[mrfusion]

Interesting work!

Are there any treatments that kill the pathogenic but leave the beneficial microbes?

Does mouthwash kill them equally? What about h2o2 or xylitol?

[david_l_lin]

A majority of the products marketed today non-specifically ablate the microbiome. While they are effective at reducing the microbial titer as a whole, they are ineffective at specifically targeting pathogenic microbes associated with disease.

[bmau5]

I'd just add that we're hoping to develop products that specifically reduce/eliminate oral pathogens while encouraging growth of probiotic species

[mrfusion]

That sounds great. Does xylitol do that to an extent?

[bmau5]

It seems that more research is needed to confirm, but there are some studies and use cases where Xylitol seems to prevent tooth decay. This study has a great review[1] under "Xylitol and other polyols": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830181/