3 ms·

Your friend should take a look at Lumina. It's a treatment to inoculate yourself with a strain of s.mutans that does not produce lactic acid and will remain dom

Your friend should take a look at Lumina. It's a treatment to inoculate yourself with a strain of s.mutans that does not produce lactic acid and will remain dominant against other strains. Depending on the root cause of his cavities, it is possible that it would completely eliminate them. The mutation occurs naturally; if you have heard of entire families who do not get cavities or children 'growing out' of getting cavities, my understanding is that it is usually correlated with the natural spread of this variant of s.mutans.

anon373839 2y ago
Lumina sounds interesting, but it’s got serious safety and efficacy concerns: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-technology/reports-death-dental-cavities-are-greatly-exaggerated https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-... > Lumina is a genetically engineered version of the Streptococcus mutans bacterium that lives in the mouth, and it is supposed to prevent you from developing dental caries because it does not produce acid - It has been poorly studied for safety and effectiveness - Streptococcus mutans is actually neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of dental caries; the disease actually comes about because of a shift in the equilibrium of bacteria in the mouth which encourages the demineralization of our teeth
- gorkish 2y ago
  Well either way, it exists, and the FDA is apparently going to say it's not harmful. I'm in the "nobody in my entire extended family has ever had a single cavity" club, so no dog in the race for me other than my strong suspicion that the line of reasoning behind managing the risk of cavities by managing the microbiome in the mouth is the right approach. Is there a good way to order genetic sequencing of s.mutans from my own mouth? Have we gotten to the point where a lab test like this is inexpensive enough to be done for the sake of curiosity?

anon373839 2y ago

Lumina sounds interesting, but it’s got serious safety and efficacy concerns: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-technology/reports-death-dental-cavities-are-greatly-exaggerated https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-... > Lumina is a genetically engineered version of the Streptococcus mutans bacterium that lives in the mouth, and it is supposed to prevent you from developing dental caries because it does not produce acid - It has been poorly studied for safety and effectiveness - Streptococcus mutans is actually neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of dental caries; the disease actually comes about because of a shift in the equilibrium of bacteria in the mouth which encourages the demineralization of our teeth

gorkish 2y ago
Well either way, it exists, and the FDA is apparently going to say it's not harmful. I'm in the "nobody in my entire extended family has ever had a single cavity" club, so no dog in the race for me other than my strong suspicion that the line of reasoning behind managing the risk of cavities by managing the microbiome in the mouth is the right approach. Is there a good way to order genetic sequencing of s.mutans from my own mouth? Have we gotten to the point where a lab test like this is inexpensive enough to be done for the sake of curiosity?