Slashdot Log In
Tooth Regeneration Coming Soon
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jan 05, 2009 08:12 PM
from the no-fairy-tale dept.
from the no-fairy-tale dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "For thousands of years, losing teeth has been a routine part of human aging. Now the Washington Post reports that researchers are close to growing important parts of teeth from stem cells, including creating a living root from scratch, perhaps within one year. According to Pamela Robey of the NIH. 'Dentists say, "Give me a root and I can put a crown on it."' In a few years dentists will treat periodontal disease with regeneration by using stem cells to create hard and soft tissue; they will take out a tooth that is about to fall, and reconnect it firmly to the regenerated tissue. Although nobody is predicting when it will be possible to grow teeth on demand, in adults, to replace missing ones, a common guess is five to ten years. Baby and wisdom teeth are sources of stem cells that could be 'banked' for future health needs, says Robey. 'When you think about it, the teeth children put under their pillows may end up being worth much more than the tooth fairy's going rate. Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth, it's nice to know you're walking around with your own source of stem cells.'"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
My opinion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My opinion (Score:4, Funny)
punbelievable!
Parent
Going rate... (Score:5, Funny)
My parents were good to me, they adjusted the 25-cents a tooth they got for inflation... wonder what I'll have to pay my kids?
Re:Going rate... (Score:5, Funny)
My parents were good to me, they adjusted the 25-cents a tooth they got for inflation... wonder what I'll have to pay my kids?
My six year old son says two dollars. But then he has a DS game buying habit to suppport.
Parent
Re:Going rate... (Score:5, Funny)
The tooth fairy is a smart, cunning businesswoman planning to cash in big on her investment!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This sort of thing is likely to be pretty expensive. I'm thinking and arm and a leg (yours).
Re:A quarter? (Score:3, Interesting)
I got a dime. Kids.
A dime?! Luxury! (Score:5, Funny)
A dime?! That we could have been so lucky!
Parent
Re: Luuxury! (Score:3, Funny)
I always read that with a Yorkshire accent.
Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth
I don't have them ... my dentist finally convinced me to have them removed a couple years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth
I don't have them ... my dentist finally convinced me to have them removed a couple years ago.
Wasn't there something recently about making stem cells from normal (I think) tissue in the reproductive system?
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:4, Funny)
Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth
I don't have them ... my dentist finally convinced me to have them removed a couple years ago.
Wasn't there something recently about making stem cells from normal (I think) tissue in the reproductive system?
Why must it always boil down to choosing between something cool and losing our fertility? :(
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:4, Funny)
'Something cool' would seem to be the sensible choice in that case. :-P
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh no, look at all the waste! I knew I should have saved it!
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:5, Informative)
My girlfriend swears she likes the taste... I've decided I can accept that.
Give her a treat by drinking lots of pineapple juice or eating bananas or papayas. Also, lay off the red meat, alcohol, and coffee.
The fruits will make it sweeter while red meat, alcohol and coffee will make it bitter.
What will you do when she wants more than you can produce? She will suck you out!
Wheat germ can help you produce more.
Parent
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:5, Funny)
Somehow I just don't see it as a worthwhile goal to adjust one's diet to affect the taste of your sperm.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you have to evaluate your own results, then probably not.
If you have a partner to do the experimental analysis then it may well be worthwhile.
If you can gather a whole research team, then I'd say you should definitely go for it.
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can pull stem cells out of a wisdom tooth I don't see why you couldn't pull them out of any tooth you wanted. Sacrifice a back molar then regrow it, along with any other teeth you need replaced.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How/why did your dentist convince you to get them removed? Were they bothering you? Did you have other problems that they thought might be related? Has there been an improvement in your life?
I've been bothered by migraine and cluster headaches, and neck and back tension for a long time. However, they started when I was 13, about five years before my wisdom teeth came in.
Re:Well, now that just SUCKS. (Score:4, Interesting)
A friend of mine had his removed because he was having headaches. Since I was also having headaches, I asked a doctor and his reply:
No, that probably will not fix your head or jaw aches.
He still recommended that I have them removed for other reasons, including the fact that the longer you wait, the more dangerous it is. There's always a chance that removal will tear a nerve in your cheek giving you a permanently numb cheek, among other dangers.
As always, I am -not- a doctor. You should only take medical advice from a doctor.
With this research, I'm wondering if I should have waited, though. The advice above about getting the stem cells from another back tooth is a good idea, though. Even if they (for some reason) couldn't regrow that back tooth, I'd gladly trade a back one for a front one.
Parent
I have a friend who grew a tooth. (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple of years after having a tooth extracted, a new one came in, and his dentist was going over his older x-rays to make sure that the tooth coming in hadn't been there all along. Apparently it's a very rare thing, but not completely unheard of, and we all grow teeth at least once in our lives.
-jcr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The wisdom teeth are part of your permanent tier, they just erupt later. Back before we had good dentistry, it wasn't uncommon for an individual to be missing a tooth or two by the time they reached 25, and so when the wisdom teeth came in, they would rack in from the back and shift the others forward.
Now that tooth loss is uncommon, wisdom teeth are regularly extracted, since they're liable to become impacted if there isn't space (from missing teeth) for them to grow in.
And it's true that some people d
Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a dentist, but I have seen a child's skull with the mandible dissected at a museum. You can see a whole lot of adult teeth lined up under the baby ones.
I was looking for a picture of this on the net, but couldn't find one quickly on google images. But take a look at this picture Baby teeth [allrefer.com] and the x-ray on this dental site. [dentalcarekids.com]
So I'd guess the wisdoms are just waiting under the baby teeth to pop up. Just a little longer than the others.
Parent
Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth. (Score:4, Informative)
Most people grow them twice! :)
No, you usually grow them once. After that, it's just a matter of them moving into place.
-jcr
Parent
Re:Not so. It happens more than you'ld think (Score:4, Funny)
Was this posted by a python script that generates paranoid fantasies?
-jcr
Parent
Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth. (Score:4, Interesting)
I had three full sets of teeth too. I got hit in the face by my little sister when I was ~16 (don't ask), and the front teeth came right out. I could feel and see the nubs of the new teeth coming in right beneath them, and the teeth that came out were clearly not adult teeth though they weren't exactly like baby teeth either. Ultimately I lost all my teeth that year. Oddly, when I was ~24 my canines got loose and came out, with a new set below them, so 4 sets of canines. X-Rays confirm I'm on my adult teeth now, which sucks. I liked having spares.
A few of my brothers and sisters had 3 sets of canines, but I was the only one with three complete sets out of 9 kids. I asked around my extended family, and on my mother's side heard of a few more people who had had three sets, so apparently there is some genetic basis for it.
Parent
Hm. Great (Score:4, Funny)
Now the replacement after the painful procedure will ALSO be able to rot and hurt like the original. Fuck yeah !
(only half joking. I was really happy after a root channel treatment, as that damn think was finally dead and not able to hurt anymore. In constrast to the year before.)
Re:Hm. Great (Score:5, Interesting)
On the flipside, many of my teeth required some sort of work done on them after a course of treatment by a dubious orthodontist when I was a kid. Since then, even though dentists have always told me I have generally good oral hygiene, it seems like I have to get some filling or something replaced every few months, which is expensive and occasionally painful. I would give a lot to have real, intact teeth again, and articles like this give me some hope that one day it might even be possible. (I hear you on the root surgery thing, though: been there, done that too.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead of painful root canals you'd just yank the tooth and grow another in it's place.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Less painful than some drilling, a filling or two, then later a root canal, or possibly repeated root canals if the first doesn't quite get it.
Dental genetics (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that's often ignored is that some people have naturally "harder" teeth than others. I, unfortunately, am "blessed" with the softer variety. I put out the effort: brush vigorously, regularly, flossing daily, etc. and my teeth are just horrible, and probably a third are basically just plastic. I am one of my Dentist's best customers.
My wife, on the other hand, simply doesn't have to spend nearly as much effort on her teeth. She brushes and all, but she has gorgeous teeth and puts in only modest effort. I see the same in our children. Some have her teeth, put out little effort and consistently have nice, white teeth and no cavities, while others have mine, and brush regularly only to have cavities every single visit.
Finally, I can grow new teeth!?!? Oh wait, they'll be *MY* teeth? With *MY* crappy-ass tooth genes?
(to my wife) Eh, babe? (Ahem) Mind if I have one of your wisdom teeth?
Same Here. (Score:2)
I inherited disease-prone teeth from my dad, but my wife has awesome teeth and hardly ever flosses. I'm 34, I brush and floss three times a day with the precision only a nerd can provide...still, I'm just barely holding my 'gum pockets' at 3mm.
I hope our kids get her teeth genes!
Re:Dental genetics (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't brush too vigorously: you'll end up with with completely different problem of receding gums. If you don't have a really good electric toothbrush, get one. I use an Oral-B Triumph. I was totally amazed at how much I liked it. I thought it would just be a gimmick, but it's not. It's the best investment I've ever made into a gadget.
I also find 30 seconds of Listerine after brushing helps a lot, too.
Another thing I use daily is Johnson and Johnson Stim-U-Dent sticks. They take a little getting used to, but I really like them.
Parent
Who you gonna call? Toothgrowers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Crown? (Score:5, Funny)
'Dentists say, "Give me a root and I can put a crown on it."'
This is the same thing that a king says when looking for a potential queen.
5 years my arse (Score:4, Insightful)
When are journalists going to learn that it takes 10 years to get from the lab to market? And when it comes to anything medical, add another 10 years for clinical trials.
Damn... (Score:4, Insightful)
...I'm glad that I've still got all four of my wisdom teeth! Sounds like they will be good insurance towards healthy teeth in my later years. Actually, I wonder if this biotechnology will spell the end to the "convenience" removal of wisdom teeth.
Where's my GM Strep Mutans? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where's my GM Strep Mutans? (Score:5, Informative)
Where are they? In the final stages of FDA clinical trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caries_vaccine [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Where's my GM Strep Mutans? (Score:5, Informative)
> Is the ADA lobbying to keep it off the market because fillings and such are such a big
> money maker?
You mean the way they lobbied to block flouridation and flouride treatments?
(Hint for the dense: they didn't. Quite the contrary.)
Parent
It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that has always puzzled me is that despite all the advances in technology, getting a crown is still VERY expensive. There has been no appreciable reduction in cost due to better manufacturing techniques, or better/cheaper materials. Compare this to say, lasik - when it was first introduced it cost about 4K per eye I think. Now it's a few hundred.
Question: Can I regrow custom-designed teeth? (Score:4, Interesting)
The question is, can I regrow custom-designed teeth? What if I don't like my teeth in the first place? I don't want to regrow the same set of teeth again.
I was born with a severe lack of calcium. By the age of 3, I still didn't have any tooth. Not that it didn't grow, but the teeth were just like powder. When I ate, the teeth that just appeared in the morning were smashed by any food and swallowed along.
After taking a lot of calcium supplement (still do on a daily basis), eventually, they grew. the shape are fine, but they are grey. They are weak, cavities and rotten root canal are nasty problems. And that causes all kinds of gum problems, even with daily Listerine or salty water mouth wash.
Since high school, I always have to work extra to make that extra 5000 to 6000 more than others, every year, to take care of the teeth. Not to mention that it had been an obstacle to self-confidence for so many years.
Now, if can regrow my teeth, I certainly don't want to regrow the same set. Can I custom-design mine?
How to infuriate the next generation of parents (Score:4, Funny)
When I see people with extreme body modifications like subdermal beads and spikes that protrude from the scalp, I wonder what their children of those people could possibly do to frustrate them.
This article gives me the answer: in 30 years teenagers will grow teeth all over their body.
How to store teeth today? (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who has smaller children in his extended family, I am wondering if there are any house-hold-compatible ways to save cells on teeth. Or should I just forget the whole thing?
Re: (Score:2)
Edentulous. I always used edentate. Waddyaknow.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An embryo is not a fetus. But you can make up whatever "definitions" suit you...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When I'm trying to convince someone that saving a life is important, I forget about how much some people care about keeping perfect distinctions between adjacent stages of human development [wikipedia.org]. I will try to avoid this from now.
Re:If this is true... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent