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Comment by yan | Hacker News Reader

Hah. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my dentist.

I was there for yet another appointment to work on a root canal and wondered out loud why I don't hear more about efforts to regrow actual teeth as opposed to the gruesome practice of modern dentistry. His take on this was that it just wasn't worth it: teeth are mostly mechanical. They just exist to bite through food, and an artificial crown isn't going to develop any more cavities. His take was that it's much simpler for humanity to just replace teeth with metal and porcelain than spend research dollars and scientists trying to grow teeth.

Then again, he makes his living drilling into jaws.

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I would agree with this, although I'm in the unenviable position of needing a lot of dental work after not having had any for awhile. I'd far rather have research be done into making longer-lasting and/or cheaper or easier to implant permanent fake teeth that don't require thousands of dollars of upkeep throughout your lifetime.

That said, on a conceptual level, the idea that you can regrow teeth with stem cells is pretty damn cool.

It cuts both ways. I did have a lot of dental work done when I was younger, after a couple of unlucky events damaged many of my teeth. Today, I expect to spend hundreds of pounds on dental work every year or two, mostly repairing and replacing that earlier work, even though I have excellent oral hygiene and eat/drink sensibly.

I would spend a great deal of money, or even accept significant pain and making do without proper teeth for a few weeks, if it meant that I could have a new set of natural teeth at the end that I could brush and floss normally and that didn't keep hurting somewhere every few months anyway. Sadly, it turns out that all the fillings and braces and crowns and bridges in the world can't keep up with what nature gave me.

I knew someone who had a genetic defect that meant that he had a malformed face and only had 2-3 natural teeth ever grow in. We discussed his issues, and that the implanted teeth would need /more/ meticulous care than regular teeth, because there is so much that can go wrong with them, being non-natural parts of the body.

Though I feel your pain of dental work. As I'm writing this, the lidocaine is wearing off after my second to last dental visit to repair rather significant dental problems myself. Definitely worth the pain in the long run.

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