Future of Dentistry - digital dentists and dental ...

Future of dentistry, dental practice and dentists. Health care trends,oral care and mouthcare products. Digital imaging and dental diagnostics. Prosthetics, milling, machining and manufacture of bridges, crowns and dental devices. Porceline and polymers with nanotechnology, nanoparticles - polishing, shaping, machining, finnishing. Dental techniques and future of cosmetic dentistry. 3M video and 3D imaging, three dimensional video imaging in real time. Digital dental patient records and future of data systems. Innovation in dental practice. Video by keynote conference speaker Patrick Dixon.
Dentists, dentistry, digital, imaging, video, 3D, dental, health, care, innovation, conference speaker

Cure for diabetes?

Video on: Could we find a cure for juvenile diabetes (different from type 2 adult diabetes). Health problems from raised blood sugar, insulin deficiency, nerve damage, blindness, heart disease, stroke, impotence and many other issues. Possible therapy using adult stem cells which produce natural human insulin in response to rise in blood sugar. Research with liver cells transforming into insulin secreting cells. Possible side effects. Growing type 2 diabetes among children and adults. Health care costs. conference keynote speaker and futurist.

Parkinsons disease research latest - viruses and stem ce

Parkinsons disease video comment on latest research using viruses - gene therapy to stimulate GABA production rather than production of dopamine - comment by Patrick Dixon

Pharmaceutical industry and nutrition breakthroughs

Interesting new developments this week in linking genes to breast cancer predictions. However this will only benefit a tiny minority of women with breast cancer.

Also in engineering a cow which produces the equivalent of skimmed milk. For years now I have been predicting that scientists will succeed in transforming the composition of cow’s milk. Another step on will be to create a cow which produces milk with almost identical formulation to human breast milk.

Current Event 2007 - article on human cloning / sheep-human chimeras

Volume 106; Issue 23; ISSN: 00113492 2007 Current Events.

What do you get when you cross a sheep with a human? That sounds like a joke, but the question is no laughing matter; it's serious science. The result, a chimera, is an animal with cells from another animal. Recently, Esmail Zanjani, a scientist at the University of Nevada, announced he had created sheep with 15 percent human cells. His goal is to create partly human organs for people who need transplants.
The word chimera comes from a mythical Greek beast with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail. Skeptics say that the prospect of growing human spare parts in sheep is still a distant dream. Modern cloning techniques, however, have allowed scientists to enter uncharted and, some people say, dangerous territory. Currently, no laws regulate the creation of chimeras-only voluntary guidelines from the National Academies. And the absence of legislation is, to some, as scary as the original Greek chimera.
BIOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE
In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush called for "legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms," including "creating human-animal hybrids." At the time, his speech left many people scratching their heads and wondering whether the president had just proposed a ban on mermaids. But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) knew exactly what Bush meant.
"Human chimeras-long considered science fiction or mythology-have become reality," he said in a 2005 speech at Harvard Law School. "These hybrid creatures blur the line between humans and animals and [seriously] compromise human dignity." Brownback proposed a law in 2006 banning human chimera research. One of his main concerns is that such research often uses human embryonic stem cells, the extraction of which destroys the embryo. Brownback is among many critics who consider that practice immoral.
Brownback also fears that mixing human and animal genetic material could create new diseases. Dr. Patrick Dixon, a lecturer on biological trends, worries that new viruses could be a "biological nightmare" for humans. "Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV [the virus that causes AIDS]."

Future of the Pharmaceutical industry - new attack on ethics - pushing lifestyle issues

A new report in the Public Library of Science Medicine has again accused the pharmaceutical industry of unethical behaviour, this time by “disease-mongering” and “lifestyle” treatments for minor problems.

This comes at a time when AstraZeneca, Shire Pharmaceuticals, GSK and others are reporting strong profit growth.

The problem for the report is that it seems to ignore the pattern of history of medicine.

As society has become more affluent, and as medical progress has continued, each generation has tended to think of illness in a new way.  Issues that were considered just the inconveniences of life in previous decades now become treatable conditions which people are wanting help with.

I often talk of above the line and below the line:  above is medical, below is performance or lifestyle – but the line keeps falling.

IVF – was below the line in the UK, a fact of life if you are infertile.  But now has become a treatable condition under the NHS.

Cosmetic surgery was entirely below the line except when dealing with injuries, but in today’s NHS even a total sex change operation is now above the line, as is just about any kind of cosmetic surgery if a strong enough case can be made about the psychological damage being caused.

Hair loss in women – above the line.

Hair loss in men – below the line.

Impotence – definitely now above the line.

Mental enhancement drugs in older people with memory loss – above the line.

Mental enhancement drugs in older people without memory loss – below the line.

 

The big issue for the future of the pharmacueutical industry is to get accurate predictions about how that line is likely to move in the next 5-15 years – but that in turn also depends on what new options become available.

Repair of inner ear - deaf cure - using stem cells

For a while I have been working on the idea that we will one day be able to repair deafness – which is a universal problem for all those over the age of 75.  In fact you can find some kind of hearing loss in anyone over the age of 55 if you look hard enough.

 

The market for a cure for deafness is huge.

 

In Nature this month there is a report by Neil Segil and colleagues at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles – University of Southern California – in which they show they have made new hair cells from adult stem cells in the inner ear.

 

These cells have turned off production of a protein p27.  This offers a possible drug route to cure deafness, by blocking the p27 system and encouraging these cells to develop into new hair cells.

 

The work was done in culture but is still very exciting.

 

This is not the first time that scientists have explored ear cell regeneration.

 

It is becoming clear from many different studies that repair of the retina, inner ear, spinal cord, heart or brain will one day be relatively easy.

 

The challenge for the future of the pharmaceutical industry will be to be able to develop a drug which can encourage these cell-based transformations without removing cells in any way.  Watch this space – many different teams in biotech companies are actively developing solutions along these lines.

Olive oil antiinflammatory effect

Interesting report in New Scientist recently showing that 50mls per day of olive oil in the diet is equivalent to a dose of ibrupfofen.  We are increasingly recognising the impact of diet on disease processes.  Expect to see new ranges of neutraceuticals:  products with nutrition as well as therapeutic effects.  Many of these will be artificial creations such as bananas which contain a vaccine.

Inventing disease or true unmet need - accusations against pharmacuetical industry

The future of the pharmaceutical industry will be dominated by innovation, much of it biotech driven.  But success depends on linking new product innovation to genuine unmet need.  The accusation is that some pharma companies have been inventing new treatment areas and diseases to maximise revenue from drugs that would otherwise have low sales.

 

However, at the end of the day the only real judge of unmet need is the person who is suffering.  As a physician myself I know how blind doctors can be to the true toll of illness on those who come to them.  An obvious example is the relief of pain in hospice medicine (my own specialty in the days when I was a practising doctor).  The entire hospice movement has been created in part to solve a nightmare for cancer patients – untreated pain and other major symptoms, despite the fact that many highly effective therapies are available.  Doctors are often ignorant, or afraid to ask the questions and patients often hold back from revealing the truth.  The reasons for these things are complex, but this is just one example where surveys of unmet need show huge differences between what doctors think is happening, what patients tell their doctors about and what patients actually experience.