Dentists who want to keep their patients' teeth from breaking may want to consider baking them. That's the surprising suggestion from a study by researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan in the current issue of the Journal of Dental Research (August 2008, Vol. 87:8, pp. 762-766).
Noting that the flexural strength of type I collagen increases with heat and that collagen is a key constituent of dentin, the researchers decided to try heating some dentin. They took beam-shaped dentin specimens from the crowns of human third molars and heated them between 110° C and 140° C for an hour.
The results? The flexural and microtensile strengths of the dentin was 2- to 2.4-fold greater in the heated specimens than in nonheated specimens. The approach might be useful in restored teeth, the researchers speculated. Further conclusions will await clinical trials.
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