Tooth decay to be a thing of the past? Enzyme responsible deciphered | Hacker News Reader

Tooth decay to be a thing of the past? Enzyme responsible deciphered

sciencedaily.com

91 pointsgasull44 comments

Well, there is more to plaque and thus caries than just one enzyme no matter how much it gets hyped up. I've done quite a bit of research on this and the short answer is that it is a complex interaction between many different bacteria (a large percentage of which we cannot grow in the lab) and the human host. Yes different genetics seem to be make people more or less resistant to caries and different habits play a key role. Also we know of some bacterial genes that when knocked out result in less or no plaque in the lab, but again, it's only one type of bacterium. In the mouth, if you somehow managed to (legally, ethically, and technically) introduce such mutant bacteria, it is likely that another one will produce the plaque and you're off again. It is just not easy to fix.

So trying to spin that this one enzyme from only one type of bacteria found in plaque is responsible for caries and that it is the nail that holds this complex in place is a bit premature and silly.

>Just add that substance to toothpaste, or even sweets, and caries will be a thing of the past.

Until we inevitably discover that it causes cancer, or lupus, or rabies or something. Can you imagine the advertising push if / when this does get added to candy bars?

I'd worry about the consequences of an enzyme inhibitor being digested. I mean they're saying that it's so close to alpha-amylase that's present in our mouth and pancreas. However, they don't mention its effects on beta-amylase that is known to be present in bacteria in animals digestive tracts, but we don't know how necessary beta-amylase is to our digestion.

I doubt we'll even see the inhibitor in anything for at least a decade after it's found due to its profound implications. I'm not worried about it one day causing cancer, I'm worried about it causing people to die of starvation or something bizarre after using the inhibitor.

That is what I thought too.But it could be a good thing adding it to the toothpaste, provided that you don't swallow it.

What are caries?

I had to look it up too. I've never seen/heard that word before, and don't expect to again.

  car●ies |ˈkerēz|
  noun
  decay and crumbling of a tooth or bone.
  
  ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin.

From New Oxford American Dictionary.

Interesting. In French it's the regular word for cavities.

likewise in portuguese, spanish, italian, etc :) but the latin origin of the word clearly explains why that's the case.

And German.

Basically, medicalese for cavities.

The answer to a question in a headline is always the null hypothesis. In this case, "no".

While I'm sure there must be exceptions out there somewhere, that's a pretty good rule of thumb.

If it wasn't, they wouldn't state it as a question.

The crystal structure has revealed that the folding mechanism of the protein is unique. The various domains of the enzyme are not formed from a single, linear amino acid chain but from two parts that assemble via a U-shaped structure of the chain; this is the first report on such a folding mechanism in the literature.

Is it that unique? I thought α and β chains of hemoglobin for example are also separate subunits.

They're also working on a "vaccine" for cavities: replacing the native bacteria in your mouth that consume the leftover sugars and excrete acid that eats away at the enamel with genetically modified versions that are harmless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caries_vaccine#Attempts_using_R...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caries_vaccine

If an industry has an association, don't expect lower prices or breakthroughs that reduce work to happen.

I wonder... This would basically put most dentists out of business. We'd still need some dentists and oral surgeons and orthodontists, but not nearly as many.

In Australia we have free health care but not dental. Dental is often an exceptional case in most healthcare plans as well. It would be nice to not have to worry about that any longer.

I'd be interested to know what proportion of dentistry is due to decay, particularly with the advent of chlorinated water. You'd possibly still need checkups for gum diseases.

Denmark same thing and dental care here is expensive. It can easily put any medium income family back a 8K just to get a bridge done.

You can fly to Repuplic of Moldova, it will be cheaper even considering airplane tickets.

But not 8K for a high- or low-income family?

Did you mean flouridated instead of chlorinated water? I've never heard of chlorine affecting tooth decay; it's normally added to water supplies to control germs. Flouride on the other hand is routinely added expressly for this purpose, although whether it is either effective or wise to do so is the subject of many bitter and divisive debates in communities.

Yeah I did, thanks for picking that one up.

It's more likely that higher rates of tooth decay started when humans began grinding grains finely enough to make such things as refined flour, and refined sugars. The paleolithic diet did not include such things, which easily become food for bacteria that lives in the mouth and causes tooth decay.

Do you have any data on how many teeth they found per mouth in remains of paleolithic people?

There is a classic work of Weston A. Price "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" exactly on the topic, except that he studied the living people - tribes all over the world, who still do not eat processed foods etc.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/10/18/130654483/starchy...

Cue the "Think of the dentists!" defense?

I'm still worried about the cottage industry loomists that are being driven out of business by these great big watermill looms.

Won't somebody think of the chandlers!

Most dentists would welcome it. Routine fillings aren't huge money-makers for them (which is why they focus so much on cosmetic dentistry these days). There are a lot of tooth/mouth related diseases beyond simple decay... they'll be fine.

On the other hand it might be hard to convince patients to come back every 6 months if decay were less of a problem. That seems to be when they talk to patients about about cosmetic and other more expensive procedures.

bullshit

While you aren't stating your opinion on the issue, the possibility of a particular field losing jobs due to some advancement in technology is almost never a valid reason for restricting that technology. Even if tooth decay happened to no longer be a service dentists needed to provide, the market would adjust the pay and number of dentists accordingly to match the new market.

This might suck for dentists over near future, but people would be much better having to no longer worry about tooth decay. Besides, gum disease is a probably a much bigger issue for people's dental health anyway, and that would be just as big a problem after this technology was released.

I agree, and sliverstorm's comment doesn't sound like he disagrees, either.

The same argument would apply to optometrists with the advent of laser eye surgery. It would be interesting to see if it has made a dent in their incomes, and if contact lens sales are down, for example.

I don't know what it takes to go from being an eye doctor to doing laser eye surgery, but it seems to me like there's a pretty clear skills development path there. I'd be interested to know if that's a feasible career move and, if so, how many have already made it.

When I had LASIK done 8 years ago, it was by an ophthalmologist, an MD specializing in the eye, not by the optometrist who prescribed glasses and contact lenses.

Optometrists would probably have to go back to school, become MDs, specialize, and then go for additional training in laser eye surgery.

Much like the advent of the antibiotic era put most doctors out of business?

We've been promised cures for tooth decay for fully 40 years. None has come to fruition in the USA - dentists are too firmly entrenched to let that happen. It would wipe them out, something pretty useful in general, since dental costs are predicted to skyrocket in the next 10 years.

Two generations of tooth decay _vaccines_ haven't made it to the USA although in some cases they were available in Great Britain and Europe.

Source?

Here you go, buttbreath:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tooth+decay+vaccine+in+britain

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=history+%20caries+vaccine

Yeah, I came here to say exactly what you did, thanks. I remember an article like this every 2-3 years popping up. Oh yeah, and of course the HN hive mind voted you down.

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