• catloaf@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I’m surprised that mammals evolved to not regrow teeth. You’d think it would be a significant advantage.

    • MumboJumbo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wouldn’t imagine it’d play a role in reproducing though. It may help ones ability to live longer, but they have probably procreated long before tooth loss has become a major issue of well being or mortality.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 months ago

      Most mammals instead evolved to have their teeth keep growing, like beavers, thus they need to keep using their teeth to keep them from growing out of control.

      Secondly, humans in particular, added tooth-enamel-eating-bacteria into our diet hundreds of thousands of years ago. Before that, we didn’t have a huge number of issues with our teeth, and so perhaps not enough time has actually passed since we got the bacteria eats our teeth for an evolutionary advantage that stops it from being an issue? Evolution isn’t so cut and dry, it’s not like it’s trying to solve problems. People with resistances to mouth bacteria probably exist, but are they reproducing enough to become the dominant geneaology? Who the fuck knows?

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        They do exist, from memory they have another type of bacteria instead and there’s even a project trying to transfer it from people with it to people without it.

        Also as you said evolution doesn’t try to fix stuff and there’s a whole lot of stuff that could have evolved for the better (heck, we’re not even that well adapted to be standing up!), but if it doesn’t prevent reproduction then it gets passed down.

        • Kanzar@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          That’s like asking why we can’t just eliminate gonorrhea… people keep inoculating each other with the bad shit.

          I do tell my expecting parents (who happen to have bad teeth) that they should not test the food in their mouth and use the same spoon with their new child, as they will be passing on their bacteria to the kid. I do also imply they shouldn’t share things like drinks.

          Whether or not they listen to me isn’t my problem…

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 months ago

          we sort of can, it’s called eating a better diet.

          stop feeding the bacteria tons of sugar, start eating more chewy things that effectively brush your teeth as you eat them, and maybe even start chewing stuff like stalks of grass or twigs, that’s how a lot of people keep their teeth clean even today.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        can we maybe not propagate misinformation? it was perfectly normal for hunter-gatherers to reach at least 50 years old, and if you think about it for a bit it makes sense that the age where we start to fall apart is about the oldest that people got to in the past, which is around 50-60 yrs.

        the average lifespan in the past was something like 35, but that’s because tons of people died early on, which remained true up until the invention of modern medicine which was like 100 years ago and doesn’t really have anything to do with your diet.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      For evolution to fix a problem that problem has to kill off everyone that isn’t immune to it before they can breed. If that doesn’t happen people with shitty teeth just keep getting born even if some have a mutation to regrow them.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Or at least space them out a bit. You get one set for the first 5-10 years, and then the second set has to last you the remaining 60-70.

      Getting a new set at like 35-40 seems like a more sensible system to me.

      • bagelberger@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Gotta be awkward at the office when Dave starts losing his baby teeth and has his midlife crisis at the same time

    • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      There didn’t used to be multivitamins. The broad spectrum of hominid diets never guaranteed you’d get enough trace minerals and elements to keep growing more teeth and there wasn’t evolutionary pressure to do so when you’re like five to ten years into your adult teeth when puberty hits.

    • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s our modern diet of refined sugar and plenty more that harms teeth

      It’s somewhat within our control to do something about it

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The redundancy is already there since we have 32 teeth to begin with. If you lose one or two it’s not really a big deal.

      And there’s a fine line between helpful regrowth and cancer. the more regrowth there is, the more likelihood there is of cancer.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 months ago

    As I have had a really bad run of terrible dentist experiences, bridges are scary and implants are expensive, I’d really like this to work well, and be reasonably priced.

    ETA Or, it could be my superhero origin story.

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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    7 months ago

    Important to note that the initial form of this treatment is to trigger the growth of teeth that failed to grow in the first place, at least last I read about it. An important first step, but for now it may be dependent on there being an existing “tooth bud” down in the jaw to get going.

    I suspect that in the long run we’ll need to figure out how to implant a new tooth bud, probably made using the patient’s stem cells, to grow replacements for teeth that have been lost later in life.

    • cowfodder@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Doing this from memory, but I think there was a paper a few years back proposing using stem cells in an implanted calcium lattice. Basically an artificial implant that would grow into an actual rooted tooth.

    • Foreigner@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Would this work for microdontia? I have two front teeth that failed to grow to the proper size and one of them has a very small root, meaning a crown is not an option and I don’t want to get implants.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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        7 months ago

        No idea, I’m just repeating caveats I’ve seen raised on this particular news before.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    7 months ago

    If we regrow teeth, we can regrow bone, muscle, and nerves. Almost immediately, that technology will be privatized and only the rich will be able to afford it.

    Capitalism will say “Fuck you poors”.

    • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 months ago

      That a very pessimistic take of on life. I am sorry if life has been hard on you.

        • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 months ago

          When a non sequitor topic become the argument, When we are looking at the symptom instead of the disease.

          Why should we even live? At the end of the day, capitalism will eat you. Fuck capitakisn.

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            I dont agree that the situation supports your train of logic, and I think you’re mischaracterising their comment. For example, there is nothing that includes “why should we even live?” in their comment

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Who asked? This is a tech community not a cry-about-capitalism community

      • Gnome Kat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 months ago

        Not being able to talk about capitalism in a tech community is like having a fishing community and not being able to talk about how the waters got shit in it.

      • nexas_XIII@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        You know they are always thinking how they can use it to only benefit themselves. Don’t kid yourself on that, they’re leeches and this is their mentality

        • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Yes, but they want money. So why deny us teeth when they can let us have teeth for money. They can make more selling it to millions of people then a few rich people.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Happy countries who bear the cost of their peoples’ dental care out of a common bucket will potentially be happy with a way to invest in the future of peoples’ mouths and prevent all the ancillary costs that follow bad oral health.

          • nexas_XIII@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            I can’t say off the top of my head. Power tripping is the best first guess I have. I kinda equate it to anything that could help people live longer. Why don’t they give out insulin at better prices so people live longer and buy more stuff? That’s logically the smarter move, right?

            • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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              7 months ago

              Are you referring to the US? In the country I live insulin is available for free for those who need it.

            • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Insurance is why. They can sell insulin at the prices they currently do, and still sell it to millions. Insurance companies can in turn charge more overall as well, pointing at the cost of insulin and the millions who need it as one of the reasons. So it is win win for both the buyer (Insurance) and the seller.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        good, the class struggle needs more awareness since it affects everyone.

        wanting people to ignore the class struggle makes you something called “a massive asshat” and strongly implicates you as someone who benefits from the status quo.

      • deezbutts@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        You act like it’s a frantic reach to turn arbitrary news into a class struggle.

  • ssj2marx@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Do you want mutant shark people? Because this is how you get mutant shark people.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Probably be prohibitively expensive for anyone to do it as an elective procedure.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    “We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,” lead researcher Katsu Takahashi told Japanese newspaper The Mainichi.

    “While there has been no treatment to date providing a permanent cure, we feel that people’s expectations for tooth growth are high.”

    In 2021, his team discovered a gene – uterine sensitization-associated gene-1 (USAG-1) – that appeared to stop the production of additional teeth in mice.

    Deactivating that same gene and stopping production of the protein it regulates has also caused other animals to grow lost, or even additional, teeth.

    Takahashi and his team have spun up their own company called Toregem Biopharma to commercialize the USAG-1 drug, and hope to have it on the market by 2030.

    While initial tests are mainly focused on congenital tooth loss, the team hopes teeth lost due to cavities, injury, and other accidents will be regrowable as well.


    The original article contains 427 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I hope they figure out how to 3d print gum tissue. Harvesting donor tissue from the roof of your mouth certainly works, but is probably the worst part of the recovery.

    Seems like it should be doable. But I doubt it’s high on the list compared to kidneys, livers, etc.

  • robocall@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    That’s really cool and exciting. But guys, I need to regrow my gums. I have a perfectly good tooth that a dentist is considering removing because the gum lose around it is profound.