Grow Teeth With Urine !

Chinese researchers describe how stem cells derived from urine could be used to generate solid organs and tissues, including teeth. Their study is published this week in the open-access journal Cell Regeneration. The researchers hope the technique might one day help provide new, tailor-made teeth for dental patients. Previous stem cell research has shown how cells can be generated from urine. It is also known that cells discarded with urea can become induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that can then generate many different cell types, including neurons and heart muscle cells. Tissue culture breakthrough Duanqing Pei and his colleagues from Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, and other Chinese universities have developed a novel chimeric tissue culture system that can coax these iPSCs into tiny structures that resemble teeth. Their system mimics normal tooth development, which results from an interaction between two different cell types: epithelial cells, producing enamel, and mesenchymal cells, which generate the other three main tooth components of dentin, cementum and pulp. 
First, the team used chemicals to coax the cultured iPSCs into flat sheets of epithelial cells. They then mixed these cells with mouse embryonic mesenchymal cells, and transplanted them into mice. Three weeks later, formations had grown that physically and structurally resembled human teeth. They are of roughly the same elasticity, and contain pulp, dentin and enamel-forming cells. The hope for regenerative medicine Though these structures are a new achievement, the method involves mouse cells, has a success rate of just 30% and the structures produced are only about one-third as hard as human teeth. 
To resolve these issues, the team say human mesenchymal stem cells could be substituted for mouse ones and the tissue culture conditions tweaked. In theory, this revised method could create a bioengineered tooth bud, cultured in a jar and then transplanted into the jawbone of a human patient to form a fully functional tooth. 
iPSCs remain a great source of hope for regenerative medicine. Not only do they avoid the controversial use of embryos, but they also come from a more readily accessible source than even cultured skin and blood. Furthermore, cells generated by this method cannot be rejected by the human immune system, being derived from the host's own cellular material.

Invest In Implants

A report published as the lead article in the International Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Implants shows that dental implants offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional treatments for tooth replacement. The report, which is also cited on PubMed, the US National Library of Medicine located at the National Institutes of Health, is based on a systematic review of all available studies published in English between 2000 and 2010 relating to the cost-effectiveness of various tooth-replacement options. In total, 14 studies on long-term costs were included in the final review, which yielded the following conclusions: For single-tooth replacement, implant-based solutions were generally cost-saving or cost-effective in comparison with traditional tooth-borne prostheses (bridges). For patients with full dentures, implant-borne solutions were associated with higher initial costs than traditional (non-fixed) dentures. However, the consensus of most studies was that, over the long term, dental implants represent a cost-effective treatment option. Additionally, patient acceptance, satisfaction, and willingness to pay for dental implants were high, particularly in elderly edentulous patients. A trend toward improved overall improved oral-health-related quality of life and decreased health care costs was also reported. A key objective of this review was to conduct an extensive literature search and to consolidate all the relevant findings into one document that could serve as a single point of reference for healthcare professionals and patients. The fact that it has been published by a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal endorses the quality of the authors' research .

Reduce Decay Using A New Toothpaste

Researchers have developed new degradable particles, about the same size as small holes in teeth, which are designed to enter these holes and physically block and repair decayed teeth. These particles are special glasses and can be incorporated into toothpaste and will dissolve in the mouth releasing calcium and phosphate that form tooth mineral. This reduces tooth pain, cuts back on the incidences of tooth decay and repairs teeth. This could bring relief to the estimated 20 million adults in UK (40 per cent of the UK adult population) who are prone to tooth sensitivity. Indeed, untreated tooth decay or cavities in permanent teeth is the most common of all 291 major diseases and injuries assessed in the latest Global Burden of Diseases study. It affects 35 per cent of the world's population. The team behind this development, led by Professor Robert Hill from Queen Mary, University of London have won the £25,000 materials science Venture Prize, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers. "These new particles dissolve faster than existing ones and are also softer than tooth enamel," said Professor Hill. "They have a more expanded open structure and this allows water to go into the glass structure faster and the calcium and phosphate ions to come out faster. Also, while existing particles are significantly harder and abrade away the enamel during brushing, our new particles will be softer." Tooth pain is associated with hot, cold or mechanical stimulation and is caused by fluid flow within small tubes located within the tooth. These tubes can become exposed as a result of the gums receding, hence the expression "long in the tooth" or through the loss of the outer enamel coating as a result of tooth decay, acid erosion or mechanical wear associated with tooth brushing. These new bioactive particles can also re-mineralise the holes via the release of calcium and phosphate ions. "This is a hugely exciting development which could benefit millions of people not only throughout the UK and Europe but right across the world," said Professor Bill Bonfield, chairman of the Armourers & Brasiers Venture Prize judging panel. "It meets our aim to encourage innovative scientific entrepreneurship in the UK and provide funding, which is often difficult to source, to bring new materials science research like this to market." In addition to Professor Hill, who is head of dental physical sciences at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary. The team comprises: Dr David Gillam clinical lecturer and dentist, Dr Natalia Karpukhina an expert on bioactive glasses and Dr Pushkar Wadke from Queen Mary Innovations. "This award will enable us to get our research from the laboratory into a prototype toothpaste, said Professor Hill. "The difficult step is getting money to enable the translation of research in the laboratory into commercial products. This is what the Venture Prize Award will enable us to do." This development has come at an appropriate time. The latest Global Industry Analysts report outlined that the total world market for toothpaste is forecast to reach US$12.6 billion (£8.1billion) by the year 2015. This increase it outlines will be led by product innovations, rising population levels and greater awareness about oral hygiene.

Guess What Prevents Cavities ?

Consuming dairy products is vital to maintaining good overall health, and it's especially important to bone health. But there has been little research about how dairy products affect oral health in particular. However, according to a new study published in the May/June 2013 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), consuming cheese and other dairy products may help protect teeth against cavities. The study sampled 68 subjects ranging in age from 12 to 15, and the authors looked at the dental plaque pH in the subjects' mouths before and after they consumed cheese, milk, or sugar-free yogurt. A pH level lower than 5.5 puts a person at risk for tooth erosion, which is a process that wears away the enamel (or protective outside layer) of teeth. "The higher the pH level is above 5.5, the lower the chance of developing cavities," explains Vipul Yadav, MDS, lead author of the study. The subjects were assigned into groups randomly. Researchers instructed the first group to eat cheddar cheese, the second group to drink milk, and the third group to eat sugar-free yogurt. Each group consumed their product for three minutes and then swished with water. Researchers measured the pH level of each subject's mouth at 10, 20, and 30 minutes after consumption. The groups who consumed milk and sugar-free yogurt experienced no changes in the pH levels in their mouths. Subjects who ate cheese, however, showed a rapid increase in pH levels at each time interval, suggesting that cheese has anti-cavity properties. The study indicated that the rising pH levels from eating cheese may have occurred due to increased saliva production (the mouth's natural way to maintain a baseline acidity level), which could be caused by the action of chewing. Additionally, various compounds found in cheese may adhere to tooth enamel and help further protect teeth from acid. "It looks like dairy does the mouth good," says AGD spokesperson Seung-Hee Rhee, DDS, FAGD. "Not only are dairy products a healthy alternative to carb- or sugar-filled snacks, they also may be considered as a preventive measure against cavities."

Capsule Can Restore Your Gums Health

Scientists are trying to open a new front in the battle against gum disease, the leading cause of tooth loss in adults and sometimes termed the most serious oral health problem of the 21st century. They described another treatment approach for the condition in a report at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. "Our technology uses controlled-release capsules filled with a protein that would be injected in the pockets between the gums and the teeth," said Steven Little, Ph.D., who reported on the research. "That's ground-zero for periodontal disease - 'gum disease' - the place where bacteria breed and inflammation occurs. The capsules dissolve over time, releasing a protein that acts as a homing beacon. It guides immune cells to the diseased area, reducing inflammation, creating an environment that fights the disease process and even could create conditions favorable for gum tissue to regrow." Little and colleagues, who are with the University of Pittsburgh, have evidence from laboratory experiments with mice - stand-ins for humans in early research of this kind that cannot be done with actual patients - that the approach does foster healing and regrowth of gum tissue damaged by periodontal disease. A bacterial infection causes periodontal disease. It first appears as mild tenderness and bleeding of the gums. It leads to inflammation and, if left untreated, can damage the gums so that they recede and lose their attachment to the teeth. It may progress even further and damage bone and other tissues that hold teeth firmly in place. Surprisingly, gum disease has a number of deleterious effects outside the mouth, with some studies linking inflammation in the gums to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and preterm delivery in pregnant women. Treatment includes scaling, root planing and other procedures to remove the plaque and bacteria that have accumulated in pockets between the teeth and gums. Dentists may combine this with antibiotics to fight the bacteria involved in gum disease. Many scientists are seeking alternative treatments that kill the bacteria. Little's group is taking an entirely different approach. They are targeting the inflammation process. "Although bacteria start the disease, inflammation is what keeps it going and causes progressive damage," Little explained. To reduce inflammation at the gums, Little and colleagues designed injectable controlled-release capsules containing a protein encased inside a plastic-like polymer material. The polymer is already used in medicine in dissolvable sutures. After the capsules are injected, the polymer slowly breaks down, releasing the protein encapsulated inside. The protein, termed a chemokine, is already produced by the body's existing cells in order to summon specialized white blood cells to a specific site. Scientists previously tried to keep those cells, termed lymphocytes, away from the gums so as to block inflammation from occurring in the first place. "It seems counterintuitive to lure in a lymphocyte, which is traditionally thought of as an inflammatory cell, if there's inflammation," Little pointed out. "But remember that a certain level of natural inflammation is required to fight off an infection. Inflammation is inherently a good thing, but too much of it is a bad thing. That's why we aim to restore the immune balance, or homeostasis." Little's team injected the capsules into mice and discovered evidence that disease symptoms are dramatically reduced and that proteins and other substances involved in regrowth of gum tissue had appeared. Little said that this finding offers encouragement that the treatment could not only rebalance the immune system, but also prompt regrowth of lost gum and bone tissue in the mouth.

New Way To Make Teeth

Alligators may help scientists learn how to stimulate tooth regeneration in people, according to new research led by the Keck School of Medicine of USC. For the first time, a global team of researchers led by USC pathology Professor Cheng-Ming Chuong, M.D., Ph.D., has uncovered unique cellular and molecular mechanisms behind tooth renewal in American alligators. Their study, titled "Specialized stem cell niche enables repetitive renewal of alligator teeth," appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. "Humans naturally only have two sets of teeth - baby teeth and adult teeth," said Chuong. "Ultimately, we want to identify stem cells that can be used as a resource to stimulate tooth renewal in adult humans who have lost teeth. But, to do that, we must first understand how they renew in other animals and why they stop in people." Whereas most vertebrates can replace teeth throughout their lives, human teeth are naturally replaced only once, despite the lingering presence of a band of epithelial tissue called the dental lamina, which is crucial to tooth development. Because alligators have well-organized teeth with similar form and structure as mammalian teeth and are capable of lifelong tooth renewal, the authors reasoned that they might serve as models for mammalian tooth replacement. "Alligator teeth are implanted in sockets of the dental bone, like human teeth," said Ping Wu, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the Keck School of Medicine and first author of the study. "They have 80 teeth, each of which can be replaced up to 50 times over their lifetime, making them the ideal model for comparison to human teeth." Using microscopic imaging techniques, the researchers found that each alligator tooth is a complex unit of three components - a functional tooth, a replacement tooth, and the dental lamina - in different developmental stages. The tooth units are structured to enable a smooth transition from dislodgement of the functional, mature tooth to replacement with the new tooth. Identifying three developmental phases for each tooth unit, the researchers conclude that the alligator dental laminae contain what appear to be stem cells from which new replacement teeth develop. "Stem cells divide more slowly than other cells," said co-author Randall B. Widelitz, Ph.D., associate professor of pathology at the Keck School of Medicine. "The cells in the alligator's dental lamina behaved like we would expect stem cells to behave. In the future, we hope to isolate those cells from the dental lamina to see whether we can use them to regenerate teeth in the lab." The researchers also intend to learn what molecular networks are involved in repetitive renewal and hope to apply the principles to regenerative medicine in the future. The authors also report novel cellular mechanisms by which the tooth unit develops in the embryo and molecular signaling that speeds growth of replacement teeth when functional teeth are lost prematurely.

Prevent Cavities With Oil

Coconut oil, a natural antibiotic when digested, destroys the bacteria that cause tooth decay, researchers at the Athlone Institute of Technology, Ireland, reported at the Society for General Microbiology's autumn conference at the University of Warwick, England, today. They added that the antibiotic component in digested coconut oil could be added to dental care products. Dr Damien Brady and team set out to determine whether coconut oil might have antibacterial qualities at combating some strains of Streptococcus bacteria which commonly inhabit the human mouth and cause tooth decay. They tested the coconut oil in its natural and semi-digested state. They added enzymes so that the oil could be tested in a digested state. Although natural, undigested coconut oil appeared to have no impact, the scientists found that the digested oil stopped most Streptococcus bacteria from multiplying. Of particular interest was Streptococcus mutans, a type of bacterium which produces teeth-decaying acids. Dr. Brady explained that previous studies had demonstrated that certain foodstuffs, when semi-digested, had the capacity to destroy micro-organisms. The binding of S. mutans to tooth enamel was significantly reduced when teeth were exposed to enzyme-modified milk, one study had shown. That study encouraged this team to test out other foods. The researchers plan to see how coconut oil interacts with Streptococcus bacteria at molecular level. They also want to find out whether digested coconut oil might combat other pathogens, including some types of bacteria and yeasts. The team inform that preliminary studies have found that semi-digested coconut oil destroys Candida albicans, a yeast that causes thrush. The scientists believe that enzyme-modified coconut oil, meaning in its semi-digested state, may have commercially viable antimicrobial qualities for the oral healthcare industry. Dr Brady said: "Dental caries is a commonly overlooked health problem affecting 60-90% of children and the majority of adults in industrialized countries. Incorporating enzyme-modified coconut oil into dental hygiene products would be an attractive alternative to chemical additives, particularly as it works at relatively low concentrations. Also, with increasing antibiotic resistance, it is important that we turn our attention to new ways to combat microbial infection. Our data suggests that products of human digestion show antimicrobial activity. This could have implications for how bacteria colonize the cells lining the digestive tract and for overall gut health. Our research has shown that digested milk protein not only reduced the adherence of harmful bacteria to human intestinal cells but also prevented some of them from gaining entrance into the cell. We are currently researching coconut oil and other enzyme-modified foodstuffs to identify how they interfere with the way bacteria cause illness and disease." Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is an anaerobic, Gram-positive, coccus shaped bacterium. Coccus shaped means the bacterium has a spherical or spheroidal shape. S. mutans commonly inhabits the human oral cavity and is the leading cause of tooth decay globally. S. mutans, according to experts, is the most cariogenic of all the oral streptococci. Cariogenic means producing or promoting the development of tooth decay. The bacterium sticks to the surface of the tooth and exists on certain types of carbohydrates. As it metabolizes sugars and other sources of energy, it produces an acid that damages teeth. Virtually all humans carry S. mutans in their oral cavity.