Brush every day or loose it! Wait …don’t worry you can still ‘regrow’ your teeth

London, January 5: It was till now believed that permanent teeth once grown will not grow for the second time. If one of your teeth falls then it can only be replaced by an artificial tooth by the dentists. But this can now be proved wrong as scientists have found out a drug which can regrow your teeth.

 

A new discovery about a drug developed for Alzheimer's patients might replace fillings for cavity repair. Tideglusib stimulates stem cells in the pulp of teeth, promoting new dentine production and natural tooth repair.

Developed for and trialled to treat Alzheimer’s disease, the drug also happens to promote the natural tooth regrowth mechanism, allowing the tooth to repair cavities.

Tideglusib works by stimulating stem cells in the pulp of teeth, the source of new dentine. Dentine is the mineralized substance beneath tooth enamel that gets eaten away by tooth decay.

 

Teeth can naturally regenerate dentine without assistance, but only under certain circumstances. The pulp must be exposed to infection (such as decay) or trauma to prompt the manufacture of dentine. But even then, the tooth can only regrow a very thin layer naturally—not enough to repair cavities caused by decay, which are generally deep. Tideglusib changes this outcome because it turns off the GSK-3 enzyme, which stops dentine from forming.

Thus far, the experiment has only been used in mouse teeth. Yet as King’s College London Dental Institute Professor and lead author Paul Sharpe told, “Using a drug that has already been tested in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease provides a real opportunity to get this dental treatment quickly into clinics.”