Imagine A Cavity That Fills Itself?

Why couldn't they have this when I was a kid. I'll tell you why...because my diet would have been all Twizzlers!

A radical new therapy holds real promise in changing the way dentists treat your cavities -- they'd get the cavities to fill themselves.

According to TheGuardian.com, researchers at King's College London found that they could stimulate stem cells within the teeth to regenerate through a relatively simple approach: They insert a tiny biodegradable drug-soaked sponge in the cavity. Researcher Paul Sharpe explains, "The space occupied by the sponge becomes full of minerals as the dentine regenerates so you don't have anything in there to fail in the future."

Having a tooth refill itself naturally is far preferable to using some kind of amalgam that raises the risk of related problems down the road. "This simple, rapid natural tooth repair process could thus potentially provide a new approach to clinical tooth restoration," write the researchers in Scientific Reports.

[via: TheGuardian.com]