Sink Your Teeth Into This Encouraging News About Repairing Your Pearly Whites

When Express Dentist polled its dentists to find out the No. 1 most requested celebrity smile for their patients, the top choice was Pretty Woman actress Julia Roberts for women and tennis ace Roger Federer for men.

Now you may actually never be able to match those radiant Hollywood smiles, but researchers at Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan, are hard at work on a study that plans to teach your teeth how to heal themselves.

Teeth and bones react differently to damage. Right now, if you trip and fall and crack a bone in your arm or leg, eventually new bone cells will grow to heal the break. But no such healing will occur with your teeth; depending on the severity of the injury, the tooth may have to be replaced with an artificial tooth, cap, or implant, often the tune of thousands of dollars. Five years from now, a Japanese research project currently underway may change that.

Teeth and bones are both made of a hardened mineral material. For bones that means protein and minerals such as calcium for strength and collagen for flexibility. Teeth are a little different; they have four layers of mineralized tissues. First is the enamel, perhaps the hardest tissue in the body. Right below that is dentin, which is harder than bone; then cementum, which as its name implies cements the tooth into the jawbone; and finally the inner pulp, which holds the connective tissue, nerves, and blood vessels.

Mineralized similarities aside, the bodily functions of bones and teeth are dramatically different. Bones are a singular, permanent part of the skeletal structure that supports the body. Teeth, on the other hand, are temporary. Some mammals, including humans, are diphyodont, a fancy way of saying their teeth, which begin the digestive process by chewing and breaking food into easily swallowed pieces, come in two stages. The first “baby teeth” fall out around age 6 to be replaced by adult choppers, a process that can take as long as 12 years to complete. In the end, mature teeth may succumb to all kinds of injuries, to be replaced by artificial teeth, caps, or implants, which do an effective, albeit often expensive, job of substituting for the real deal.

Since 2021, dental experts at Kitano Hospital have been studying an antibody that inhibits the growth of teeth in ferrets and mice. As a result, they discovered another antibody that interrupts the first one’s interruption meaning that ferret teeth can produce new cells. And that matters because as Katsu Takahashi, a co-author of the study, explains, ferrets are diphyodont mammals.

The Takahashi team’s goal is to discover exactly how this may benefit injured or damaged human teeth. Their first step is an 11-month clinical trial with 30 male volunteers age 30 and 64, each missing at least one tooth. They will be given the antibody treatment as an injection to hopefully prove its effectiveness and safety.

If all goes well, the Japanese researchers will move on to a trial with patients between the ages of 2 and 7 who are missing at least four teeth. The goal is to have an effective treatment available by the year 2030. While the current focus is on patients with congenital tooth deficiency, the hope is to come up with a remedy available for anyone who has lost a tooth.

Until that happy day, the classic save-your-teeth standards still stand, beginning with a nutritious diet that includes whole grains, lean protein, dairy products, and lots of fruits and vegetables to serve up the calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus plus vitamins A, C, D, and K that support the jawbone that supports the teeth. As for the teeth themselves, as always, watch the sugar and brush and/or floss after eating .