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Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

dentistryiq.com

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Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#41

Post by stevebmark »

rjurney wrote: post #39
stevebmark wrote: post #38

Maybe relevant to someone: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Levaquin (levofloxacin), *floxacin, etc, directly and maybe permanently increase the production of MMPs, the enzymes this article is talking about. That's (partly) why these antibiotics cause teeth to shatter at the gum line spontaneously. There are something like 40 MMPs and we don't know what they all do, but they're generally respon…

Got a source? I want to read it.

There are literally thousands of studies on fluoroquinolones. Unfortunately none directly show tooth decay but the private support communities have. Simply Googling for "fluoroquinolone mmp" will return many studies to start from.

Tendon rupture and retinal detachment are well documented.

There are also many reasons why side effects from these drugs are under-reported and under-studied. For example, fluoroquinolones have been around since the 70s, but the first case report of tendon rupture did not appear until 1983. After all, who would believe an antibiotic would cause a tendon rupture up to years after taking it? Doctors to this day do not usually believe that patients' spontaneous ruptures are caused by fluoroquinolones, despite being well documented in the scientific literature now.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#42

Post by lvs »

leephillips wrote: post #36
lvs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much untrue. In the US at least, the federal budget allocation passed by Congress specifies how funding is distributed across programs and to fund the implementation of initiatives specified in other acts. They not only set the budgets for agencies, but also they set the funding for specific programs in those agencies. For science funding agencies, those programs are partially grant soliciting programs,…

All you say is true; I was trying to give a coarser-grained description. It applies to cases like this. Someone with a new idea for regrowing tooth enamel is going to apply to some program within NIH (I guess). He's not likely to get funded because a congressperson read a pop-sci article - his proposal will be reviewed by other researchers in dental health.

And that's true microscopically, but year-over-year the flow of money down the pipe is indeed controlled by political whims. In the Bush years, we had some grants granted by an agency that were ultimately only partially allocated by Congress for subsequent years, so that we ended up with only a fraction of what our overall budget was supposed to be by the end of a multiyear grant.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#43

Post by fourstar »

stephanheijl wrote: post #13

Is it just me, or does it feel like we've been hearing about advances in dental treatment for decades, without them actually having any effect on the practice? From my personal experience as someone living in the Netherlands, where standards of health care are pretty high, I would expect these advancements to make at least _some_ impact on the field. Instead my (admittedly anecdotal) experience as a patient has been…

You can thank the ADA for that.

Novamin is a bioglass that is fortified in Sensodyne, which coats the enamel (a fluoride rival, but better), and was sold to GSK. After that, it suddenly disappeared from shelves in the US.

You can still buy it online (it ships mainly from Europe), but not in the stores.

It's all one big racket.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

stevebmark wrote: post #38

Maybe relevant to someone: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Levaquin (levofloxacin), *floxacin, etc, directly and maybe permanently increase the production of MMPs, the enzymes this article is talking about. That's (partly) why these antibiotics cause teeth to shatter at the gum line spontaneously. There are something like 40 MMPs and we don't know what they all do, but they're generally respon…

[deleted]

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#45

Post by fourstar »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #5
desireco42 wrote: post #2

Finally something to advance dental technology :) I wonder how much existing practices, who are invested in repair and especially cleaning of teeth feel about possibilities to permanently repair teeth. There are other advances such as the one with laser stimulation.

There’s also a new stem cell treatment that could make root canals obsolete. http://www.popsci.com/end-root-canals https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12026614

I've talked to most of the researchers studying this particular method.

We won't be seeing anything in practice for another 50 years by what some of them claim.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#46

Post by derefr »

rjurney wrote: post #39
stevebmark wrote: post #38

Maybe relevant to someone: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Levaquin (levofloxacin), *floxacin, etc, directly and maybe permanently increase the production of MMPs, the enzymes this article is talking about. That's (partly) why these antibiotics cause teeth to shatter at the gum line spontaneously. There are something like 40 MMPs and we don't know what they all do, but they're generally respon…

Got a source? I want to read it.

Not a source, but a corollary of the parent's claim that might be easier to look up: doxycycline, an MMP inhibitor, is used (under the trade name "Periostat") as a prophylactic after dental root planing to prevent damage to the enamel.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#47

Post by stevebmark »

derefr wrote: post #46
rjurney wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source? I want to read it.

Not a source, but a corollary of the parent's claim that might be easier to look up: doxycycline, an MMP inhibitor , is used (under the trade name "Periostat") as a prophylactic after dental root planing to prevent damage to the enamel.

Your original question, "what happens if a drug downregulates MMPs" - is a great question and the tip of a largely unexplored iceberg.

MMPs are involved in many diseases, including fluoroquinolone insidious poisoning. They are implicated in heart disease and neurological disease like MS, for example. They are also implicated in general aging, because they destroy collagen which is considered to be irreplaceable in the body (hence why wrinkles are permanent).

Doxy is a known MMP inhibitor which may have benefits extending past its antibiotic range.

An important related question is why are MMPs upregulated by fluoroquinolones? One answer is that TIMPs are downregulated [1]. TIMPs are the antagonist to MMPs, they bind to MMPs and deactivate them. This is one way your body maintains MMP control.

Researching TIMP upregulators and MMP downregulators may help people suffering from permanent fluoroquinolone damage (like myself) deal with the constant pain and tissue destruction. These also have implications in aging and anti-aging technology. Notably, food from the ocean is well known to balance TIMP/MMP regulation [2]. Some natural antioxidants may also have the same effect [2]. This unexplored research is important both for tooth decay like the original article (since MMPs eat dentin, the hard tissue in teeth, and apparently enamel as well), and most tissue in the body, as fluoroquinolone sufferers experience in a hellish, constant reality.

[1] http://www.mltj.org/materiale_cic/704_3_3/6081_new/article.h... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707034/

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#48

Post by 3131s »

stevebmark wrote: post #38

Maybe relevant to someone: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Levaquin (levofloxacin), *floxacin, etc, directly and maybe permanently increase the production of MMPs, the enzymes this article is talking about. That's (partly) why these antibiotics cause teeth to shatter at the gum line spontaneously. There are something like 40 MMPs and we don't know what they all do, but they're generally respon…

Interesting to see this. In the hazy midst of a spell of bad food poisoning last month, I took the first dose in a course of levofloxacin that a pharmacist had given me. I had begun reading the Wikipedia entry on it before, but right after taking it I came to the section on spontaneous tendon rupture... since I'm an athlete, I freaked out and forced myself to vomit moments later. I'm glad I did. I personally try to avoid antibiotics as much as possible in general, but I had caved at the moment due to being in a lot of discomfort.

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#49

Post by convolvatron »

atxcrab wrote: post #6

Dental technology comes out of stone age :) Most of 'innovation' was around x-ray machines and nice chairs for last several years ( at least for most of patients )

i didn't see a dentist for 30 years

when i came back, i had issues. but the imaging was really quite a bit better. the adhesives were better. the crown construction process was a lot better. cleaning processes much better. filling materials substantially advanced. mold making considerably advanced.

everything was substantially less painful, cheaper, and more well understood. maybe you can fault it for not being better faster

Re: Researchers create gel that regrows tooth enamel (2015)

#50

Post by withdavidli »

fourstar wrote: post #43
stephanheijl wrote: post #13

Is it just me, or does it feel like we've been hearing about advances in dental treatment for decades, without them actually having any effect on the practice? From my personal experience as someone living in the Netherlands, where standards of health care are pretty high, I would expect these advancements to make at least _some_ impact on the field. Instead my (admittedly anecdotal) experience as a patient has been…

You can thank the ADA for that. Novamin is a bioglass that is fortified in Sensodyne, which coats the enamel (a fluoride rival, but better), and was sold to GSK. After that, it suddenly disappeared from shelves in the US. You can still buy it online (it ships mainly from Europe), but not in the stores. It's all one big racket.

I used to watch Shark Tank a lot, and they talk about this with patented products. That a big company will buy out a better solution just to shelf it because the current solution is more profitable. As a person that just spent $10k on oral care the past year this makes me incredibly sad and angry. Gov't is already so cheap that we (US) have fluoride in our water, that was planned to be cheap dental care =(.

I understand the need for IP to make the investment worthwhile. But when buying it out like this, it should be a use it or lose it situation with the patent. Depriving people of a better solution to make a profit ain't right.

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