How Scout Works Pt.1
Your statuesque teeth, minerals, and why fluoride is your friend
After the launch of Scout, the world’s first oral wellness measurement device, we got hit with a ton of questions around the device. But one stood out to us as too important to leave alone.
“How does Scout work? And what is hyperspectral imaging?”
- Author note: Yeah, this is two questions, but I’ll just count it as one for convenience
As with all good technical advances, it’s really simple and also impossibly complex. To make it more digestible, we’re going to break it down into a series, starting with explaining what’s really going on in your mouth. We’ll eventually get into our imaging tech, as well as what Scout is really doing, but we’re starting with the thing we all worry about: Cavities.
What is demineralization?
When talking about cavities, we need to start with demineralization. When it comes to dentistry, demineralization is the enemy.
Your pearly whites are made of an incredible substance called Calcium Hydroxyapatite (HA). HA forms the protective layer around your tooth, known as enamel. Hard as a rock (because it’s actually a mineral), HA keeps your teeth from being ground down as you eat.
However, just like acid rain eats away at statues by stealing Calcium, acids in your mouth can degrade your enamel by pulling the Calcium right out.
Acids are everywhere in our world. Carbonated drinks are acidic, as is juice. Worse still, the bacteria in our mouths will convert sugars to acid. In the case of severe diabetes, a patient’s saliva can actually turn acidic itself, accelerating demineralization rapidly.
Demineralization + Erosion = Drilling
Demineralization weakens your tooth chemically, but it’s not what actually makes a cavity. A cavity truly begins when you start to lose chunks of the tooth to erosion.
Teeth naturally demineralize all the time. Like I mentioned above, everything from soda to an apple will cause some demineralization. Luckily for us, our saliva helps remineralize our teeth, and so does toothpaste, keeping balance in the force. But this delicate balance goes out the window when we don’t brush or when our oral microbiome goes out of wack.
When your teeth aren’t remineralizing the way they’re supposed to, they go from rock hard to something a lot more like soft plastic. Yeah, they’re gonna keep grinding away at your food, but the food grinds away at them, too. This is erosion. Once your teeth erode enough, you run out of enamel and get down to the dentin, at which point, the issue becomes painful, and so does the drilling.
The issue with erosion is that, unlike demineralization, we can’t reverse it. Just like you can’t put the sawdust back onto a piece of wood that’s been sanded, we can’t just strap enamel back onto our teeth.
So what do we do? How do we defend our teeth against this acid onslaught?
We give our teeth armor to keep cavities at bay
As awesome as HA is at keeping our teeth safe, it’s not the strongest thing out there. For that, we armor up our teeth.
You’ll hear so much about Fluoride and how it’s important for your teeth, but no one seems to say why.
See, HA was a solid option for enamel 400 million years ago when it first evolved, but it’s not the best mineral. For that, we need Fluoride.
The Hydroxy in Hydroxyapatite does a good job in most situations of making a very hard mineral, keeping a tight hold on the Calcium. However, like a distracted dance partner, the moment acid shows up, the Hydroxide’s grip slips.
Fluoride is a dance partner with an iron grip, helped with a set of handcuffs. When the pressure is on, and the acid is out in force, Fluoride does a great job of keeping a tight hold on the Calcium. That means less demineralization, and less demineralization means less erosion.
The reason your dentist pushes for you to use Fluoride toothpaste is because it makes your teeth much more resistant to acid. In our sweet world, that counts for a whole lot.
But Fluoride is just the start
Mineralization, demineralization, and erosion are all critical parts of your dental health, but they’re only the first level. As we dive further, we’ll get into topics like why some people get more cavities than others, how cavities develop, and, eventually, the core of our hyperspectral technology.
Scout might be cutting-edge, but we hope that, by the end of this series, you feel right at home with how it works. And maybe, just maybe, you order one so that it’s in your home. In the meantime, keep an eye out for part 2: Life didn’t give us lemons; we made our own.
Disclaimer: Scout is a wellness device, not a medical device. It is intended only for general health and wellness purposes, and it has not been evaluated, assessed, or approved by the FDA.
