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Comment by yosito | Hacker News Reader

I have a feeling that the people who would trust a product like Lumina are probably the same people who will never use flouride.

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Well, you can trivially falsify this feeling by going and asking some early adopters whether they brush their teeth with fluoridated toothpaste. (Spoiler: they do.)

Since you bring up fluoride—does anyone know the state of the literature on the effectiveness of fluoride treatments? I’ve been getting them for years. But with the recent trends towards PE owned dental practices and efforts to juice their profitability, I’m more and more skeptical of anything my dentist tries to sell me on.

I also get the treatment because why risk your teeth and health at the cost of basically $50? But am still curious to know more about its efficacy.

Seems solid to me. They can predict reduction of caries before they add it to city supply water, which still happens in China I believe.

Majority of USA has fluoridated water per the cdc website. No need to go to China if you want data for studies.

I learned about Novamin a few years ago [0], and ordered BioMin Restore [1] to give it a try. I'm now a devoted customer. There are other Novamin/hydroxyapatite toothpastes, but I only have experience with this one brand.

I think this company's latest news is the version of their toothpaste that has fluoride [2] is now FDA-approved for sensitive teeth, so they're going to be able to sell it in the United States specifically labeled to help with sensitive teeth. If you live in Canada or the UK [3], it looks like you can order this now.

Just noticed a blog post on the UK site: Why you shouldn’t over-prescribe fluoride to your patients - https://biomin.co.uk/news/article/why-you-shouldnt-over-pres...

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26669660

[1] https://drcollins.com/collections/toothpaste/products/biomin...

[2] https://biomintoothpaste.com/

[3] https://www.biomin-toothpaste.com/products/biomin-f-75-ml / https://biomin.co.uk/

It has recently become harder to order novamin versions of sensadyne in the US through Amazon, so I'm hoping something gets onto the shelves soon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XK6XJBP?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_...

Bought just this past Sunday and delivered this morning, had zero issues finding and ordering it :)

Is there any science available about that, that isn't from the company selling it?

My HN comment, linked to as [0], was on a submission about the history of NovaMin - iirc it was originally used for soldiers in Vietnam, then came to be used for repair of teeth.

You can do your own experiment: $10 for a tube, plus $6 shipping. If you have sensitive teeth it’s worth a trial.

Nature relayed one from the British Dental Journal (2023) on the acid protection granted by BioMin F. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41415-024-7876-8)

Here's another from 2022 that compares Colgate fluoride toothpaste against BioMin F(https://shorturl.at/M4hiQ).

You can get high fluoride tooth paste (i.e. ~2% fluoride vs the 0.25% found in normal toothpaste) just by asking from most dentists. Costs about the same per bottle too.

Been doing this for years and have nearly perfect teeth due to it, flossing, and non alcohol based anti-gingivitis/anti-plaque mouth washing.

Also, people who think fluoride is bad for you or think it's not effective for teeth are exactly the kind of people I'm terrified of paying in the context of developing software. I really wish people would wear their love of homeopathy, and other psudo-scientific bullshit more clearly so they can be more easily avoided.

There's a big difference between applying a high concentration of fluoride to teeth where it's needed and then spitting the excess out vs swallowing a low concentration of flouride in drinking water and having most of it go where it isn't needed.

The issue is people (rightly imo) oppose the latter and throw the baby out with the bathwater

Can you explain a little more about where your "feeling" comes from? I preordered Lumina months ago and I drink fluoridated water, brush regularly with fluoridated toothpaste, and intend to keep doing so indefinitely.

I socialize with a lot of international entrepreneurs who go to places like Prospera where Lumina was started. In those circles, it's not at all uncommon for people to see fluoride as an evil thing. I've even seen women in their dating profiles advertising that they won't date a man unless he's "unfluoridated".

Have you considered that surrounding yourself with weird conspiracy theorists and then blindly projecting their behaviors onto the population at large isn't a great idea?

I'm strongly considering it, although I can't get it where I live yet. I've never had a cavity, but I spend a lot of time doing endurance sports and very high carbohydrate intake has become the latest performance enhancer. As a result I'm often drinking a couple hundred grams of plain table sugar per week and I'd like to keep my streak of good teeth health.

If I can do that for $250 I don't see why not. They're pretty clear it's not a replacement for brushing. I think of it as preventative care (assuming it is actually safe of course).

Read the article. If you have not already, you might rethink consideration of this product.

They just needed to humble brag, the article wasn’t important.

I don’t think that’s the case at all - it’s a common concern in endurance sports, you really do have huge quantities of sugar.

The article provides some reasons to think that the treatment might not be fully effective even conditional on the mechanism of action working as described, not that it won't do anything at all.

The article provides some sound reasons for why

1. infecting yourself with this bacteria may not do what it is marketed to do

2. may result in suppression of beneficial microbiota

3. is not safe against lateral acquisition of a gene that is beneficial to the microbe but pathogenic to the human host

4. there is no real kill switch

for a lot of money, you might just end up buying a lot of health issues.

Th article just confirms my suspicion that the worst thing is I could be out $500

How is that your takeaway?

Either you didn’t read the article, or you’re blatantly ignoring that we don’t understand the long term implications of having this bacteria in your mouth and gut microbiome.

There may be no problems at all… but we don’t know. This is why FDA regulations exist. The product being sold in Prospera to skirt regulations should be a red flag anyway.

I’m not saying that it can’t or won’t work. I’m saying, be careful. If you can prevent cavities by brushing with fluoridated toothpaste and flossing, why would you adopt a potential risk that could affect your health?

I googled and got multiple results that I couldn't tie with your comment. what do you reference with Prospers?

As referenced in the article, Próspera [0]. It’s a private city/private economic zone in Honduras. The NYT actually just released a great Sunday Read podcast on the city this weekend [1].

[0] https://www.prospera.co/en/visit

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/podcasts/the-daily/prospe...

The article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-hondura...

Archive: https://archive.is/fwjcD

Sometimes you read an article and you think "this article doesn't want me to do X, but all its arguments against X are utterly terrible. If that's the best they could find, X is probably alright."

their argument is well reasoned and significant. The very real potential of the bacteria to acquire genes that make it pathogenic, coupled with how hard it would be to eradicate, should make all but the most desperate think twice. The final nail in the coffin, should be the fact that this is not even likely to work the way it is intended to.

My own dentist (William Drillfill, DDS) was telling me just a few weeks ago that it could be alot worse. The mid-sized boat building industry sector could take a big hit and tank the entire economy. Have some sympathy for the boat builders, how many more layoffs can our country take right now?

or, you could be infecting your mouth with a stubborn bacteria that will be difficult if not impossible to eradicate, that has the capacity to laterally acquire pathogenic genes, or through the toxin it produces, suppress other microbes which are actively beneficial. For the low cost of $500, you could end up with a lifetime of medical issues.

I hope one day that the dudes eating sugar and the dudes using fluoride get into a room together, and discuss how long and often said substances are in contact with dental enamel, and at what concentrations, and then either they convert to homeopathy, or find something better to do with their HSAs.

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