I had poor oral hygiene in my 20's. I didn't floss. And it became a problem by my late 20's- I had to have a root canal, another tooth needed a crown. Now, I'm almost 40 years old and I've rarely gone to the dentist over the last 5 because I floss and use a dental pick so thoroughly, I do not require much cleaning when I do go and I obviously have no cavities.
So, I am extemely skeptical of any claim that flossing doesn't work. Of course, you have to flossing properly and I actually remove far more food from my teeth with a pick-- I use those disposable flossing with floss on one end and a pick on thr other.
It's a textbook case of the midwit "muh studies" meme.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Studies are imperfect and limited, by resources, biases, and the imagination/ingenuity of those conducting and funding them. Anyone except an overeducated fool can see that removing rotting food from between your teeth is better than not removing it, for all aspects of oral hygiene.
Had the same experience in my 30s. It's actually insane how much healthier my gums became once I started flossing regularly, although that's obviously not the same as caries. Went from having cavities every dental visit to maybe having one over a 10 year period, and it was all about changes in brushing/flossing.
It all sounds encouraging, but couldn't the bioengineered strain of S. mutans re-evolve lactic acid production, and put us all back at square one? Presumably this trait evolved in the first place because it was adaptive from the bacteria's perspective?
OMG! Exciting news! This is a well written, beautifully researched, and highly intelligent article. I am grateful for the pertinent information and for a long anticipated source of essential/beneficial oral microbiota. I can stop swishing my kefir cultures in the off chance that those strains might target the opportunistic oral bacteria. We coexist synergistically with beneficial microbes. Learning how to introduce and to cultivate the various populations is a gift to the quality of life.
Are there any reports or ideas to what could happen to our gut microbiomes? I couldn't find any sources that say much about second order effects, the reality is these haven't passed FDA trials and its bioengineering being marketed as a cosmetic. I'm still getting it lol, but I want to know.
Thanks for this write up. I recall reading about this sort of thing in 2005 or so, the company called Oragenics if I am remembering correctly. It could be a huge win if it is as advertised.
This is a really good analysis. Not related to caries, but the automatic extraction of wisdom teeth borders on criminal. They should be extracted on a case by case basis.
This is probably the first Substack I've encountered that has a biochemical cycle figure in the article. The appearance to most readers, however, is that most advanced concepts appear inaccessible. I took 3 biochemistry courses in college, and think it is the most polymath interdisciplinary science of the 20th century. Yet most in the humanities (even though I side with them in many cases), see science as a wall of text, unfortunately. I wonder if most politicized views are just a poor aptitude at math. That said, in your Climate Change article (Feb 9th):
"Vlasceanu et al. recently published their evaluation of a massive 63-country global intervention tournament in which eleven expert-sourced interventions based on behavioral scientific findings were pitted head-to-head to see which would work best for improving climate change beliefs, bolstering environmental policy support, increasing information sharing intentions, and getting people to take action to save the climate."
I had to wrap my head around the numbers 63 and eleven, even though I routinely write sentences as long or longer than this. Placing emphasis on numbers and IQ is becoming unpopular, as this article recently shows: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/iq-discourse-is-increasingly-unhinged That said, one can still attempt to address valid numerical statistics in a slightly more accessible way, if that is the intention.
When will this be mandated? I'm excited about getting kicked off social media when I say that it is crap. Seriously though, seems like a bit of a Faucian bargain.
Wait, if mothers can transfer the bacteria to their children, doesn't that mean after buying the Lumina treatment, you can still get the cavity bacteria introduced again after french kissing or sharing spoons etc with someone?
It's responsible for the majority. This comment is irrelevant and sounds like it's a response to something, but it's not, since no one is claiming caries are caused by one thing.
I had poor oral hygiene in my 20's. I didn't floss. And it became a problem by my late 20's- I had to have a root canal, another tooth needed a crown. Now, I'm almost 40 years old and I've rarely gone to the dentist over the last 5 because I floss and use a dental pick so thoroughly, I do not require much cleaning when I do go and I obviously have no cavities.
So, I am extemely skeptical of any claim that flossing doesn't work. Of course, you have to flossing properly and I actually remove far more food from my teeth with a pick-- I use those disposable flossing with floss on one end and a pick on thr other.
It's a textbook case of the midwit "muh studies" meme.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Studies are imperfect and limited, by resources, biases, and the imagination/ingenuity of those conducting and funding them. Anyone except an overeducated fool can see that removing rotting food from between your teeth is better than not removing it, for all aspects of oral hygiene.
Had the same experience in my 30s. It's actually insane how much healthier my gums became once I started flossing regularly, although that's obviously not the same as caries. Went from having cavities every dental visit to maybe having one over a 10 year period, and it was all about changes in brushing/flossing.
The linked cochrane review was withdrawn and replaced by https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD012018.pub2/full. The conclusion is different. But at best the evidence is weak. Time will tell
I created a reddit community to follow Lantern bioworks progress, etc, if you are interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/lanternbioworks/
It all sounds encouraging, but couldn't the bioengineered strain of S. mutans re-evolve lactic acid production, and put us all back at square one? Presumably this trait evolved in the first place because it was adaptive from the bacteria's perspective?
Most complicated advertorial I've ever read
That's probably because it isn't one.
I would like to see the peer-reviewed articles about it first. Thank you for the overview. I will dive in.
You received the treatment for free, yes?
OMG! Exciting news! This is a well written, beautifully researched, and highly intelligent article. I am grateful for the pertinent information and for a long anticipated source of essential/beneficial oral microbiota. I can stop swishing my kefir cultures in the off chance that those strains might target the opportunistic oral bacteria. We coexist synergistically with beneficial microbes. Learning how to introduce and to cultivate the various populations is a gift to the quality of life.
Are there any reports or ideas to what could happen to our gut microbiomes? I couldn't find any sources that say much about second order effects, the reality is these haven't passed FDA trials and its bioengineering being marketed as a cosmetic. I'm still getting it lol, but I want to know.
If this is true, this is wonderful. Has Big Dentistry sent ninjas to Honduras yet to burn down the lab?
"We’ve come close to eliminating other diseases, but no other disease has officially been eliminated."
What about kuru?
I'll tell you what someone else told me: "It's [a form of] CJD so give it time".
Could go for "Rise and Fill" for the pun.
Thanks for this write up. I recall reading about this sort of thing in 2005 or so, the company called Oragenics if I am remembering correctly. It could be a huge win if it is as advertised.
Infesting your body with experimental bioengineered bacteria… what could possibly go wrong?
This is a really good analysis. Not related to caries, but the automatic extraction of wisdom teeth borders on criminal. They should be extracted on a case by case basis.
This is probably the first Substack I've encountered that has a biochemical cycle figure in the article. The appearance to most readers, however, is that most advanced concepts appear inaccessible. I took 3 biochemistry courses in college, and think it is the most polymath interdisciplinary science of the 20th century. Yet most in the humanities (even though I side with them in many cases), see science as a wall of text, unfortunately. I wonder if most politicized views are just a poor aptitude at math. That said, in your Climate Change article (Feb 9th):
"Vlasceanu et al. recently published their evaluation of a massive 63-country global intervention tournament in which eleven expert-sourced interventions based on behavioral scientific findings were pitted head-to-head to see which would work best for improving climate change beliefs, bolstering environmental policy support, increasing information sharing intentions, and getting people to take action to save the climate."
I had to wrap my head around the numbers 63 and eleven, even though I routinely write sentences as long or longer than this. Placing emphasis on numbers and IQ is becoming unpopular, as this article recently shows: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/iq-discourse-is-increasingly-unhinged That said, one can still attempt to address valid numerical statistics in a slightly more accessible way, if that is the intention.
When will this be mandated? I'm excited about getting kicked off social media when I say that it is crap. Seriously though, seems like a bit of a Faucian bargain.
Wait, if mothers can transfer the bacteria to their children, doesn't that mean after buying the Lumina treatment, you can still get the cavity bacteria introduced again after french kissing or sharing spoons etc with someone?
Am I missing something obvious here?
From how I read it, the new strain is supposed to outcompete the old one
Amazing! I wonder if the treatment will also reduce the failure rate of existing fillings?
To the extent those fail due to S. mutans' acidifying effects, it should help.
Wow. Do you still need to brush your teeth?
Yes, because there are other reasons to brush your teeth than cavities alone.
„ Streptococcus mutans is actually neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of dental caries“ [0]
Thoughts?
[0] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-technology/reports-death-dental-cavities-are-greatly-exaggerated
It's responsible for the majority. This comment is irrelevant and sounds like it's a response to something, but it's not, since no one is claiming caries are caused by one thing.