New gel restores dental enamel and could revolutionise tooth repair

nottingham.ac.uk

678 points by CGMthrowaway 5 days ago

Study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64982-y

Hey @dang (I know it doesn't work, but isn't it fun to use your imagination?), can we get this press release replaced by a link to the actual paper [0]? This one is even open-access!

All the best,

-HG

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64982-y

RivieraKid - 4 days ago

Why? The press release is much more useful for the vast majority of HN readers in my opinion. The paper is something you read if you want to know more so the right place for it is the comments.
In general, not referring to this specific case, scientific papers are often written for people with specialized background and are hard to understand for people without that background, even if they're otherwise smart and educated.
- halosghost - 3 days ago
  
  Just to say, I actually disagree entirely. I do not believe press releases are, almost ever, valuable. Papers are just a format (with some writing style conventions that tend to follow the given field-of-study); they may be intimidating for many, but the hacker spirit and ethos is to dive in and tackle it, and that will pay far more dividends for everyone reading it than to consume more advertising. :)
  All the best,
  -HG
  - wildzzz - 3 days ago
    
    Unless you are actually familiar with odontology or work in the field, the paper carries little significance for the average layperson (most of us on HN).

avalys - 5 days 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.

basch - 5 days 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/
- casperc - 5 days ago
  
  Any reports from actual users of this?
  - xnzakg - 3 days ago
    
    Also interested in this, but haven't tried it myself. Apparently NSF (Nano Silver Fluoride) is more commonly in non-western countries.
    They have a video with some more info here: https://pt.fourthievesvinegar.org/w/9aa66b49-2ec5-497f-9f49-...
    And apparently the use of NSF does have a bunch of research papers written about it: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amol-Patil-43/publicati...
  - MrResearcher - 4 days ago
    
    No sir, but you have the honor of being the first!
    
    KumaBear - 4 days ago
    
    Hard pass. I’ll let the moms of Facebook groups be the test subjects. Once clear results are in we can make an assessment of how well it works
- sumedh - 4 days ago
  
  A website with thieves in the url, brilliant.
CGMthrowaway - 5 days ago

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2502731-cavities-could-...
tootie - 5 days ago

I found other sites indicating it's entering trials soon to be on the market next year. That's still a bit speculative obviously, but it sounds more promising that just being a working theory.
sumo89 - 5 days ago

Huh? If this was an article from a commercial entity selling a product we'd be calling it a marketing puff piece and asking for the science.
- avalys - 4 days ago
  
  If it a commercial product marketed as "homeopathic" or various nonsense loopholes that the government has been bullied into leaving open, then sure.
  But an actual medical product for sale to consumers that makes claims like "restores dental enamel" would have to present scientific evidence to the FDA that this claim is accurate.
  - red-iron-pine - 4 days ago
    
    the FDA approves all sorts of nonsense, and plenty of commercial products slide through without
    show us the study

anonnon - 5 days ago

> When applied, the gel creates a thin and robust layer that impregnates teeth, filling holes and cracks in them.

Having an option other than crowning to treat cracks would be a game-changer, especially since the AAE not long ago put out a policy paper recommending that all teeth with cracks (even asymptomatic) receive crown coverage, which is both costly and presents a risk of inducing irreversible pulpitis and subsequent necrosis in the tooth (due to the heat and mechanical trauma of the crown prep.).

amai - 10 hours ago

My teeth are so much better since I stopped drinking alcohol. I have no clue why that is, but drinking alcoholic beverages with sugar (e.g. cocktails) was especially bad. Since I stopped drinking alcohol I don't have any issues with my teeth anymore.

t1234s - 5 days ago

There is the potential of ability of people to regrow teeth

This would highly disrupt the dental-industrial-complex

sumedh - 4 days ago

Australian dentists would ban the toothpaste in Australia if it actually works.
- 5 days ago

[deleted]

sizzle - 5 days ago

What about Hydroxyapatite?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyapatite

Anyone on this stuff? I want to take a break from fluoride paste.

bruce343434 - 5 days ago

I have replaced my sensodyne with mirasensitive hap+. It is more expensive, even more so than sensodyne. However it has helped incredibly with my exposed roots which used to be very sensitive. Now they are less sensitive than they used to be with sensodyne. I can swish cold water and eat sour foods again.
My current routine is roughly brush_teeth(toothpaste={mirasensitive, random_cheap_toothpaste}[day%2]) as you don't need to apply HAP every single day.
I find that I still have to be careful eating apples and lemons straight up. To protect myself I thoroughly swish and rinse water a few times shortly after consuming these fruits. If I don't do that, my teeth get extremely sensitive and it takes a few days for the hap to repair it again.
tomdekan - 5 days ago

I've been enjoying using this over the past 3 weeks.
This is nano-hydroxyapatite, meant to be more effective than hydroxyapatite alone.
https://www.boka.com/
(P.S I'm not affiliated with boka)
- archon810 - 4 days ago
  
  Thank you for the mention of Boka. This sent me down a rabbit hole of research, both the positives compared to other toothpaste, like not containing SLS, parabens, or titanium dioxide, but also the findings of trace amounts of lead, arsenic, and mercury in it. The trace amounts are much lower than the standards considered okay by the FDA and the European regulators, but not EWG, which doesn't accept pretty much any trace amounts.
  I decided to try it after all.
  - sizzle - 4 days ago
    
    will you still absorb the trace amounts it if you are spitting it out and rinsing? I want to wean myself off fluoride toothpaste.
    
    archon810 - 4 days ago
    
    Are you supposed to spit it out and rinse or keep it on like Enamelon? A quick search says spit out but not rinse.
martin82 - 4 days ago

Been using Boka for years.
Don't see any difference. I'm on a low carb diet and never eat things with added sugar anyways, so I assume that I could even drop toothpaste alltogether.
Also, my teeth have been yellow since as long as I can remember (and long before I got into coffee and tea) and the same is true for everyone in my family - and Boka didn't change that at all.
So... it is not doing me any harm, so far, but it is also not performing any miracles.
- sky2224 - a day ago
  
  Not saying Boka is good, but to clarify, non-additive sugars from fruits and teas can significantly affect tooth enamel in addition to citric acids. Coffee is also a big culprit as well. You definitely should not drop toothpaste altogether.
wry_discontent - 4 days ago

I've been using NoBS toothpaste tabs for a couple years which are nano-hydroxyapatite. I find them effective. No issues at my dentist.
In fact, a year ago, they wanted to put in a filling for a minor cavity, but I wanted to put it off and by the time I went back they said it was gone.
edit: I also like the tabs because they're easy to travel with.
gautamcgoel - 4 days ago

Been using Boks for a couple months, haven't noticed much difference. Maybe some reduced sensitivity.
antiatheist - 4 days ago

I've used `BioMin F` with fluorapatite which is apparently more effective than hydroxyapatite - it's not a miracle regrowth protein like this article seems to claim, but its definitely a noticeable difference compared to regular toothpastes.
vibrio - 5 days ago

Any specific reason? Are you concerned about Purity of Essence?

timenotwasted - 5 days 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.

PaulKeeble - 5 days 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.
- spacephysics - 5 days ago
  
  Despite how obtuse the current administration views are, this has been true for decades. The churn of new papers and hype around medicine/biotech is nothing new.
  Says nothing about endemic reproducibility crisis of the social sciences.
  Since student loans have been basically guaranteed (bankruptcies can’t erase student loan obligations, in an attempt to push rates lower) and tuition steeply rose, academic institutions’ ratio of administrators to students has skyrocketed to a bureaucratic mess, leading to a flywheel of higher education costs and incentivizing research for money’s sake over impact to the field.
  Real impact would be reproducing notoriously iffy studies, but that doesn’t bring in the dollars.
- lobochrome - 5 days ago
  
  KPIism is the death knell of modern society. In the 90s and 2000s this mantra of "measure and improve" took hold like a virus. It is in all instances I observe a rats race where everybody just starts to look for the cheat-codes instead of "doing-the-right-thing".
  Arguably America is the pinnacle of this right now, where (many) politicians and (many) business leaders now feel justified do whatever's legal just to score points. I would argue this type of thinking was birthed in the UK though under Thatcher who as a first step removed the general trust in (civil servants in her case) your fellow human beings. Blair then came up to replace that trust with KPIs.
  We need to get back to a world where we trust people to do the right thing - without measuring their success in short-term KPIs.
  - anarticle - 5 days ago
    
    MBAs are the source of KPIism. We have spent many decades minting them at scale in the USA and now the chickens are roosting. Anything can be ruined by pursuit of KPIs at all costs. The model is to optimize a particular KPI, get your bonus, use this story to get your next job at +$X, leave, repeat. The longer story of the company does not matter, you shipped and got paid, even if the village burned down after you left.
- palmotea - 5 days 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 - 5 days 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.
    
    throwway120385 - 5 days 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.
    
    rapatel0 - 5 days ago
    
    You're describe an age where the government was a wash with surplus dollars. Secondly, most of these research institutions run as non-profits that effectively just cover costs (but run a large hedge fund as a side business)
    The escalation in costs have come from: - Incentives around US News College rankings (and the amenities that drive the rankings) - Administrative (non-teaching, non-research) bloat
    Research is definitely in need of reform though, but not sure these outcomes are actually causal or even corrilated.
    
    entropicdrifter - 5 days ago
    
    >You're describe an age where the government was a wash with surplus dollars.
    Hey, good point. We should really bring back that 90% top tax bracket rate to get the government back to being financially solvent again.
    
    rapatel0 - 5 days ago
    
    In the 20s-40s (pre-ww2), tax revenue was ~2% of GDP. It is currently >20% of GDP
    It's a spending problem. You're anchoring on a talking point with out actually running numbers.
    Don't believe me, run the numbers yourself.
    
    myrmidon - 5 days ago
    
    I think your 2% number is extremely misleading.
    From what I can see, taxation as GDP percentage was never really under 10% since 1950, while big cuts to the top tax rate happened in the 60s and 80s (and the federal budget was continuously in the red since mid 70s basically, with one brief exception before 2000).