Researchers from King’s College London just announced a new approach to fixing cavities that requires no injections, no drills, and no pain. It’s just a little blast of electric current that encourages the tooth to self-repair. And they say it’ll be on the market in three years. The new technique sounds confusingly simple. Cavities form when the natural minerals in the protective enamel degrade, and the tooth starts to decay. This new method enhances the body’s natural ability to restore those minerals with ones found in saliva or fluoride. The dentist simply applies a small electric current to “push” minerals towards the cavity. The process, dubbed Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralization (EAER), is entirely painless and takes about the same amount of time as current drilling techniques.
Read the full story at Gizmodo, and the original report at the King’s College London’s site.