able to help you find the correct sizes for specific spaces between teeth. (You will probably end up with TePe or Curaprox and probably more than one size.) You can use a solo brush too, which brushes exactly one tooth at a time. The bristles of the brush should be as soft as possible and removal of bigger amounts of plaque are done by spending more time instead of force/ pressure/ hardness/ abrasiveness. In addition to not replacement of interdental brushes, you can also use a super floss (the middle is made of a fluffy material) but learn a good technique so you don't hurt your gums, throw the thin waxed floss in the trash especially if you are not super handy/ careful as to not cut your gums. Also, the floss does not clean premolars and molars properly because of the shape of the teeth in interdental space (because of their concavity, imagine that the surface is basically made of two pillars).

Do have a regular appointment with your dentist and dental hygienist. 2x a year should be enough with good hygiene. If you have more problems, the frequency of appointments will of course vary. They should definitely do at least intraoral x-rays each preventive appointment and a OrthoPantomoGraph in ~2 years.

Re: Gene-Engineered Mouth Bacteria

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sometimes it takes time, like in Japan the birth control pill .. "Campaigners here joke that it took the country 30 years to approve the contraceptive or birth control pill, but just six months to approve the Viagra pill for male impotence. Both became available in 1999, but the latter came first." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62515356

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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