Apart from the benefits of fluoride, most toothpastes promote themselves through branding and pushing the fun of different flavours.

But at the end of the day, most toothpaste works as well as it does because of abrasion.

Bits of toothpaste rub against your teeth, getting rid of dirt and so on; but it doesn’t regenerate tooth enamel.

However, Dr Sherif Elsharkawy has been looking into a way to rebuild that enamel by using a toothpaste made from a person’s body.

“Basically, we discovered that the protein keratin, which is the core protein in human hair, in sheep’s wool and in feathers; in multiple natural sources, this protein has some sort of historical evidence in traces of enamel,” he told Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea.

“It’s underestimated, the effect of it.

“We wanted to find a new way to recreate the enamel; so fluoride, it’s just an element, it doesn’t really contribute to the enamel development."

Dr Elsharkawy said that he has previously developed a protein from bacteria that would allow enamel to regenrate; however, this technology would be impossible to produce at a large scale.

“Only the privileged few can have that, but the problem is it’s not very skilled and as well it requires a lot of strong solvents to work with,” he said.

“It’s not very clinically friendly, et cetera.”

Future plans

According to Dr Elsharkawy, the idea to use keratin instead of this protein came to him in a dream.

“I had that dream, and I went to the lab with my students and we kind of recruited that sheep wool, because I know it’s very available,” he said.

“We recruited it from Scotland and we started to break down the core protein to make it available to us, and then we started to manipulate that protein and expose it to calcium phosphate, which is very similar to our saliva.

“What we’ve seen under the microscope was exactly the same as what I’ve seen in my dream.

“It’s basically rebuilding the crystals in a way that is very organised, similar to human enamel.”

Dr Elsharkawy said the focus over the next twelve months is to introduce this technology to toothpaste and mouthwash.

Main image: A young Caucasian woman holding toothbrush with toothpaste at home. Image: Wavebreak Media Premium. 30 January 2024