New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/new-gel-restores-dental-enamel-and-could-revolutionise-tooth-repair

202•CGMthrowaway•2h ago

Comments

timenotwasted•2h ago

I feel like I've been reading this exact same article for the last 15 years.. I find it very difficulty to parse what is real and what is vaporware in the medical breakthroughs community.

lloydatkinson•2h ago

- HIV/AIDs

- Cancer

- Tooth regrowth

It feels like it won’t ever be done for some reason

foxandmouse•2h ago

+ Male birth control

+ Alzheimer’s cure

+ Hair regrowth

scottlamb•2h ago

+ weight loss pills

...they were persistent vaporware or scams, then suddenly they were real and everywhere. Hopefully that happens for the others too?

fallat•2h ago

Have we solved anything? /s

palmotea•2h ago

> + weight loss pills

They've had those for decades. It's called meth.

doubled112•58m ago

Coffee and cigarettes for a safer but less effective solution.

nkmnz•18m ago

Cigarettes are no way safer than small doses of amphetamines. Check where the name "Ritalin" came from!

paulpauper•2h ago

Cancer immunotherapy . Only works in a handful of cases

ajoseps•2h ago

i thought the first two have had huge improvements in the last decade?

trenchpilgrim•2h ago

HIV has become a manageable disease in my lifetime. The main issue today is access to medication as I understand it.

toomuchtodo•2h ago

The first widespread cure for HIV could be in children - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44765981 - August 2025

One-and-done HIV protection in infants - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736988 - July 2025 (First author of the paper even commented here at the time: "labanimalster - First author here. We solved a 30-year problem in gene therapy by leveraging neonatal immune tolerance. A single AAV vector injection encoding HIV antibodies achieved 89% success in newborns vs 33% in 2-year-olds, with protection lasting through adolescence. This could transform HIV prevention in regions where maintaining regular medical care is challenging. Happy to answer questions about the science or implications.")

US FDA approves Gilead's twice-yearly injection [lenacapavir] for HIV prevention - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44312729 - June 2025

ashleyn•2h ago

HIV prevention has been reduced to a twice a year shot given mainly to MSM. It's pretty damn close to the original goal of a vaccine.

agumonkey•2h ago

it might be slow exponential thing, 60 years of low to medium improvements in cancer, and hopefully suddenly a few big cracks to turn it into a chronic liveable condition (or maybe cure it).

there are more articles about advanced tumors being shrunk to nothing than before (based on my personal monitoring)

tootie•2h ago

While a cure remains elusive, HIV treatment is now extremely effective. Antiretroviral shots can keep people symptom free indefinitely.

Cancer treatment varies by type of cancer but many have dramatically improved outcomes.

toyg•2h ago

- hair regrowth

EvanAnderson•2h ago

Tooth regrowth is something I was really hoping for. I abused one of my molars. After years of efforts (repeated fillings, a crown) to stave off losing the tooth it finally had to come out last month. Now I'm waiting for the bone graft to "take" before getting an implant. I was hoping I'd waited long enough for tooth regrowth to become "a thing" but I have not.

(Should have taken better care of it when I was younger and not ignored the massive hole that was growing in it. Chalk it up to a bad dental experience as a child and 25+ years of avoiding dentists as a result...)

stefs•2h ago

HIV/Aids have made huge progress and so did cancer. Also "cancer" isn't a single disease, they're quite different.

alphager•1h ago

Cancers have had extremely effective new treatments developed for in the last ten years.

Depending on the type of cancer, we now have cures or treatments that stave off death for years.

My wife has a rare type of cancer with not much research thrown at it, and even her type of cancer went from a median time of survival measured in months to several years.

richwater•2h ago

Wait until you read that the scientific evidence for flossing doesn't really confirm the promised benefits.

simonswords82•2h ago

Where? Source please?

muratsu•2h ago

Wait what? Please share

loosescrews•2h ago

Any chance you would be willing to summarize the research or provide information on some relevant studies? I've always been skeptical about flossing and would like to learn more.

abdullahkhalids•2h ago

The wikipedia article [1] suggests that there is no strong evidence for flossing being a good thing. However, that might just be because experts have not updated the article.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_floss#Efficacy

lakhim•2h ago

enjoy https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

derbOac•8m ago

Meta-analysis suggests flossing doesn't affect tooth decay. But it does seem to prevent gum disease.

Defletter•2h ago

tbf, it does require a technique otherwise you risk just pushing plaque underneath your gums

EvanAnderson•2h ago

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any harm from flossing. At least from my anecdotal experience there are positive bad breath ramifications. (I've also been conditioned, by flossing regularly, to feel like my mouth is "cleaner" after flossing, to the point that it feels bad if I don't.)

Alex3917•2h ago

This is the key issue. There is zero doubt whatsoever that flossing is essential, and the fact that the empirical evidence is equivocal shows the limitations of science to prove even the most obvious things.

rpearl•2h ago

I do floss, but I genuinely don't see that this is obvious. You can do a lot of damage with mechanical force, to both teeth and gums! Starting a flossing regimen after not having one tends to cause pain--isn't that a signal to stop? etc.

Furthermore, correlation is not causation and it could well be the case that flossing is associated with better outcomes without causing it. For example, people who can afford to go to the dentist regularly are therefore regularly told to floss. People who care about dental health in general probably floss more, but also may be doing other things, consciously or unconsciously, to improve outcomes. Gut (and perhaps mouth) bacteria have behavioral effects; perhaps flossing is caused by having healthy mouth bacteria!

(at least one study says mouthwash is better than floss. That seems obvious to me! liquids are smaller than floss.)

byearthithatius•2h ago

I hear so many counter-logical ideas proposed with "scientific evidence". Poorly designed studies and P-Hacking has ruined the publics trust in science. I highly doubt flossing is a net negative for almost anyone.

EvanAnderson•2h ago

Same feeling here. Dental seems particularly fraught (though maybe I just pay more attention to it out of interest). I know the cycle time between press releases/hype and actual application can be the better part of a decade, so I assume that's coloring my perception too.

re: dental in particular - It seems like enamel regeneration and stem-cell-based tooth replacement have both been in the news year-after-year without applications actually coming to market.

matthewfcarlson•1h ago

Everyone knows that teeth are luxury bones in the US. The market just isn't there for fancy treatments. The ultra-wealthy just get their teeth replaced with perfect veneers anyway.

iamacyborg•19m ago

> The ultra-wealthy just get their teeth replaced with perfect veneers anyway.

Na, that’s the working class turkey teeth crowd.

thaumasiotes•57m ago

> stem-cell-based tooth replacement

Really? This sounds more like someone's plan to get grants to research stem cells than someone's plan to repair (or replace) teeth.

We already have a natural ability to grow new teeth that replace existing ones. Everybody does it... once. Where's the research into getting it to happen again?

gus_massa•23m ago

Theet formation is a very early procces, even before the baby is born.

> Primary (baby) teeth start to form between the sixth and eighth week of prenatal development, and permanent teeth begin to form in the twentieth week.

So it's probably too late for you.

elicash•2h ago

While I 100% agree with what you wrote, I'd just add that it does seem in my own dental visits over my lifetime that there have been real advancements, too. But yes, I agree, hard for non-expert to parse.

0_____0•1h ago

Seeing SLA 3D printers at my dentist's office was pretty cool. Apparently they use them for a variety of fixturing and jigs, and have a workflow that includes a handheld scanning unit that SLAMs to generate a solid model of the patient's teeth.

limaoscarjuliet•56m ago

I have 4 crowns, 2 done using moulds, 2 using the 3d scanner. Same doc, same office. The moulded ones were ok with some adjustments, but the 3d scanned ones were perfect since day 1. I'm happy with the progress in dentistry.

CGMthrowaway•2h ago

A similar approach was reported in 2019,[1] but that produced thinner coatings, and the recovery of the architecture of inner layers of enamel was only partial.

[1]https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw9569

paulpauper•2h ago

yup here is one from 2007

https://www.technologyreview.com/2007/02/22/272845/regrowing...

As it turns out, this is really hard to do. There are a lot required of teeth: they have to be extremely durable to resist repeated strain of chewing ,stay in the gums, not be rejected by body, etc. It's little surprise progress has been so slow.

kangs•2h ago

or, solid state batteries, graphene, fusion, quantum computers, agi =)

PaulKeeble•2h ago

Just 7% of studies that do a preliminary study on humans actually get through phase 3 and get approved for use. This is before even the preliminary point, its a tooth (or even a tooth analogue) in a petri dish. No idea if the material will be safe in a human mouth yet.

There is a lot of hyping of results in medicine papers in general but its not really their fault. The entire academic world is being forced to publish or die as governments look to measure results from the science they instead get what is measured and everyone has to embellish the importance of what they found and always find positive results.

palmotea•2h ago

> The entire academic world is being forced to publish or die as governments look to measure results from the science they instead get what is measured and everyone has to embellish the importance of what they found and always find positive results.

It sounds like they're running it like a business.

dlcarrier•2h ago

Over time, any large business trends to increase in bloat and inefficiency, and focusing on inappropriate metrics is a big part of that.

This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing, which usually results in people losing their jobs.

When governments get equally incapable, and competitors take over, it tends to be a lot more violent.

palmotea•2h ago

> This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing

It's important to note that "eventually" usually takes so long that it might as well be forever.

autoexec•1h ago

> This eventually leads to competitors taking over and those business failing

If only that fairytale were true. In the real world bloated inefficient companies bribe government, install themselves into government agencies directly (regulatory capture), and hire lobbyists to write laws which protect them from pesky upstarts through unchecked anti-competitive practices and anti-consumer regulation allowing them to stay wealthy and in power forever while killing off innovation and progress.

throwway120385•1h ago

A lot of this is the direct result of trying to run a government like a business. If we instead left some things that are unprofitable but important to government then we'd probably get better results than having businesses do those things expecting a profit. This was the model in the 30's, 40's and 50's that led to the "golden age" that people are now trying to recapture.

NoMoreNicksLeft•59m ago

The 1940s you get for free, what with the war and all nothing was ever going to be very tolerable. But what about the 1930s is a "golden age" in your opinion? What exactly is it from that era that you wish we had more of?

vlovich123•46m ago

The golden age people are trying to recapture is the aftermath of a world war that decimated almost every major power except the US and then the US happily rebuilt everyone’s economies in exchange for riches and power. The 21st century looks very different and only really MAGA folks are looking to rewind the clock as a way to move forward.

curiouscats•2h ago

Enamelon Toothpaste from the 1990s:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/127083185095

"proven to strengthen tooth enamel" I remember researching the stock and deciding not to buy.

Patents from the 1990s https://patents.justia.com/assignee/enamelon-inc

It seems the company is still around https://www.enamelon.com

omlet•2h ago

Did you tried :D ?

kjkjadksj•2h ago

It is probably tough getting investment because this is ultimately cosmetic and not something covered by most dental insurance. Existing repair is probably good enough and I’d expect cheaper too.

caycep•2h ago

I would say, maybe look at medical studies from the opposite end, epidemiological studies look at factors that reduce mortality/morbidity. Granted, it's less flashy, basically vaccines, alcohol/tobacco reduction, increase in active lifestyle, statins/ace inhibitors, monoclonals/oncology fanciness. although someone who actually is an MPH can probably correct me.

on the neuroscience side, off the top of my head, the most impactful things have been better anticoagulants and preventive care for stroke, monoclonal abs for autoimmune diseases like MS/myasthenia, , certain stereotactic brain surgeries, and such. But considering what ails most people, the overall population effect probably is minuscule compared to say better crash safety in automobiles.

mdtancsa•2h ago

exact same reaction. I remember hearing about "regrowing teeth through sound waves"... in 2006. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/dentist-engineer-team-up-to-... Can't say I have heard it offered anywhere yet....

baxtr•1h ago

This might be the dental equivalent of the "Groundbreaking New Battery Tech" type of article.

avalys•2h ago

Is this a commercial product that has been approved by a regulator to make these claims? Amazing. Newsworthy.

Is this a press release from a university research group, as it appears to be (the site is down)? Then it's nearly meaningless.

CGMthrowaway•2h ago

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2502731-cavities-could-...

basch•1h ago

You can buy the supplies and make nano silver flouride now, relatively cheaply compared to dental work. If you have a non corporate dentist, you could even ask them to apply it. The basic mechanism has been used on teeth forever, and adding the nano particles prevents the chemical from permanently staining your teeth black or blue (which is why it hasnt ever been more popular to begin with.)

https://fourthievesvinegar.org/tooth-seal/

ptrl600•2h ago

Well until this stuff comes out I'll keep using smuggled FDA-unapproved Novamin toothpaste. Atonement for my neglect

ribosometronome•2h ago

Sensodyne?

Waterluvian•2h ago

I just learned about this 5 mins ago and did some basic research. Here's what I found:

- Sensodyne Repair and Protect contains 'NovaMin' (possibly only in some markets; check the ingredients!)

- NovaMin is the brand name for calcium sodium phosphosilicate

- It reacts with saliva to form a physical layer of hydroxyapatite on your teeth

- This layer blocks the tubules that trigger pain from temperature and such

- It also supports remineralization (how exactly?)

paulgerhardt•2h ago

Because it keeps coming up there is an anti-Novamin crowd that says it’s useless and Biomin is the true re-enamelizer.

Waterluvian•2h ago

Interesting. A very rudimentary web search begins suggesting that Biomin is the more suspicious of the two. It has a very weird Internet footprint of being this somewhat obscure-looking expensive "Health" product. I really can't find any recognizable sources on the product name. Maybe the obscurity is part of the exotic allure for some?

kelnos•1h ago

I used BioMin F for about a year, and I think it did something, but I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate its effectiveness.

Unfortunately it isn't actually available where I live (US), and I had to buy it from Canada... from a shop that hasn't had stock for more than a year now. I've tried ordering from other countries, but haven't found anyone else who will ship to the US.

I've tried the "BioMin Restore" toothpaste that is available in the US, and I don't feel like it's doing much of anything, but... again, not sure I'm qualified to evaluate.

BenjiWiebe•2h ago

You have to get the European version of Sensodyne Repair and Protect to get NovaMin. It's not in the US formulation.

Waterluvian•2h ago

The Canadian version I just bought also seems to have 5% NovaMin.

gregsadetsky•2h ago

as the sibling comment notes, the Canadian version also has it:

https://www.jeancoutu.com/en/shop/categories/personal-care/o...

https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Sensodyne-Repair-Protect-Sensit...

shellfishgene•1h ago

The German version also seems to have stannous fluoride instead of NovaMin, like in the US.

nkmnz•15m ago

Mine says "NovaMin" right on the front. There are multiple types of Sensodyne.

Btw, what really drives me crazy is that Elmex sells multiple different sorts of tooth paste with the colors green and violett, each. How can a company confuse their customers so much that they buy a tooth whitener paste instead of a remineralizing one? Did the mistake twice...

mgiampapa•2h ago

hydroxyapatite is a mineral like your tooth, that's how it supports remineralization.

It's actually great stuff and works wonders for tooth sensitivity above and beyond fluoride shellac. I also order it from the more civilized world.

BioMin is available in the US and is similar, but I don't find it works better and I don't like that it doesn't have fluoride. (I live in an area without fluoride in the water)

tempest_•1h ago

Due to GSKs patents only repair and protect outside of the US has novamin in it.

annoyingnoob•2h ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7068624

ptrl600•30m ago

Admittedly it's possible I've been bamboozled

Etheryte•12m ago

I'm not sure what the takeaway is here? If I read that correctly, they only found one study and just reported their results? Is that because there are literally no studies on this worldwide? I find that very hard to believe.

zerocrates•11m ago

I know there's value to recording the selection process and all that but it's a little funny to have a review that ends up only including one study: at that point just give me a link, not a paper.

roldie•2h ago

How does NovaMin / calcium sodium phosphosilicate compare to toothpaste with nanohydroxyapatite in it?

afavour•2h ago

Is it Fuji 9?

Waterluvian•2h ago

If anyone's a dentist or is close to one, I'd love to know something I haven't found a satisfactory answer for online: if the vast majority of cavities were "magically" cured over the next few years, what impact would that have on the finances of your practice?

I'm not suggesting there's a conscious conspiracy or anything malicious. But I observe that incentives are weirdly aligned. I wonder what this kind of thing would do to a very large industry if all of a sudden some percentage of business disappeared. Is it a large percentage? Would they pivot to more preventative medicine? Would patients adopt a longer duration between checkups?

umvi•2h ago

I think there would just be fewer dentists. It's like asking what would happen to the finances of weight loss clinics if magically Americans weren't as obese.

elicash•1h ago

I will say my dentists always try to convince me to floss more often, regardless of any economic benefit they might have for me to disregard my teeth.

I also would imagine cleanings aren't where the big money is in the profession, but like you would be interested to hear from actual dentists.

doubled112•49m ago

Not a dentist but I definitely couldn't see it going away. Also curious to hear a more knowledgeable opinion.

There will always be accidents and need of non-cavity repairs. As a kid I broke a healthy tooth eating Doritos. It didn't make sense to my dentist either. I've broken a less healthy (but repaired) tooth on a candy coated peanut, and one a Twizzler Nib.

I grind my teeth, so everything is being worn and torn at a higher rate. The mouth guard won't generate itself.

Hate to say it, but if I thought my teeth would stick around longer, I'd probably be more likely to seek cosmetic fixes. I'm apparently really hard on them or something.

byearthithatius•2h ago

Poorly designed studies, materials proposed without insight into ramifications and manufacturing, and P-Hacking has ruined the publics trust in science. I blatantly just ignore any headline like this now. Can't trust science anymore.... sad. How many new "cancer cures" have been posted to Reddit and HN over the last decade that never came to fruition.

Not to say doing the science and studying to find new approaches is not beneficial. I just think we need to reconsider how we communicate new research. Its like how CEOs hype up AI products at this point. "This will change everything ..... potentially maybe in twenty years (omitted)"

kazinator•2h ago

Screw enamel; man-made materials are better.

If you ever get into any serious money, forget cars or houses: have your teeth ripped out and replaced with artificial ones.

inglor_cz•1h ago

An artificial crown may be better, but not the roots. Natural teeth are fixed in the jaw in a very ingenious way that is durable and somewhat flexible at the same time. Not so with implants; the metal fuses with the bone in a hard way and transmits all the shocks fully into the jaw.

sssilver•1h ago

What are the disadvantages of having all the shocks go fully into the jaw?

kelnos•1h ago

Discomfort and pain, I would assume.

I wouldn't be surprised if this can, over time, also cause damage to your jaw, and put extra stress on your jaw muscles.

inglor_cz•53m ago

Depending on the location, state of the bone and other parameters, anything from mild discomfort to catastrophic failure of the implant and a jaw fracture.

I have four implants, two in my lower jaw, two in my upper jaw. My lower jaw is basically stone, an extremely hard bone even by usual lower jaw standards; the dentists (plural, as one was unable to finish the job) drilling into it destroyed a few drilling bits doing so. I have never had any problems with the lower jaw implants. That bone can take almost anything in stride.

My upper jaw, on the other hand ... very delicate, just enough bone left for the implants to work, and I learnt to be careful about biting into anything harder with them.

candiddevmike•1h ago

This is horrible advice. Do everything you can to keep your original teeth, even partially with a crown is better than a post or dentures. Nothing will perform as good, and the side effects of dentures range from pain to liquid diet if/when your gums can't support them.

basch•1h ago

Wouldn't you rather reapply a coating that allows the base to regrow, than have to constant get them ground out and replaced as they accumulated small damage? Growth sounds way better than static existence.

bombcar•55m ago

Cribbins' dentures would beg to differ.

stronglikedan•46m ago

My dad did that a couple of decades ago (we nicknamed him Bionic Mouth), and now his body is rejecting almost all of it, and he has to get even more advanced and expensive stuff to replace it (on a fixed retirement income to boot).

m463•34m ago

That sounds like that movie "the breast men"

These doctors pioneered silicone breast implants.

Eventually side effects happened, and they tried to prevent those patients from coming forward.

Later, it all came out... and all the patients just came back to them and paid for breast upgrades to the next generation saline implants.

Razengan•2h ago

You know it's weird how we don't have a general "healing" gel yet..

blobbers•2h ago

Pretty sure I get re-targeted by ads for various versions of this for weeks on end after I do a single google search for a new toothpaste.

Usually the safety profiles of those companies are very very very bad, but probably reference very good research.

t1234s•2h ago

There is the potential of ability of people to regrow teeth

This would highly disrupt the dental-industrial-complex

cormorant•1h ago

EDIT: https://archive.is/MYBSe

Site is down, not in archive.org or archive.today. This Yandex Cache link worked for me: https://yandexwebcache.net/yandbtm?fmode=inject&tm=176237557...

kawfey•35m ago

I just went down a rabbit hole researching a toothpaste that's giving me constant ads. I went looking for reviews and ended up posting a comment on /r/PeriodontalDisease - https://old.reddit.com/r/PeriodontalDisease/comments/1bcna04...

TL;DR: EDTA is the magic ingredient that will annihilate the disease-causing biofilm on your teeth & gums, especially when you fund your own studies and spend the rest of your money made from your overpriced toothpaste gel on marketing.

Just brush and floss 2x a day, and chew gum if you like to.

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