7 ms·

Is it just me, or does it feel like we've been hearing about advances in dental treatment for decades, without them actually having any effect on the practice?

• cultureulterior 10y ago
  You can get dental lasers in London at least
  • wikibob 10y ago
    Could you recommend a particular dentist there? Do they have the Solea 9.3 µm laser? From what I've been able to find, it's the only one that directly removes enamel and dentin. The other kind is erbium lasers which vaporize a water jet which then removes the material, but it's vastly less precise.
    • cultureulterior 10y ago
      You know WAY more than me about the subject, so thank you for teaching me something new.
• mhurron 10y ago
  Obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/ Seriously though, it really is just announcements that state something is available now that people outside of a particular profession should care about.
• crusso 10y ago
  The announcements of new treatments and new discoveries in various healthcare fields astronomically outstrips the real ones that you can actually make use of. The easy money is in the hyping of potential cures, and it's easy to see why. Even in this HN thread where you'd expect the level of scientific understanding and healthy skepticism to be fairly high, you see a lot of "Wow, it's about time" type responses. Now imagine the response of the politician controlling grant money who has no background in science.
  • leephillips 10y ago
    Generally speaking, politicians don't control grant money for research. They set the budgets for agencies who solicit proposals that are reviewed by domain experts. The exception is what is known as "pork", but that usually involves large projects.
    • lvs 10y ago
      That's pretty much untrue. In the US at least, the federal budget allocation passed by Congress specifies how funding is distributed across programs and to fund the implementation of initiatives specified in other acts. They not only set the budgets for agencies, but also they set the funding for specific programs in those agencies. For science funding agencies, those programs are partially grant soliciting programs, as well as other things. It's not just a big slush fund. Politicians regularly try to mess with these allocations to, for example, attempt to reduce funding for science programs they don't believe in. A famous example is with regard to embryonic stem cell research, although this was done by executive action.
      • leephillips 10y ago
        All you say is true; I was trying to give a coarser-grained description. It applies to cases like this. Someone with a new idea for regrowing tooth enamel is going to apply to some program within NIH (I guess). He's not likely to get funded because a congressperson read a pop-sci article - his proposal will be reviewed by other researchers in dental health.
• arikrak 10y ago
  What about Silver diamine fluoride? It has been used for decades in Japan so it's not just hypothetical. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/health/silver-diamine-fluoride-dentist-cavities.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/health/silver-diamine-fluo...
• lvs 10y ago
  These articles sadly derive from institutional press releases that invariably oversell the underlying work. We have an unsustainable systemic problem arising from the need to convince governments filled with anti-science politicians to fund expensive science. The institutions therefore feel the need to oversell every tiny paper so voters and politicians believe we're getting somewhere fast and won't kill funding, but the pace of real science is always fits and starts. You see a lot of people who have somehow figured out how to search the literature and cherry pick a paper they don't like as evidence of wasteful spending, and the system believes (falsely in my view) that overselling and oversimplifying results in a language that voters and politicians can understand. Edit: I should have also said that the other big motivating factor for institutional press offices is to market the institution to other potential donors.
• fourstar 10y ago
  You can thank the ADA for that. Novamin is a bioglass that is fortified in Sensodyne, which coats the enamel (a fluoride rival, but better), and was sold to GSK. After that, it suddenly disappeared from shelves in the US. You can still buy it online (it ships mainly from Europe), but not in the stores. It's all one big racket.
  • withdavidli 10y ago
    I used to watch Shark Tank a lot, and they talk about this with patented products. That a big company will buy out a better solution just to shelf it because the current solution is more profitable. As a person that just spent $10k on oral care the past year this makes me incredibly sad and angry. Gov't is already so cheap that we (US) have fluoride in our water, that was planned to be cheap dental care =(. I understand the need for IP to make the investment worthwhile. But when buying it out like this, it should be a use it or lose it situation with the patent. Depriving people of a better solution to make a profit ain't right.
    • wojcech 10y ago
      > Gov't is already so cheap that we (US) have fluoride in our water, that was planned to be cheap dental care =(. To understand you correctly, do you think the fluoride is a bad thing? IIRC fluoridated water is amongst the best bang for the buck you can do for healthy teeth, with no downside that I'm aware of (?)
      • saurik 10y ago
        I was under the impression that no one has ever shown that drinking fluoride does much for your teeth: it doesn't have a systemic effect; if you soak your teeth in concentrated fluoride that helps (though we might be overdoing it now in the US for children: tons of cases of teeth with floirinosis; I have some friends who clearly have this problem... but for adults it is great), but the momentary contact of the extremely small concentration of flouride in drinking water can only do harm as it ends up in other parts of your body... and we also know it does harm, the only question is whether there is enough in your water for the harm to be noticeable.
• fractallyte 10y ago
  Having worked at a dental implant startup in Vienna (http://www.bioimplant.at/ http://www.bioimplant.at/), I've experienced first-hand the obstacles that prevent new treatments and technology from reaching the patient. In summary: here is an 'immediate' dental implant requiring no drilling or bone augmentation (ie. surgery-free), that can be placed in minutes, and - once healed in - has no risk of future infection (peri-implantitis). Clinically proven over 10 years. Revolutionary, right? No top-end journal is willing to publish papers on this topic. (We surmise that the implant industry profits too much from existing treatments.) We've approached several popular science magazines with article proposals; declined. Reached out to journalists, no response. The only real publicity so far has been through word-of-mouth and SEO. It's a baffling (and somewhat disgraceful) situation. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of patients suffering needlessly every year, and a solution exists - but where is the bridge that can connect them?
  • cerebrum 10y ago
    Do you have any information on the latest in dental fillings? What is the best way of dealing with cavities?
    • fractallyte 10y ago
      The best way of dealing with cavities is to do your darndest not to get them in the first place! (Although: read below...) Stay away from sugary and starchy foods that stick to teeth. Don't expose teeth to mixtures of sugar and acid (such as sodas). Brush teeth carefully once a day: small, circular motions that cover every tooth surface; it's the mechanical action that removes food debris and plaque. A light touch is crucial, so you don't damage gums. Spend about 15-20 minutes on this in the evening, either while watching TV, reading, or just lying back in bed. Don't floss too often, because that can also damage gums. Anecdote: I had a small cavity on a rear molar. I completely stopped chewing on that side for 2-3 months(!). During that time I dramatically increased my intake of calcium (yogurt, milk, green vegetables, supplements). When I later returned to normal chewing, the cavity was healed. From the medical literature I've read, this doesn't happen. But in my case, it most certainly did happen.
• EGreg 10y ago
  Dude the plasma brush is real and came out: http://lynnwoodsongdentalcenter.com/plasma-technology-in-the-dental-field/ http://lynnwoodsongdentalcenter.com/plasma-technology-in-the... The lasers also came out. Check out waterlase, it is widespread now. But we are talking about regrowing dentin and enamel! And Kings College London seems to have been working on this for a while. Your article from 2014 is about it. What I want to ask any dentists here is why is PHOTO ACTIVATED DISINFECTION not being used? Where can someone get it instead of drilling and filling???