Scientists Re-grow Dental Enamel 60
A reader at Cloning Resources writes "Dental enamel is the hardest tissue produced by the body. It cannot regenerate itself, because it is formed by a layer of cells that is lost by the time the tooth appears in the mouth. The enamel spends the remainder of its lifetime vulnerable to wear, damage, and decay. In hopes of eventually replacing teeth, scientists from Japan have developed a new method for growing dental enamel."
A long way to go (Score:4, Interesting)
It is interesting that this group is using collagen sponges as scaffolding; I'm glad to hear research has continued with that technique to the point that it is functional for growing complex tissues.
This is certainly promising; the step from here to fully-regrown teeth is not overwhelming. Still, I wouldn't bet on your Coca-Cola stocks skyrocketing just yet.
Re:A long way to go (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmmm... for some reason I am reminded of haggis...
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This is good news... it's more than just theory now so just a few more years to a viable product we can all benefit from (it'll be available to the Japanese next year and the US in 2017
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Does anyone know how to contact these people?
Taking advantage of that in humans would seem to show a way to shortcut all this animal experimentation. I could do this for about the first 40 years of my life. The growth didn't seem to be as hard as it could have been, but broken teeth were not a probl
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There are many good reasons to avoid excessive consumption of sugar/caffeine drinks, not least, avoiding the need for replacement teeth such as those we're discussing here. However, it's an urban legend that excessive sugar consumption causes diabetes (though of course it can lead to being overweight, which is associated with triggering type 2 diabetes)./p
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However it sounds like that might be confusing correlation with causation. It's quite possible both high sugar consumption and diabetes are caused by the same root. For example, it's possible that the body is already a little out of whack on its sugar and insulin processing, which makes sugar more desirable, and hence people who will ev
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It's not so much how much sugar you eat, but how out of whack with the rest of your lifestyle it is.
Re:Takes A Swig From My 2 Liter (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you'd care to cite those studies, then?
You might care to pass them on to the American Diabetes Association [diabetes.org] and Diabetes UK [diabetes.org.uk], both of which seem pretty clear that we're talking about a myth here. A quick Google will also turn up several recent research papers that do not show the link you assert.
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There is a rather interesting correlation between the timelines of companies replacing table sugar in the sugar water drinks with fructose and a dramatic increase in the number of diabetic people.
You are probably right in that sugar as in sucrose doesn't cause diabetes, but that's not what is generally in sodas these days, having been replaced by cheaper fructose.
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This is cool. (Score:2)
I have tongue rings, and my enamel wore down because of them. Which makes me sad. I digress.
Enamel fillings, instead of metal? Rock.
TFA mentions replacing whole teeth? I can see this catching on with old people.
Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you could grow a layer of white enamel over the yellow enamel. Then, smokers wouldn't need to go buy whitening strips anymore!
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Tongue/mouth piercings (Score:3, Interesting)
That is the really sad thing about tongue piercings and mouth piercings that nobody tells you about before you get them.
Unless they're properly sized, your teeth will get worn and chipped. I chipped a molar a week after I had my tongue pierced.
Regarding the technique in the article, I think a better solution for many people is to figure out how to stimulate the growth of completely new teeth in adults, yank 'em all, and have all new ones grow in place. Especially if you can decide to omit extra mol
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Nobody tells you? (Score:2)
What? JFGI [google.com].
Do you mean those marketing the product didn't tell you about the risks or that you didn't do any research?
Lesson 1: Don't believe people trying to sell you something
Lesson 2: Cosmetic body alterations are almost never a good idea.
These used to fall under the heading of 'common sense'.
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It seems more straightforward to the patient to simply implant teeth rather than trying to implant specialized enamel growth cells, and then stimulate them in tandem with the the tooth-growth cells. Of course, it may turn out to be easier than implanting a whole tooth, especially where the gums have already covered the implantation site, but I doubt it, given the success rate [fpnotebook.com] of reimplanting dis
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Very promising (Score:2, Interesting)
And, who knows, we might even be able to avoid filling teeth in the future; just apply/create some enamel in a cavity after burning the bacteria, neutralising the acid and stuff like that.
On the other side of the coin... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:On the other side of the coin... (Score:4, Interesting)
baby teeth resorb (Score:3, Interesting)
Sort of. The pressure from the adult teeth cause the roots of the baby teeth to dissolve. A baby tooth falling out doesn't look like an extracted tooth - the root is almost gone by time it falls out.
Let's see Wikipedia must have something on this.... ah, here:
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On the other hand, the idea of being able to reconstruct adult teeth is very useful over our current artificial forms of patch-work. The trick with enamle, of course, is to get it replaced before the rest of the tooth starts decaying. One probably couldn't put it back on a filling.
I need this... (Score:2)
But seriously, I've lost most of the enamel at my gum line (apparently due to brushing too virorously!), I've had one root canal (== dead tooth), and several big fillings. I've been eagerly awaiting someone to figure out how to grow new teeth so that when I yawn, people aren't blinded by sunlight refelcting off all the silver in my mouth.
Moo (Score:1)
IOW, there are many tries, but this one's got teeth to it?
But I thought this was already being worked on? (Score:5, Interesting)
There was an article last year about someone coming up with using ultrasonic waves to trigger regrowth of teeth.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/0606
This seems much more along, and less complicated. I imagine a new use for an ultrasonic transducer is easier to get approved than transgenic tissue grafting.
I really wish there was some central repository of active studies, with an easy way to grade their progress and potential oversight burden. I imagine being able to subscribe to studies and experiments, and receiving updates when available. The most irritating thing about 'scientific discovery' news articles is the fickle nature of the media to keep people in the loop on it. Whenever a bold claim is made, it becomes news. But the incremental progress is not sexy, so you never hear of it again. How many 'promising' cures for various cancers have we heard of, only to never heard of them again?
Mod parent UP (Score:2)
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There was an article last year about someone coming up with using ultrasonic waves to trigger regrowth of teeth.
AFAIK, it uses a rather well-known effect for stimulating bone growth, the same by which e.g. running makes your leg bones stronger. The article mentions uses related to the jaw and the roots of teeth, both of which are basically bone. On the other hand, enamel is a completely different tissue that cannot regenerate in adults because the cells are no longer around, as explained in the main article.
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It sounds like what you want is a real scientific journal instead of whatever bastardized version the mainstream press decides to feed you. Nature is always a good one, and perhaps something on medical technology.
Go Primary Sources!
Cool but nasty (Score:4, Interesting)
Josh
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Provided you sterilize the thing properly what does it matter where it grew?
Tom
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The "nasty" bit is a prejudice (Score:2)
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I can see how someone who believes he's a mirror image of an almighty god would think he's perfect as is and can't be improved.
But if anything, acknowledging the fact that one is merely an animal should make one more likely to regard artificial as potentially better, since "natural" is just another word for "whatever crap evolution tacked together that was barely good enough to survive". Having few actually working and "intelligently designed
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Anyone who's a
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biology is icky, sticky, nasty, beautiful. Biology is the most interesting thing in the universe. Open heart surgery or gastroentroscopy still gross me out. Rat abdomens are indeed cleaner than the human mouth. And no, you can't sterilize living tissue, which is what the article was discussing.
Ghouls.
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No, if we were really high tech about it, we'd just use an energy beam to suck the life forces directly out of the beasties and feed it directly into an implant that would handle all repairs to the organism... we should probably build in a "hypnotize victim and make them a helpless vampire slave" function to this device, as well, if we want to be able to claim to be really hi-tech ...
Woohoo for the rich! (Score:1)
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That makes you both more wealthy and better insured than most of us. It isn't as if it is a choice between paying out of pocket and insurance. It is a choice between having insurance and some care and no care at all. Most of us can't afford an
Ceramics? (Score:1)
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