Regenerative Medicine/Medical Breakthroughs

[molestrip]

Having lots of acid damage form years of reflux, what's the story on regenerating enamel? LLLP mentioned earlier was only for dentin. Massive need for old people, I'm happy to ride the wave.

[molestrip]

Rapid Resorbable Fixation System

That looks great. What's the strength like though? Lots of studies showing they aren't great for jaw surgery. A few say they're ok but surgeons I met said all theirs were repeat surgeries. Anecdotes from orthopaedic surgeons about incomplete degradation and difficulty removing partially degraded hardware. Interesting to see them note migration as a risk of fixation, something I always speculated about.

Do we know of anyone that actually uses this stuff?

[molestrip]

A last post about bio-teeth. Sorry to say but not anytime soon

“With tooth regeneration, the problem is not in the crown, it’s in the root,” says Dr. Jerry Feng, professor of biomedical sciences at Texas A&M University Baylor College of Dentistry. “You can easily make a crown, but you can’t easily make a root.”

...

“To regenerate the whole tooth, we have a long way to go — years, if not decades,” says Feng.

Dentists on Reddit discussed this topic at one point, they were saying a century if not more. It's hard for me to believe, just wow. I guess when you think about it, getting all these layers of cells, ligaments, nerves, stem cells, etc to arrange in the proper places and surviving not only development but implantation. I guess that's a tall order but their predictions also seem pessimistic, we can't really foresee past 10-20 years in the future. Teeth may indeed be centuries away but I'm certain that in 20 years, we'll have solved problems that were at this time thought to be centuries away too. Teeth or otherwise.

The article brings up a related point however. We take crowns for granted these days but they're not ideal either. All things being equal, better to keep your original crowns. If it's not hard to generate a natural crown, then that has huge implications today as well. My entire mouth basically needs crowns at this point and many of us need them for aesthetic reasons as we age too. Would be great if they could at least bring this to market soon, ideally before all mine are done. I'll only be doing the molars to start.

[treevernal]

I'm relatively fair-skinned and I'm really careful about my sun exposure.  Living in San Diego I often have to be prepared when I go anywhere during the day with sunblock, headband, and sun gloves.  Lol, most people, friends and family included think I'm nuts.  I wear gloves when I drive for christ sakes :p  but I still spend a good amount of time outdoors hiking, trail running, etc.  To make sure I still get vitamin d, I trail run shirtless (my torso doesn't have as much sun exposure over the years so it can afford to soak up some rays) but still wear my sun gloves and headband and sunblock on my face.  I also only use physical sunblock (zinc oxide) because while it looks kinda obvious, its safe and really effective against uva and uvb rays. When I was about 14 I saw a tv special about skin cancer that made a strong impression on me and I've been conscious of sun exposure ever since.  My habits and techniques of minimizing sun exposure have evolved over the years as ive learned more.  I know I sound crazy but I'm around older people all the time who did not protect their skin from the sun in their youth and look much older than their calendar age.

In any case, the reason I brought this up is because I was reading about this fern extract that provides sun protection in the form of a supplement.  It's not a ton of protection but it's another line of defense in daily uv protection.  I don't use it as I just recently found out about it but it intrigues me:

http://www.ifcgroup.net/fernblock

I'd be interested to see scientific advancements in this area that make avoiding sun exposure less tedious.

[treevernal]

I'm also really interested in this:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/534636/the-anti-aging-pill/

Not sure if this thread was only supposed to be about craniofacial advances but I figured I'd share anyway

[molestrip]

You are crazy lol! But it's still cool, gives you character. I'd been using Neutrogena moisturizer since early teens, mostly because I needed something after shaving and that's what my mom gave me. It happens to have contained sun block so my skin has aged relatively well. Despite my facial deformities, people (and that fancy new Microsoft service) consistently guess that I'm about 5 years younger than I actually am. That and having a tendency to hide indoors. I don't blame you but you should know that the vast majority of your long term risks were established before you had the ability to alter them, that is by your parents. I try to educate my kids friends parents about the importance of sun protection in the first few months of life especially if not the first few years but they rarely seem to heed my advice. The damage is multiplied by the number of replications and affects your body for longer than later life exposure.

The post about anti-aging pills is cool if it's insane to take a pill because it worked on a worm in a lab. FDA regulations exist for good reason. I understand their hesitancy about waiting for that proof but OTOH they're asking for miracle in not only hitting the right targets for aging but also dosage, patient selection, etc. Side effects are very difficult to anticipate even when many multiples of funding are thrown at new pharmaceuticals and this could potentially be taken at large doses over a very extended period of time. I can only imagine the impact if people start giving this stuff to their kids and they continue it through life. I hope it's excluded for that purpose. Better approach would be to find it naturally in whole food and add a significant component of that to your regular diet, it's been load tested by nature for you.

[treevernal]

I definitely agree about the anti-aging pill.  It's tough to know the risks associated with isolating various antioxidant compounds and super-concentrating them without their (theoretically) whole food vehicles.  A good reason why I haven't started taking them.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you guys about sun exposure in youth being the deviding factor in skin cancer risk.  From everything I've read that, that theory has been largely debunked.  That's not to say that young people cannot get skin cancer; they can and do, but (again, ftom numerous dermatological studies ive read) lifetime damage/risk is cumulative so it's never too late to minimize your risk.

Also as far as premature aging goes, sun exposure without a doubt plays a big role.  Steve Nicks stated in an interview that she hasn't laid out in the sun since she was 28 and often lived a nocturnal lifestyle for many years and looks incredible for her current age compared to her peers.  I personally wouldn't go so far as to completely avoid the sun because we do need some, but you need to be strategic about your exposure.  Face, neck, and hands have thinner skin and were most likely exposed and forgotten about in youth than the back, for example.  Some people can get away with more sun than others too; unfortunately I'm fair skinned with ginger genes so I don't have much leeway, but conversely, I don't need much sun to make an adequate amount of vitamin d.

[treevernal]

They're basically just gloves with a really tight weave to block out uv rays.  I use these when hiking/driving:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00V5RXULS/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1447774466&sr=8-2&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=sun+gloves&dpPl=1&dpID=41gVw8OJxcL&ref=plSrch

[molestrip]

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you guys about sun exposure in youth being the deviding factor in skin cancer risk.  From everything I've read that, that theory has been largely debunked.  That's not to say that young people cannot get skin cancer; they can and do, but (again, ftom numerous dermatological studies ive read) lifetime damage/risk is cumulative so it's never too late to minimize your risk.

Hasn't been of special interest to me but sounds like it to you so I'd defer to your research here. What you wrote is different than what I'd read however, which is that lifetime risk of cancer was dominated by early exposure rather than specifically childhood skin cancer. That is, if you got skin cancer when you were 60 the bulk of the risk could be traced back to when you were a kid. There are similar risk factors for radiation as well, a cat scan at 30 is 4x as risky as one at 60 and same for childhood radiation. Confounding factors are big too of course. Anyway, good to know it's not too late for me cause it runs in the family and I grew up in a place where there's a lot of sun!!

unfortunately I'm fair skinned with ginger genes so I don't have much leeway, but conversely, I don't need much sun to make an adequate amount of vitamin d.

If I were you, then I'd be more concerned about your lack of a soul than your odds of skin cancer. /s

[treevernal]

That is really interesting about the cat scan risk.  Logically I would deduce the opposite; that in youth your body can withstand more and recover more fully than in old age.  similar to how what we eat doesnt have as big of an effect on our body in youth versus middle to old age.  Could you link where you read that when u have time?

And haha thanks for the no soul comment 

[GJ]

Guys, please stay on topic in this thread not the place for theories and expounding because that can sidetrack the thread quickly. If an idea in this thread excites you and you want to discuss, just make a new thread about it. Thanks.

[treevernal]

My bad.

This is somewhat older news now but they can grow tmjs in a lab: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330152437.htm

Im really curious to see how jaw surgeons will utilize this technology in the future for condylar resorption patients.  My tmjs shrunk considerably post surgery and it'd be great if they could use a firm of this technology to increase the size of the condylar head.

[april]

My doc says to wait for stem cells but I dont think I can wait.
The question is once grown or attached, I wonder if it can somehow inherit the disease process and resorb...

[GJ]

My doc says to wait for stem cells but I dont think I can wait.

Did he say how long a wait that would be?

[molestrip]

Did he say how long a wait that would be?

EpiBone says they're 7 years from first clinical trials which means 10 years from initial applications, optimistically. That's just a small piece of bone. Cartilage and other tissues are in the same stage of development and I'd guess they'd have their own applications hit the market at the same time. Putting them together is an extra, more complicated step. I would give them 5-10 years after that point so in total we're looking at 10-20 years for early adopters.

The good news is there's A LOT of pressure to push this stuff to market. Remember, it's not just TMJs at stake but all joints. That's a HUGE market.