An unexpected publicity boost for oral care companies has come from the revelation that nearly 2,000 years after the Colosseum in Rome was completed by the Emperor Titus, it is being cleaned inch by blackened inch by the humble means of toothbrushes.
Working from scaffolding erected around the famous landmark, a team of technicians dressed in rubber boots and waterproof clothing has started to painstakingly scour away centuries of grime from the arena, originally conceived to showcase bloody gladiator fights, wild animal hunts and public executions.
It seem that the toothbrush is an ideal tool to access all those hard to reach places such as fissures and crannies in the stone edifice, leaving behind a pinkish patina on the otherwise white stone.
So far there have been no further details as, for example, how long a toothbrush lasts under such harsh use, which brand comes out on top or indeed whether manual or power provides the best results. Perhaps we will need another Cochrane Review?
More, no-more drilling
Since dentistry is, arguably, even older than the Colosseum, one wonders how many times journalists have greeted yet
another new invention with the headline ‘no more drilling’. The latest venture comes from King’s College London who are developing a two-step system called Reminova which first prepares cariously damaged areas of enamel and then uses a tiny electric current to ‘push’ minerals into the tooth to repair the demineralised site. We are assured that the defect is remineralised in a painless process that requires no drills, no injections and no filling materials.
Of course the next journalistic quip will be to create a (not very subtle) link between the electrical element and the
dental chair to come up with the new dental electric chair that will be ‘more shocking’ still. While the technique might indeed eventually do us out of drilling for a living at least we still get to play with a gadget.
An awful lot from Brazil
Currently of course what we are getting from Brazil is an awful lot of football but the famous song has it that there is ‘an awful lot of coffee’ from that country. It is perhaps not too surprising then that a good deal of research is also centred on the essential bean.
The latest good news is that a cup of the black stuff may actually help to prevent caries by, wait for it, remineralisation…without an electric current. Seemingly, there is an antibacterial effect of the coffee extract which causes lysis of the plaque biofilm reducing the caries potential.
So, if we are not put out of work by a new technology then we might be by a good old fashioned beverage instead. This will at least please the GDC whose chair is intent on turning all practices into retail outlets. Forget corporate, all
we will need to do is to set up a chair in High Street coffee franchises; Costa Caries or Star Buck-Teeth?