Long a symbol of clean teeth, the beaver may go from being a dental health mascot to actual helper in the fight against tooth decay and weakened enamel. This is due to a new study at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois that looks to beaver teeth as a blueprint for making human teeth healthier.
Now this doesna��t mean that people will be studying beaver teeth in dental hygienist school or that beavers will suddenly become patients at offices where dental assisting training graduates work, big tail flopping around all over the place. It does, however, mean that those who do become a dental hygienist or a dental assistant may find it easier on the job thanks to research done on the tooth of the beaver.
What They Discovered
Researchers, whose work was published in the journal Science, took their inspiration from the fact that beaver teeth dona��t decay as much as those in other animals, namely humans. This, despite the fact that beavers dona��t really do anything to prevent cavities. Cute drawings aside, they dona��t brush their teeth. More importantly they also dona��t drink fluoridated water.
The team started looking for how the teeth of the beaver and others in the rodent family were different from ours. While structurally similar, they found there is a major difference when it comes to chemistry. They set about mapping how beaver, mouse, rat and rabbit tooth enamel react to acid.
According to what Material Science and Engineering professor and study director Derk Joester told the media: a�?we have made a really big step forward in understanding the composition and structure of enamel, the tooth’s protective outer layer, at the smallest length scales.a�?
Enamela��s core chemical structure is made up of layers of hydroxylapatite nanowires, but ita��s the surrounding material that really matters, especially when it comes to protecting against tooth-eroding and cavity-causing acids. Joester argues that a�?the unstructured material, which makes up only a small fraction of enamel, likely plays a role in tooth decay. We found it is the minority ions, the ones that provide diversity, that really make the difference in protection. In regular enamel, it’s magnesium, and in the pigmented enamel of beaver and other rodents, it’s iron.a�?
What This Means
If beaver tooth enamel contains more iron than magnesium and beaver teeth are more resilient to tooth decay than human teeth, the course of action is clear. We need to find a way to increase the amount of iron in human tooth enamel.
One way to accomplish this goal could be through altered methods of fluoridation. Regardless of where this particular research leads, though, we are one step closer to understanding how to better fight tooth decay.
Have you heard of any other new research about how we can better protect our teeth from decay?
