The Speculist

I caught a "Beyond Tomorrow" rerun over the weekend. One of the segments was about Dr. Charlotte Simark's discovery that there are some oral bacteria that are beneficial.

Dr. Simark studied the bacteria of patients with no history of cavities and found that they tended to harbor lactobacilli (link here - go to the bottom of the document - page 82).

...strains of lactobacilli from patients lacking own MS [mutans streptococci, a cavity causing bacteria] had over 3 times more pronounced capacity to suppress the growth of the test panel bacteria than lactobacilli from patients colonized with MS.

In other words, the best bacteria for defeating the bad bacteria was found in the mouths of patients with no bad bacteria.

Heh. This reminds me of the old joke about the elephant.

The good news is that this good bacteria can be cultured and distributed. The Beyond Tomorrow people suggested that it should be sent to dentists as an aerosol spray to be used as a cavity treatment and preventative.

I'd go farther than that. Let's get this on the store shelves so it could be used regularly. This cure would be far better than just prescribing an antibiotic for the mutans streptococci.

Why? Carl Zimmer in his book Evolution gives us the example of the fungus farming ants. Some fungus farming ant species protect their fungus crop with a natural pesticide – a bacteria which is carried on the ant's legs.

These ants have used this bacterial pesticide so long that they've split into different fungal farming ant species that all continue to use the same bacteria. This bacterial pesticide is still providing crop protection after all these years while we humans are having problems with pesticide resistance after a single human generation.

Unlike our pesticides - which are inert toxins - bacteria are alive. The bacterial pesticide is evolving along with the pest. If the pest adapts to the bacteria, the bacteria adapts to the pest. Around and around it goes.

The same principle could work with our own agriculture and in medicine / dentistry.