Teeth, Hygiene, and Health

It’s not here yet, but in the future, the technology may exist to
allow dental patients to actually regrow teeth by planting
“seeds” in their jaws for new teeth.

Sound farfetched?

Well, don’t look now, but it has already been done in mice. This has
successfully been done by some sicentists, and they say it may be
possible to develop the process to work in humans.

It would actually be a cheaper and more accessible alternative to
the current solution of tooth implants. At present time, titanium
tooth implants are believed to be best, but this upcoming science of
regrowing teeth appears promising.

A University of Tokyo research team lead by Professor Takashi Tsuji
have been able to grow a tooth “seed” in a lab, transplant it into
a rodent’s jaw, and observe it mature into a tooth of standard
appearance with all the normal structures. Enamel and blood vessels
were present, in evidently standard form.

The team was able to observe the process at a finer level too, in
attempts to verify that the new teeth are bona fide teeth. They
used a fluorescent protein to track genes in the transplanted
tooth “bud”. The researchers discovered that the genes that are
normally active while a tooth develops were also functioning during
the transplanted bud’s growth.

In addition, the new tooth had similar hardness to ordinary teeth.
Pain stimulation responses showed that nerve fibres were able to grow
throughout the bioengineered tooth.

Some readers may be aware that existing technology allows organ tissue
to be grown in a laboratory, which can tehn be transplanted into
animals. Howvever, the growing of new teeth is the first instance of
a living animal having a three-dimensional organ grown inside it,
starting with only a few cells.

Furthermore, the team’s leader, Professor Tsuji, has stated that the
technique may be adatable to allowing the regrowth of damaged organs
within patients.

“This study demonstrates a technique that could lead to
the development of bioengineered organ replacements, potentially
providing a prelude to the ability to grow new, fully functional
organs inside the body from stem cells or other germ cells.”

The study has been published in the proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences . It emphasizes that the teeth were “fully
functioning”, had the correct structure, strength of mineralised
tissues for chewing, and pain response.

Professor Tuji elaborated:

“We propose this technology as
a model for future organ-replacement therapies. This study represents
a substantial advance and emphasises the potential for bioengineered
organ replacement in future regenerative therapies.”

The president of the British Dental Association, and senior
lecturer in restorative dentistry from the University of Dundee,
John Drummond, remarked that the successful implantation of a
tooth bud may herald a new era in dentistry.

“This sort of development is probably the future,” he said.
“Something like this has a huge potential to replace teeth that have been
lost.”

“I would guess we are at least a decade away from this
being available to patients because so many clinical trials and tests
have to be carried out. But it has the potential to be a lot less
expensive than something that involves a titanium implant into the
jaw.

Potentially, the surgery involved in something like this could be a
lot more straightforward. It could very well be something every
dentist would be able to do.”

Some people think chewing gum can be beneficial because it
burns calories.

This is hardly effective.

Chewing gum is a kind of exercise, but it doesn’t expend much energy. Chewing gum uses a few calories, but you have to chew for an hour to burn 11 calories. If you chewed for 12 hours every day for an entire month, you would lose only one pound of fat — even if you use sugarless gum. Some of the sugary gums can add 20 calories per stick, overriding those calories used by chewing.

A real benefit from chewing gum is evidenced after intestinal surgery. The
Archives of Surgery showed chewing gum helps normal bowel function return more
quickly after surgery. It’s thought that chewing mimics eating, which promotes
the wavelike muscle contractions in the intestines needed to move food along.

There are other benefits. To quote the U.C. Berkeley letter: “Gum chewing
boosts saliva flow, which clears food debris, neutralizes acid produced by
mouth bacteria, and remineralizes tooth enamel to some extent, all of which
help prevent tooth decay.”

Continue reading here for more…

By Dr. John Berchelmann Jr

We have all heard that if we eat sweets, that we will get cavities or holes in
our teeth. This is not exactly true, because cavities are a disease process and
not directly caused by the sugar we eat.

What is the cause of a cavity? A cavity is a bacterial infection. It’s a
contagious disease which can spread from person to person through their saliva.
It can be spread by sharing foods, drinks or kissing.

The way this happens is that there are several specific species of bacteria
that get on the surface of your teeth and start to multiply.

In a very short time a plaque forms that is a sticky substance. It adheres to
your teeth which is teaming with bacteria.

These bacteria can only survive on sugar or foods that turn into sugar, like
carbohydrates.

While these bacteria use carbohydrates to live on, they secrete an acid as
a by product of their metabolism. It dissolves the enamel or the outer covering
of the tooth.

Continue reading here…