Teeth help animals bite and chew food. Carnivores tend to have sharp teeth for biting into prey, while herbivores tend to have flat teeth for crushing plant-based meals.
Some animals use their teeth for specific purposes, such as burrowing or fighting. Like the tusks of elephants, walruses, and boars, tusks are a special type of tooth that continue to grow as long as the animal lives.
No matter what you use it for, your teeth will wear out over time. Good news if you’re a rodent like a beaver or a mouse. Teeth never stop growing, so rodents rely on gnawing and chewing to wear down their teeth and prevent them from growing large enough to cause problems.
Some animals cope with wear and tear by continuing to grow new teeth even as old ones fall out. For example, sharks and crocodiles are what scientists call polyphiodonts, which can grow teeth almost indefinitely.
Like most mammals, humans are didentate. There are two sets of teeth: baby teeth and permanent teeth. Our technical term for baby teeth is because baby teeth fall out, just like leaves fall from a tree in the fall.
We are both dentists focused on treating children and anthropologists who study how human teeth and faces grow. We are both passionate about dental and oral health care and love thinking and learning about teeth. How did the two sets become the human norm?
How do human teeth develop?
Although baby teeth begin to emerge before birth, most people are born without any visible teeth in their mouths. Baby teeth usually begin to grow through the gums between 6 and 8 months of age. When your dentist takes x-rays to check for cavities or other problems, permanent teeth may be visible beneath the gums.
Baby teeth are relatively small because they have to fit the small faces of babies and toddlers. As they grow and their faces get bigger, there is room in their mouths for more and larger teeth. Teeth come in a variety of sizes and shapes depending on their purpose. Human front teeth are suitable for chewing and tearing food. The molars are suitable for chewing food into smaller pieces before swallowing.
Most children lose their first baby teeth between the ages of 5 and 6, and the process continues slowly until the age of 10 to 12, when all 20 first teeth fall out.
During this same period, adult or permanent teeth gradually emerge in the mouth. They are larger than baby teeth and help chew more food at once. Eventually, you will have 28 teeth and may have four more wisdom teeth in the back. Some people simply don’t have wisdom teeth, some people need their wisdom teeth removed because they don’t fit in their jaws, and some people have 32 teeth and a big, big smile.
Therefore, having two sets of teeth means that as you grow, your teeth will adapt to the size of your face, allowing you to chew food throughout your life.
Baby teeth require careful care
You might think that if baby teeth are falling out, they aren’t that important. But that’s not the case.
If you were a shark, every time you had a few cavities or chipped a tooth, you would grow a new one and keep chewing. But unlike sharks, crocodiles, and even manatees, we humans only have two sets of teeth. Caring for baby teeth will help keep them healthy and in the correct position until they fall out.
If you neglect to take care of your baby teeth, they may end up with more cavities. If the cavity becomes too large or the tooth becomes infected, your dentist may need to remove the tooth. Premature extraction of baby teeth is not only not a comfortable process, but it can also cause problems for permanent teeth.
There may not be enough space for the permanent tooth to come in, or what dentists call “eruption,” in its proper place. This problem occurs, in part, because other teeth around where the baby tooth used to be move and take up the space where the permanent tooth would have emerged. Teeth may get stuck in the jaw and not come in, or become stuck in the mouth. If the size of your teeth and the size of your jaw don’t match, your orthodontist will place braces on your teeth and reposition them so that everything fits together.
What does the future hold for teeth?
People can live for 70 or 80 years or more, so even if you do your best to take care of your teeth, many of you will outlive your teeth. There are many artificial teeth options, including removable dentures and dental implants, which are artificial teeth screwed into your jaw, but they are not exactly like natural teeth.
When a bone is broken, it heals because new bone forms to repair the broken part. Scientists call this process fracture healing. Unfortunately, human teeth are not made of bone, so they cannot heal naturally. Bone is primarily composed of a structural protein produced by the body called collagen, while teeth are primarily composed of minerals such as calcium-rich hydroxyapatite. In some ways, teeth are more like hard stones than living bones.
Regenerative dentistry is the study of how teeth grow and develop, with the ultimate goal of creating new ways to repair and replace teeth. Scientists are working hard to discover ways to grow new teeth or help existing teeth regenerate. They are learning about the environment and materials needed for new teeth to grow.
For now, the best thing you can do is take care of your teeth and keep the gums and bones that support them healthy. Brush your teeth twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and floss once a day. Try to limit your intake of sweet and sticky foods and drinks. Proper nutrition not only keeps your teeth healthy, but your entire body. Protect your teeth from injury by visiting your dentist regularly.
By taking care of your teeth now, you can have a beautiful and healthy smile in the future.
This article was published in The Conversation. Click here to read the original version
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