My understanding is that the amount of ethanol we’re taking about here on a daily basis constitutes something like the amount you’d get eating an extra piece of fruit or so. Though I don’t know where I originally saw the estimate or if it is good. Does anyone want to do some fermi estimates?
It’s bad for a bunch of reasons. Firstly, the rate of metabolism decreases as pH decreases—and the main product was lactic acid, which decreases pH. Second, they only considered bacteria in saliva. There are far more bacteria attached to your epithelium and teeth than there are in your saliva, since you swallow your saliva several times a minute.
Finally, there’s the fact that the entire reason this project exists is to change the product of sugar fermentation from lactic acid to ethanol in order to prevent tooth decay. Lactic acid can only cause tooth decay if local pH is below 5.5. A similar amount of ethanol would be ~2% by mass. I’m pretty sure AFR people who only drink beer still have an elevated oral cancer risk. And that’s with only a few minutes of exposure a day! Consider what would happen if someone had that level of exposure every time they ate any carbs.
My understanding is that cavities are formed because the very local pH on that particular sub-part of the tooth is below 5.5. IIUC teeth can’t get cancer. Are you imagining Lumina colonies on the gums having this effect there, the Lumina colonies on the teeth affecting the general oral environment (which I think would require more calculation than just comparing to the hyper-local cavity environment) or am I misunderstanding something?
I was thinking of areas along the gum-tooth interface having a local environment that normally promote tooth demineralization and cavities. After Lumina, that area could have high chronic acetaldehyde levels. In addition, the adaption of oral flora to the chronic presence of alcohol could increase first-pass metabolism, which increases acetaldehyde levels locally and globally during/after drinking.
I don’t know how much Lumina changes the general oral environment, but I think you might be able to test this by seeing how much sugar you can put in your mouth before someone else can smell the fruity scent of acetaldehyde on your breath? I’m sure someone else can come up with a better experiment.
Thanks! This is much closer to the amount of ethanol you’d get eating 50 bananas a day. That’s at least one sanity check it fails then, even under these ideal conditions since, as you noted, there is probably a larger bacteria population than what was measured there.
Now I’m wondering about sanity checks in the other direction though. Is ~.5 ml per hour of ethanol actually a realistic production?
If it’s really more like 10^6 and not 10^7 that’s five bananas worth and not something I would worry about. Isn’t this resolvable via saliva assay?
My understanding is that the amount of ethanol we’re taking about here on a daily basis constitutes something like the amount you’d get eating an extra piece of fruit or so. Though I don’t know where I originally saw the estimate or if it is good. Does anyone want to do some fermi estimates?
This is from the Google Doc FAQ.
It’s bad for a bunch of reasons. Firstly, the rate of metabolism decreases as pH decreases—and the main product was lactic acid, which decreases pH. Second, they only considered bacteria in saliva. There are far more bacteria attached to your epithelium and teeth than there are in your saliva, since you swallow your saliva several times a minute.
Finally, there’s the fact that the entire reason this project exists is to change the product of sugar fermentation from lactic acid to ethanol in order to prevent tooth decay. Lactic acid can only cause tooth decay if local pH is below 5.5. A similar amount of ethanol would be ~2% by mass. I’m pretty sure AFR people who only drink beer still have an elevated oral cancer risk. And that’s with only a few minutes of exposure a day! Consider what would happen if someone had that level of exposure every time they ate any carbs.
Thanks, this is interesting.
My understanding is that cavities are formed because the very local pH on that particular sub-part of the tooth is below 5.5. IIUC teeth can’t get cancer. Are you imagining Lumina colonies on the gums having this effect there, the Lumina colonies on the teeth affecting the general oral environment (which I think would require more calculation than just comparing to the hyper-local cavity environment) or am I misunderstanding something?
I was thinking of areas along the gum-tooth interface having a local environment that normally promote tooth demineralization and cavities. After Lumina, that area could have high chronic acetaldehyde levels. In addition, the adaption of oral flora to the chronic presence of alcohol could increase first-pass metabolism, which increases acetaldehyde levels locally and globally during/after drinking.
I don’t know how much Lumina changes the general oral environment, but I think you might be able to test this by seeing how much sugar you can put in your mouth before someone else can smell the fruity scent of acetaldehyde on your breath? I’m sure someone else can come up with a better experiment.
Thanks! This is much closer to the amount of ethanol you’d get eating 50 bananas a day. That’s at least one sanity check it fails then, even under these ideal conditions since, as you noted, there is probably a larger bacteria population than what was measured there.
Now I’m wondering about sanity checks in the other direction though. Is ~.5 ml per hour of ethanol actually a realistic production?
If it’s really more like 10^6 and not 10^7 that’s five bananas worth and not something I would worry about. Isn’t this resolvable via saliva assay?