Maybe you’ve seen ads for dental retainers plated with 24-karat gold – such as Midas Brackets by Gold’n Braces – and you’ve thought: You know, that’s just not enough bling for my mouth.

Would you prefer diamonds in your root canal?

A new report in the American Chemistry Society journal Nano says nanodiamonds – which are just what they sound like, microscopic diamond chips – have the potential to improve root canal therapies and prevent future infections.

In root canal procedures, the dentist clears out damaged or infected pulp from inside a tooth and fills that space with a rubber compound called gutta-percha. If the patient’s tooth gets reinfected, more treatment is required. So scientists have been experimenting with other substances. At UCLA, researcher Dean Ho and colleagues combined nanodiamonds, gutta-percha and the antibiotic amoxicillin into a new compound. The diamonds, they said, were useful because of their “versatile faceted surface chemistry, biocompatibility, and their role in improving mechanical properties.”

Lab tests indicate that the new compound is stronger than plain gutta-percha, and it has the advantage of killing bacteria. But they haven’t tested it in humans yet – so we don’t know if “diamonds are forever” means the new treatment will actually last longer.