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Comment by tgv | Hacker News Reader

Don't get your hopes up, and keep brushing your teeth: "The tooth regrowth medicine is intended for people who lack a full set of adult teeth due to congenital factors (anodontia)". There is a vague hope to develop it so that people who lose teeth can use it to regrow, but that seems to be another ball game.

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> for people who lack a full set of adult teeth due to congenital factors (anodontia)

I've got this, and 1% of people have this. I'd have to imagine that most of them would have obliterated the spot where they could grow these hypothetical new teeth by getting implants, though. So, I'd even think that it's really a treatment for children.

When I was a small child, it was already absolutely certain that I wasn't ever going to get my lateral incisors.

I’ve had “Maryland Bridges” in mine for years (apparently longer than the bridges are typically expected to last (?)), so there are some of us adults around…

But sadly for me:

  Once confirmed to have no ill effects on the human body, it will be aimed at treating children aged 2 to 6 who exhibit anodontia.

So my son is like this. Missing a whole bunch of teeth, they'll never come in. Now the question is... wait for this? Or just get implants. He's already way past this 2-6 age range, too :-( Tough.

This is at way to early a stage to plan around. It is just reaching human safety trials, which is the very earliest part of human trials looking solely for adverse effects. Even in the best possible scenario it would be many years still before this might be available as a treatment. Most drugs which reach this phase of development do not ever become available as a treatment.

What is the downside to implants?

Just curious.

> I'd have to imagine that most of them would have obliterated the spot where they could grow these hypothetical new teeth by getting implants

Maybe not. Apparently implants are not common everywhere. I have a Chinese friend who recently got them in the US after an accident, he had some medical connections back home who said the procedure isn't very available in China.

I get the impression that they're targeting the easy case first since stimulating tooth growth there is causing what was supposed to happen anyways, with less likelihood of conflict with the existing teeth.

But the article makes it sound plausible that it'd work for normal adults too in that new tooth growth would occur. It's just unclear how/if they guide that growth to a specific area, or if it has to be wholesale replacement of the set of teeth like losing your baby teeth.

Maybe what will happen is once you get to a certain point of dental misery you just get on the medicine blocking USAG-1 and have all the remaining teeth pulled, then wait for the new teeth to grow in...

CMIIW, but when baby teeth is already grown (appear), the other adult set is actually kept hidden inside, not that it grow.

I guess it won't be simply as stimulate teeth growth like nail.

> CMIIW, but when baby teeth is already grown (appear), the other adult set is actually kept hidden inside, not that it grow.

Yup. See this skull of a child with the adult teeth ready to come out and push the baby teeth out of the way (warning, some people find the image very repulsive, even though it's basically a textbook picture of a skull):

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9541/is-this-im...

I think it comes off as more repulsive because we're not used to seeing those parts of the skull cut away, putting it in the uncanny valley. What helped me to not be as repulsed by it was realizing that those parts of the skull aren't meant to be "uncovered" to show the adult teeth in the first place.

The human body is so amazing... It evolved to ship ready-made replacement parts to ensure the product would complete its deployment (reaching puberty and reproducing for a decade or two).

This is all hypothetical, of course, but: you don't have to lose all your baby teeth in order for your adult teeth to come in. Somehow an adult tooth coming in causes the baby tooth's root to dissolve (if that's the right word) and then pushes the remaining baby tooth out of the way. So you might not need to lose your adult teeth in order for the next-gen teeth to come in.

Some animals have continuosly growing teeth. Maybe with the right chemicals that could be encouraged in humans too.

It seems like turning on a switch for continuously growing anything is a recipe for cancer. Modern medicine and what it accomplishes continues to absolutely astound me with what is possible.

An unconditional one is but selectivity and reversibility is the key. Nothing makes that unachievable, just more complicated.

Teeth growth is a good target for such experimentation. Given its relatively easily operable nature allowing convenient observation of progress and intervention if needed.

We already can accelerate the regrowth of fingernails after losing one. This is the next easiest target if you ask me.

A shorter path to market might be to grow replacements in a sacrificial host using harvested stem cells from the recipient. Transplanting into the socket once sufficiently developed, with some of the magic sauce topically applied at the interface to promote it all taking root and growing into its new home...

It sounded like they were doing experiments with transplants as well in one of the papers I skimmed.

I might actually prefer that approach if it had a high success rate, to replace a thoroughly trashed tooth. Seems preferable to exposing oneself to the new treatment for the entire duration of tooth development. Especially if all you need is one replacement...

Seems like it shouldn't be referred to as a "regrowth" medicine when you're talking about something that didn't grow in the first place.

That has a fascinating answer but requires R, no TL;DR from me :)

some newspaper translator had to figure out how to translate the novel(ish?) phrase 歯生え薬. what do you want? it's not like this is FDA-approved marketing materials for something that's actually available.

It's not exactly difficult:

    歯 - tooth
    生え - grow
    薬 - medicine

Doesn't say anything about "regrowth" though.

It’s talking about growing a third set of teeth so it is regrowth

I have GERD and the only reason I found out was my dentist told me. It was because my teeth became so sensitive a room temperature banana was too cold. Lots of pain and still. It's from coughing due to acid reflux and acid splash up onto my teeth. It can also get into my lungs and over time damage them too by causing scarring.

Did you have no idea at all, as in, you never felt heartburn in the evening? I wonder if eating the last meal at eg 4PM wouldn’t improve this considerably.

As someone else who has some serious GERD, no, you don’t really notice. It’s like boiling a frog (unless you get an acute version). You just suddenly realize: hey, I seem to be having heartburn all the time, I don’t remember it being like this… maybe I should go to the doc? And then you’re fine for a few days and put it off.

And no, eating at different times won’t magically make your sphincter to your stomach close any tighter.

> eating at different times won’t magically make your sphincter to your stomach close any tighter

Stomach acid is also produced as reaction to food intake and other signals. Less acid => less reflux?

BTW probiotics have been found potentially effective by this systematic review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7019778/

This is probably not as simple as blaming the dysfunctional sphincter.

IMO early time restricted feeding shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly, it‘s potentially a fix for a number of systemic and gastric/enteric issues. The evidence is still weak but promising. The most important part here is „early“ - intermittent fasting usually has an eating window in the afternoon and maybe right until bed time. According to some (weak) studies, moving the eating window to the morning and early afternoon has vastly different effects.

> Less acid => less reflux?

Weirdly, I've also heard from people in that situation that more acid => less reflux because the sphincter only closes in high-pH environments. So one of the things prescribed can be hydrochloric acid supplements. Some people swear by them.

Symptoms of chronic acid reflux, laryngopharyngeal reflux and heartburn can also be caused by hypochlorhydria (low stomach acid), in which case taking hydrochloric acid will obviously also reduce the symptoms in that case.

Yep, chugging some lemon juice can be instant pain, but makes it go away in seconds. Apples also work amazingly.

I've started drinking shrub drinks (berries plus vinegar) they're not super acidic but it's just a funny coincidence after seeing your comment.

You're 100% right, I got the doctor rush to prescribe treatment on this when I was 24. Was never enough

Finally instilled some healthy habits by 32, namely no excessively large meals and no eating big meals ~3 hours before bed and it magically disappeared.

I just had my first bout in a while yesterday - 2 smalls pizza is still 2 pizzas folks!

There are exercises you can do that help with acid reflux - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9550520/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9106553/

Also alginate based products create a raft that block the acid from physically coming up.

The early time restricted feeding stuff is very interesting, and new to me - but I did learn a lot about it reading this guys blog -https://caloriesproper.com/etrf-2022/

Thanks for sharing the exercises! What seems to have helped me was losing weight (not easy at all, but has many additional benefits). There are some additional exercises (look for "hiatal hernia exercises" on YouTube), which are very simple and sometimes can get you instant relief. It's surprising so few people know about them. The comments section under those videos is often full of messages along the lines of "I've been suffering for years, this video changed my life." It's really helpful to know you can do something about it that does not involve taking PPIs every single day.

One other hugely useful change has been drinking alkaline water - it immediately stops the burning in the back of my throat, and is useful even if your issues are pepsin based and not just acid reflux. It should be good for dental/esophageal health as well.

I'll check out the hiatal hernia exercises, thanks!

Other possible solutions: d-limone In one unpublished trial, subjects took one gram of d-limonene every other day for 20 days, on an empty stomach (that is, half an hour before eating or an hour afterward). A third of them experienced relief from their heartburn after a single capsule, and within two weeks 90 percent had relief. After a single course of treatment, relief lasted for up to six months.

Licorice The natural solution for ulcers, deglycyrrhizinated licorice root (DGL), can also be an effective acid reflux treatment. The suggested dose of DGL is two tablets, chewed about 20 minutes before meals, three times a day, or it can be taken shortly before bedtime if you suffer mostly from nighttime acid reflux. Use only chewable DGL—it must be mixed with saliva in order to be effective.

IQORO - It's like a pacifier put behind lips and pull.

inspiratory muscle training

Throat Band https://blog.fauquierent.net/2014/05/cricoid-pressure-may-mi... https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/reviews/DEN130046.p...

and then the standard advice of inclining your bed / sleep on your left side.

> This is probably not as simple as blaming the dysfunctional sphincter.

In my case, that is exactly what it is (a hernia). Other people may have different reasons for it.

No I mean I had heartburn sometimes but who hasn't but really I didn't think it was unusually bad. Of all my symptoms the one that should have stood out was coughing. Acid splashes up and gets into your airway and you cough. There may not even be any heartburn feeling. I had that for years even as a teenager. I thought I was smart because I figured out as a teen an antacid would make my weird cough go away but I had never heard of GERD what teen has? This was well before the Internet age.

My issue is I can stop eating at 5pm or even 4pm but at night if I roll over on my stomach it pushes on it and I vomit up digest food. There's nothing like sitting bolt upright from that feeling as you aspirate into your lungs at 3am! Even lying on my side doesn't help I can feel acid pour into my throat.

PPI meds like Prevacid make me feel bad just an all around blah feeling. they are not supposed to be taken long term and I've read ppi medications may damage kidneys. I think similar to high blood pressure medicine it has some effect on kidneys and can even cause coughing due to it.

One weird quirk though is at my worst if I got sick with the flu my acid reflux went away.

So for now watch my diet, eat somewhat sensibly (almost impossible since everything is a trigger), and try not to eat too late.

My reflux seems to have gone now that I'm on CPAP for my Apnea. No idea if that would apply to anyone else but I still thought it was worth sharing.

Same here, the CPAP did wonders for treating apnea, and I also stopped snoring, to my fiancee's joy. About the reflux, the CPAP seems to have helped, although I already reduced it by a lot by anticipating dinner so that I would go to bed long after digestion was complete.

My wife couldn't sleep through my snoring after we had our first child. Her hormone changes gave her trouble sleeping and the extra tiredness, from a baby, meant my snoring got worse. She demanded that I go to a doctor to sort it out. I thought there was nothing they could do. Turns out a CPAP stopped my snoring. It's amazing what an impact treating the apnea has had. My mind is clear, my memory is back and I can focus like I did in university. Truly life changing.

It makes sense because the oral cavity (no pun intended) is under positive pressure with CPAP. Not everyone has sleep apnea and not everyone can tolerate CPAP, so it's not a universal solution to GERD. My GERD would be solvable during hiatal hernia surgery.

I had bad undiagnosed allergies for years that made me vomit for hours a day every day (amount many other things).

Cost the 4 rearmost teeth on the top side not including the wisdom teeth which were prob gonna need to go anyways.

They got eaten away because doctors were negligent and now every time I move and get a new dentist they treat me like I treat my mouth like shit.... Nah, I just had most of them damaged by literally thousands of liters of stomach acid, bile, and black stuff which was apparently blood from somewhere they can't see scarring on now... thanks doc.

Anyways I guess that my way of saying I sympathize.

What were you allergic too?

Oh boy, "the list"... Here goes a simplified version:

Beef chicken and pork (other meats untested, manual exposure testing required) ALL nightshades (potato's tomatoes peppers etc) the Entire Carrot/Celery/Parsley family (it's big) Lettuces (ridiculous, it's just water!) Rice Oats All berries All tree pollens including that contaminating food.... (This is the real kicker, as it hurt worst when ingested) And some uncommon stuff is honestly always forget even existed and then get freaked out when I realized I missed it on the list

Thankfully they all went away, supposedly due to age related changes to body chemistry.

HN won't let me edit or delete the first time I replied and I don't like how its formatted. Though I just tested and am adding this sentence as an edit, strange site behavior... Sorry for repost folks but need to:

Oh boy, "the list"... Here goes a simplified version:

Beef chicken and pork (other meats untested, manual exposure testing required)

ALL nightshades (potato's tomatoes peppers etc)

the Entire Carrot/Celery/Parsley family (it's big)

Lettuces (ridiculous, it's just water!)

Rice (and related)

Oats (and related)

All berries

All tree pollens including that contaminating food.... (This is the real kicker, as it hurt worst when ingested)

And some uncommon stuff is honestly always forget even existed and then get freaked out when I realized I missed it on the list

Thankfully they all went away, supposedly due to age related changes to body chemistry.

Bummer, I was hoping for shark teeth powers

This will give you the regrowth but the teeth will look like shark teeth. That might cause some odd looks and be careful not to bite your tongue. You’ll only be able to do that once! :-)

Tongue replacement is already a thing, oddly enough.

Ha! I bit off my tongue from falling a pretty good height. My knee came up and hit my chin, forcibly closing my mouth on my screaming face.

When I could finally move again (was paralyzed for a bit), and got to the hospital, they just told me to keep my mouth shut. Apparently, your tongue is just a muscle, so it will reattach itself.

It was a shitty few weeks, but at least I didn’t break any bones or land on my head.

Ouch! I did something similar snowboarding in my early 20s. Landed a badly timed jump on to hard, flat snow and slammed my knee into my chin. Thankfully did not catch my tongue, but shattered several teeth!

I remember wondering how I’d ended up with a mouthful of sand and grit. It wasn’t sand.

> Thankfully did not catch my tongue, but shattered several teeth!

Not sure whats worse.

> Apparently, your tongue is just a muscle, so it will reattach itself.

Wait, what? Could you elaborate? How does that work?

I couldn’t move my tongue for a few days (to let it reattach) then it was painful for a few more days, then some of it turned white and rotted off over a few weeks. But other than some gnarly teeth shaped scars, it works and functions like a normal tongue after 20 years.

Carrying around a note explaining why I couldn’t talk was also entertaining.

Yes, my stepmother did that when she was young. Not sure what they did for it but when I met her she had a weird flap of tongue that could flip forward. That part never reattached. It was disturbing and fascinating to 10 year old me.

I'm fine with this.

Once the technology is public, anyone can use it for whatever purpose. Research direction is not the same as commercial application.

Certain-not-to-be-named-due-to-spam-filter-medicament-on-V was intended for heart related chest pain.

My wallet doesn't ask for who it was intended. It asks: Will it work and can I buy it?

You've just got to format it as an email address: vi@g.ra

It does perhaps change the ball game though I would presume - if the goal is to grow a tooth which didn't develop, it changes the requirement to regrow a tooth to just regenerating whatever root structure you need to trigger that (which I would assume is a collection of specialized cells/nerves etc. which you could imagine maybe assembling from stem cells in a scaffold and implanting).

I have a friend with notoothia. Only in one tooth tho. And ya, it's weird looking. She got an implant. One of those titanium screws. It works but the gum is weird and the tooth is missized.

Would she switch it for a grown tooth given the option? I dunno.

> There is a vague hope to develop it so that people who lose teeth can use it to regrow, but that seems to be another ball game.

why does this seem to be another ball game?

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