Unlike just about every other part of your body, including the bones, the outer layer of every one of your teeth is dead. Enamel is almost 100 percent mineral, which means it’s more like a seashell than a bone. It also means that when you get a toothache, it’s not the enamel that’s hurting. So why are teeth designed to hurt at all? Read more
While the ideal tooth is an unblemished white, most of us are willing to accept a somewhat off-white color as the cost of using our mouth to eat things. There are also various tooth-whitening products out there which do various things like eating away at the outermost layer of enamel, coating the teeth in a layer of white chemicals, or else applying a fluorescent dye that makes your teeth shine despite their color, but you can also keep your teeth white by avoiding certain things which might stain your teeth. Read more
The inside of your mouth is wet – or at least it should be. There are glands all throughout your cheeks and jaw which produce saliva, a special liquid which only shows up in your mouth. Saliva keeps your tongue and your teeth nice and wet, but it also does a lot more than that. Read more
You’ve likely heard a list of things you shouldn’t do if you want healthy, cavity-free teeth: don’t chew on anything you aren’t supposed to eat, don’t forget to brush and floss after meals, and stay away from strong acids and sugary foods. While it’s obvious enough that sour, acidic drinks can eat away at your tooth enamel over time, what exactly does sugar have to do with the tooth decay? Read more
Braces play an important role in making sure that your teeth come in straight and without any complications. This is important for making sure that your smile is good-looking and healthy, but it also ensures that your teeth won’t twist out of place years later. Improperly aligned teeth can cause practical problems along with cosmetic ones, since it can be hard to chew when your upper and lower teeth don’t make contact and teeth that push up against one another can cause pain and infections. Read more
We are what we eat, and to a large extent the nature of our diet is reflected in the size of our waistline and in the energy that keeps us going throughout the day. However, there is one other thing which our eating habits strongly affect, and that is the state of our teeth. What we eat (and how we eat it) can have a big impact on how many cavities we get and how bad they are, and what’s good for our bodies isn’t always what’s good for our teeth. Read more
The human mouth is, at least in most cases, designed for 28 teeth. However, almost everyone will grow a total of 32 adult teeth. So what happens when too many teeth grow into too little space? All too often, the answer is “nothing good.” Read more
In the early 20th century, the dentist Frederick McKay began looking into a phenomenon which was known at the time as the Colorado brown stain. The stain was characterized by brown discolorations and noticeable pits which appeared on the teeth of people who lived in certain parts of Colorado. While it wasn’t a pretty sight, McKay also happened to notice that those who suffered from the brown stain also suffered from fewer cavities than the national average. Read more
Human teeth are designed to bite into some fairly hard and tough materials. Beef jerky, taffy, hard candy, and of course the classic standbys of denture commercials: apples and corn. It’s generally not a good idea to chew on solid objects like rocks and wood, but then that’s a fairly obvious conclusion we can make without having to feel our mistakes in our teeth. So then why can they hurt? What good does that do us? Read more
Perhaps you’ve lost a tooth because of an accident, or perhaps it got too infected and it needed to come out. Perhaps it’s simply worn down with age and infection is too likely for it to be worth keeping around. However it happens, there’s now a hole where your tooth used to be, and so you’re facing a decision on how to fill it. Read more