Scientists Study Teeth To Unlock Medical Mysteries and Treatments
Gold has been used for years as a popular material for dental fillings, but researchers are finding a very different kind of gold in human teeth: clues to medical and historical mysteries, and potential new treatments for serious illnesses. Teeth are prized in scientific investigations because tooth enamel encapsulates tooth pulp and protects it from outside contaminants. Teeth serve as a record for human history, and have been used recently to unlock a few mysteries.
When scientists wanted to know why the Black Plague, which struck Europe in the mid-1300′s, was such a successful killer – it wiped out between 30 million and 50 million people in just four years – they turned to the teeth of victims. Scientists relied on a fact that’s well known at dental assistant schools: tooth pulp can be very well-preserved even hundreds of years after death.
Additionally, it was common in Europe to bury plague victims in mass graves, the locations of many of which are well known. Scientists unearthed remains of victims from some of these mass graves to collect tooth pulp. Once the tooth pulp was extracted, they hit pay dirt by locating and isolating the preserved 700-year-old remains of Yersinia pestis, the super-bug of the Dark Ages. From there, they mapped the entire genome of the bacterium and made some surprising discoveries.
Yersinia pestis is alive and well, but it hasn’t changed much in the last 700 years. In fact, today’s version is nearly identical to its historical counterpart. But human beings have changed a lot, which partially accounts for why we don’t see plague outbreaks today. Based on their analysis of the historical version of the bacterium, scientists have concluded that the bug was so successful because it could take advantage of a number of concurrent events.
Colder global temperatures, which may have also increased the size of the polar ice caps, forced people indoors and in close proximity to one another. A famine weakened otherwise healthy people. A war triggered significant population movement, which helped to spread the disease, and finally, a growing population in Europe put more people at risk. Yersinia pestis doesn’t enjoy mass outbreaks today largely because modern sanitation and hygiene practices have interrupted the bacterium’s ability to spread easily.
Aside from solving the medical mystery of the Black Plague, scientists are turning to baby teeth as a possible source of stem cells. Parents are beginning to bank their children’s lost baby teeth in the hope that they can contribute to stem cell research. The research may hold the potential to develop new treatments for cerebral palsy and other serious medical conditions for which there are few medical options today.
Teeth that need to be extracted (whether they’re baby teeth or permanent teeth) are packed up and sent to the StemSave, a medical laboratory near Boston, MA that specializes in stem cell banking. The lab harvests and freezes stem cells from the teeth and stores them for later research use. New research shows that stem cells recovered from dental pulp are better than those derived from skin cells or from embryonic sources. The process isn’t free for patients, however. The lab charges a fee of about $800, which covers the stem cell extraction and cell storage fees for one year. Afterwards, people pay about $120 per year for continued storage.
Stored stem cells can be used for research or possibly to develop customized treatments for individual patients. Scientists and patients alike hope that stem cells can be used one day to provide natural repairs for serious illnesses and injuries to muscle, nerve and organ systems inside the body.
Henry Burns is a recent retiree that loves to read and write on his freetime. He just started freelancing and is open to write about any topics.
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