'Tooth Repair Drug' May Replace Fillings (bbc.com)

Teeth can be encouraged to repair themselves in a way that could see an end to fillings, according to scientists. From a report on BBC: The team at King's College London showed that a chemical could encourage cells in the dental pulp to heal small holes in mice teeth. A biodegradable sponge was soaked in the drug and then put inside the cavity. The study, published in Scientific Reports, showed it led to "complete, effective natural repair." Teeth have limited regenerative abilities. They can produce a thin band of dentine -- the layer just below the enamel -- if the inner dental pulp becomes exposed, but this cannot repair a large cavity. [...] Scientists discovered that a drug called Tideglusib heightened the activity of stem cells in the dental pulp so they could repair 0.13mm holes in the teeth of mice. A drug-soaked sponge was placed in the hole and then a protective coating was applied over the top. As the sponge broke down it was replaced by dentine, healing the tooth.

Comments

Teeth - Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Punch line still coming?

Re:Teeth - Britain

[tsqr]

Brexit may exasperate this probably

No matter how exasperated you may be over Brexit, it's more likely to exacerbate the problem (or the probably, if that's really what you meant).

This may lead to an even more interesting...

[MindPrison]

...development, namely food additives that could actually help heal your teeth or at least as an micro-repair that's not damaging to the body, but will fill up microcavities over time.

Re:This may lead to an even more interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Food additives that could help heal your teeth that are thought to be non-damaging to the body at first, but found to be carcinogenic a few years later.

FTFY, a.k.a. stop thinking about additives as a miracle solution. Stop putting crap for our teeth in water, we already have toothpaste and toothbrushes.

Re:This may lead to an even more interesting...

[Gilgaron]

You're not going to want to ingest cell growth promoters willy-nilly...

Re:This may lead to an even more interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not going to want to ingest cell growth promoters willy-nilly...

However, if you ingest cell growth promoters for your willy-nilly... Well then, that's a horse of a different color... So to speak.

Re:This may lead to an even more interesting...

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Down that way lies cancer, and lots of it.

Re:This may lead to an even more interesting...

[Rockoon]

Some of the stuff not listed here may not cause cancer:

Acetaldehyde, acrylamide, acrylonitril, abortion, agent orange, alar, alcohol, air pollution, aldrin, alfatoxin, arsenic, arsine, asbestos, asphalt fumes, atrazine, AZT, baby food, barbequed meat, benzene, benzidine, benzopyrene, beryllium, beta-carotene, betel nuts, birth control pills, bottled water, bracken, bread, breasts, brooms, bus stations, calcium channel blockers, cadmium, candles, captan, carbon black, carbon tetrachloride, careers for women, casual sex, car fumes, celery, charred foods, cooked foods, chewing gum, Chinese food, Chinese herbal supplements, chips, chloramphenicol, chlordane, chlorinated camphene, chlorinated water, chlorodiphenyl, chloroform, cholesterol, low cholesterol, chromium, coal tar, coffee, coke ovens, crackers, creosote, cyclamates, dairy products, deodorants, depleted uranium, depression, dichloryacetylene, DDT, dieldrin, diesel exhaust, diet soda, dimethyl sulphate, dinitrotouluene, dioxin, dioxane, epichlorhydrin, ethyle acrilate, ethylene, ethilene dibromide, ethnic beliefs,ethylene dichloride, Ex-Lax, fat, fluoridation, flying, formaldehyde, free radicals, french fries, fruit, gasoline, genes, gingerbread, global warming, gluteraldehyde, granite, grilled meat, Gulf war, hair dyes, hamburgers, heliobacter pylori, hepatitis B virus, hexachlorbutadiene, hexachlorethane, high bone mass, hot tea, HPMA, HRT, hydrazine, hydrogen peroxide, incense, infertility, jewellery, Kepone, kissing, lack of exercise, laxatives, lead, left handedness, Lindane, Listerine, low fibre diet, magnetic fields, malonaldehyde, mammograms, manganese, marijuana, methyl bromide, methylene chloride, menopause, microwave ovens, milk hormones, mixed spices, mobile phones, MTBE, nickel, night lighting, night shifts, nitrates, not breast feeding, not having a twin, nuclear power plants, Nutrasweet, obesity, oestrogen, olestra, olive oil, orange juice, oxygenated gasoline, oyster sauce, ozone, ozone depletion, passive smoking, PCBs, peanuts, pesticides, pet birds, plastic IV bags, polio vaccine, potato crisps (chips), power lines, proteins, Prozac, PVC, radio masts, radon, railway sleepers, red meat, Roundup, saccharin, salt, sausage, selenium, semiconductor plants, shellfish, sick buildings, soy sauce, stress, strontium, styrene, sulphuric acid, sun beds, sunlight, sunscreen, talc, tetrachloroethylene, testosterone, tight bras, toast, toasters, tobacco, tooth fillings, toothpaste (with fluoride or bleach), train stations, trichloroethylene, under-arm shaving, unvented stoves, uranium, UV radiation, Vatican radio masts, vegetables, vinyl bromide, vinyl chloride, vinyl fluoride, vinyl toys, vitamins, vitreous fibres, wallpaper, weedkiller (2-4 D), welding fumes, well water, weight gain, winter, wood dust, work, x-rays.

Unless it costs more

[Oswald McWeany]

Unless they can charge more than they do for fillings (or at least make more profit), I don't see this taking off in the US.

Re:Unless it costs more

[gurps_npc]

They can put it in toothpaste. Let you rub it in every day, like fluoride.

Re:Unless it costs more

[thegarbz]

You mean like Novamin? That other wonder healing drug that is in all Sensodine toothpastes except for the ones sold in America?

Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two interesting statements in the article that makes me hope this isn't vaporware.

Prof Sharpe said a new treatment could be available soon: "I don't think it's massively long term, it's quite low-hanging fruit in regenerative medicine and hopeful in a three-to-five year period this would be commercially available."

and

However, the drug has already been trialled in patients as a potential dementia therapy.

"The safety work has been done and at much higher concentrations so hopefully we're on to a winner," said Prof Sharpe.

Re:Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Tideglusib (NP-12, NP031112) is a potent, selective and irreversible[1] small molecule non-ATP-competitive GSK3 inhibitor that has been investigated as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease and paralysis supranuclear palsy in Phase IIa and IIb clinical trials. The first clinical trial conducted with tideglusib to be published (in English, at least) was phase II and demonstrated that overall tideglusib was well tolerated, except for some moderate, asymptomatic, fully reversible increases in liver enzymes (2.5xULN; where ULN=Upper Limit of Normal).

Tideglusib has also been investigated as a way to cause teeth to repair themselves by promoting dentine reinforcement of a sponge structure until the sponge biodegrades, leaving just a solid dentine structure. In 2016 it was successfully trialed for permanently filling 0.14mm holes in mouse teeth and there are hopes that the treatment could be used in humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tideglusib

NovaMin

[kuhnto]

Or this could go the path of NovaMin and never be approved by the FDA in the United states. It would not b in the interest of BIG DENTAL.

Re:NovaMin

[thegarbz]

I used a NovaMin toothpaste exclusively for a couple of years in the US before the patents were bought out (not sure by whom) and all products containing it were discontinued.

Novamin patents and the products containing were bought out by GlaxoSmithKline. They continue to make all the products but only in the USA and Germany do they no longer contain Novamin. Even the packaging and product names are the same except for the ingredient list.

Next you'll tell me they should fluoridate my H2O

[mmell]

Do you know what fluoridation is? It's an insidious communist plot to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

Re:Next you'll tell me they should fluoridate my H

[Anne Thwacks]

Water naturally has flouride in it in many places. Those places have fewer tooth cavities, which led to the idea of adding flouride in places where it is unnaturally low.

This in turn led to a deluge of ill-informed anti-science...

Oh, hang on, I think there is a whoosh going over my head.

Re:Next you'll tell me they should fluoridate my H

[lgw]

And now the whoosh is a guy riding a nuke down to it's target.