4 ms·

Ethanol (alcohol) is toxic; do I want bacteria producing ethanol in my mouth constantly, poisoning my brain? If I swallow this bacteria, will it start producing

by 7e 3y ago

Ethanol (alcohol) is toxic; do I want bacteria producing ethanol in my mouth constantly, poisoning my brain? If I swallow this bacteria, will it start producing ethanol in my gut? If it does, how do I get rid of it? I don't want to have a low level of cognitive impairment 24x7. If I have this in my mouth and then have a baby, will the baby be contaminated with alcohol-producing bacteria during critical periods of development (up to age 18?) Will that alcohol damage their central nervous system? So much wrong here. EDIT: some data from their FAQ: "The endogenous alcohol concentration in the blood of sober people is 0.39 ± 0.45 μg/mL or 0.039 mg/dL (Antoschechkin, 2001)." Further down: 5. Then you’ll end up with 11mg/5L of blood. This is, in more familiar units, 0.22 mg per dL 0.22 / 0.039 = a 5.6x increase in chronic blood alcohol concentration under pessimistic assumptions [1]. No thank you. There's no telling what that will do to a person over 50 years. [1] I'm not sure it's so pessimistic. This number comes from culture on blood agar, which isn't exactly the sugar level of a Western diet. Blood agar contains almost no sugar.

newman314 3y ago
The claim on Twitter has been the amount of ethanol produced is small on the order of eating a piece of bread a day but I have not seen any further evidence. See https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1777886765589618767?s=61 https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/17778867655896187...
- 7e 3y ago
  "The claim on Twitter" is why the FDA exists, and that's a good thing. Bread can be a bit alcoholic, yes. I try to avoid it for other reasons. I would prefer that everything I eat over 50 years not be turned into fractional bread by my saliva.
mlyle 3y ago
You have hundreds of varieties of bacteria in your mouth, many of which already make ethanol. You have one that makes lactic acid and causes tooth decay; by making a variety of it that makes ethanol and can outcompete the tooth-decay causing variety, you improve the situation: drastically lower lactic acid and not much more ethanol.
- 7e 3y ago
  When ethanol is added to saliva, bacteria in the mouth produce acetaldehyde, which is known to be carcinogenic. I need less ethanol in my mouth, not more!
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    >I need less ethanol in my mouth, not more! Said no one ever.
    - 7e 3y ago
      This is pretty low effort. You contract yourself in the same sentence, because clearly I just said it!
Yenrabbit 3y ago
"The average person has enough of these bacteria in their gut to have a natural blood alcohol level - even after zero drinks - of about 0.1 mg/dl. Under pessimistic assumptions, BCS3-L1 will add another 0.2 mg/dl, bringing the total to 0.3. This is still a pretty normal number that some people have naturally (it would bring the average customer from the ~50th to the ~80th percentile of natural blood alcohol). It’s also far from the usual threshold for feeling tipsy (30 mg/dl) or too drunk to drive (80 mg/dl). Under more realistic assumptions, the amount of alcohol produced by BCS3-L1 probably isn’t significant even by the very low standards of natural blood alcohol concentrations." (From https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-biow...)
- 7e 3y ago
  From the source: "The endogenous alcohol concentration in the blood of sober people is 0.39 ± 0.45 μg/mL or 0.039 mg/dL (Antoschechkin, 2001)." Further down: 5. Then you’ll end up with 11mg/5L of blood. This is, in more familiar units, 0.22 mg per dL 0.22 / 0.039 = a *5.6x* increase in chronic blood alcohol concentration, albeit under pessimistic assumptions [1]. No thank you. There's no telling what that will do to a person over 50 years. [1] I'm not sure it's so pessimistic. This number comes from culture on blood agar, which isn't exactly the sugar level of a western diet. Blood agar contains almost no sugar.
kybernetyk 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
culopatin 3y ago
This strain was found in the wild. Some humans already have it. It would take finding those and figuring out if they have any issues.
- unaindz 3y ago
  "BCS3-L1 has four main genetic modifications: It produces a weak antibiotic, mutacin-1140, which kills competing oral bacteria. It’s immune to mutacin-1140, so it doesn’t kill itself. It metabolizes sugar through a different chemical pathway that ends in alcohol instead of lactic acid. It lacks a peptide that its species usually uses to arrange gene transfers with other bacteria." A strain with modifications 1 and 2 was found. 3 and 4 were added to it. This means we could check for mutacin-1140 health issues by tracking those people but not the increased alcohol in blood. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-biow...

by 7e 3y ago

newman314 3y ago

The claim on Twitter has been the amount of ethanol produced is small on the order of eating a piece of bread a day but I have not seen any further evidence. See https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1777886765589618767?s=61 https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/17778867655896187...

7e 3y ago
"The claim on Twitter" is why the FDA exists, and that's a good thing. Bread can be a bit alcoholic, yes. I try to avoid it for other reasons. I would prefer that everything I eat over 50 years not be turned into fractional bread by my saliva.

mlyle 3y ago

You have hundreds of varieties of bacteria in your mouth, many of which already make ethanol. You have one that makes lactic acid and causes tooth decay; by making a variety of it that makes ethanol and can outcompete the tooth-decay causing variety, you improve the situation: drastically lower lactic acid and not much more ethanol.

7e 3y ago
When ethanol is added to saliva, bacteria in the mouth produce acetaldehyde, which is known to be carcinogenic. I need less ethanol in my mouth, not more!
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  >I need less ethanol in my mouth, not more! Said no one ever.
  - 7e 3y ago
    This is pretty low effort. You contract yourself in the same sentence, because clearly I just said it!

Yenrabbit 3y ago

"The average person has enough of these bacteria in their gut to have a natural blood alcohol level - even after zero drinks - of about 0.1 mg/dl. Under pessimistic assumptions, BCS3-L1 will add another 0.2 mg/dl, bringing the total to 0.3. This is still a pretty normal number that some people have naturally (it would bring the average customer from the ~50th to the ~80th percentile of natural blood alcohol). It’s also far from the usual threshold for feeling tipsy (30 mg/dl) or too drunk to drive (80 mg/dl). Under more realistic assumptions, the amount of alcohol produced by BCS3-L1 probably isn’t significant even by the very low standards of natural blood alcohol concentrations." (From https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-biow...)

7e 3y ago
From the source: "The endogenous alcohol concentration in the blood of sober people is 0.39 ± 0.45 μg/mL or 0.039 mg/dL (Antoschechkin, 2001)." Further down: 5. Then you’ll end up with 11mg/5L of blood. This is, in more familiar units, 0.22 mg per dL 0.22 / 0.039 = a *5.6x* increase in chronic blood alcohol concentration, albeit under pessimistic assumptions [1]. No thank you. There's no telling what that will do to a person over 50 years. [1] I'm not sure it's so pessimistic. This number comes from culture on blood agar, which isn't exactly the sugar level of a western diet. Blood agar contains almost no sugar.

kybernetyk 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

culopatin 3y ago

This strain was found in the wild. Some humans already have it. It would take finding those and figuring out if they have any issues.

unaindz 3y ago
"BCS3-L1 has four main genetic modifications: It produces a weak antibiotic, mutacin-1140, which kills competing oral bacteria. It’s immune to mutacin-1140, so it doesn’t kill itself. It metabolizes sugar through a different chemical pathway that ends in alcohol instead of lactic acid. It lacks a peptide that its species usually uses to arrange gene transfers with other bacteria." A strain with modifications 1 and 2 was found. 3 and 4 were added to it. This means we could check for mutacin-1140 health issues by tracking those people but not the increased alcohol in blood. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-biow...