| Our Teeth |
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If it wasn’t for our teeth life could be very dull, envy-filled and sloppy indeed. Living on just a liquefied diet! To bite and chew we need strong stone-like crunchers. We sprout out our temporary teeth as babies and then from our childhood (we lose those baby teeth) to about age 24 we should have sprouted a full set of permanent teeth.  Our teeth have an inner pulp cavity that holds blood vessels and nerves. Blood vessels are transporting nutrients and carrying away wastes to and from our teeth. While the nerves are able to ensure we can ‘feel’ with our teeth. A prime symptom of weaker, thinner teeth is sensitive teeth! The nerves are closer to the foods or drinks. Sipping anything extreme in temperature (hot or cold beverages) gives the teeth a terrible zing that zaps right to the root. Not very pleasant! Maybe a straw can let the liquid bypass the teeth. Then even enjoying simple things such as iced deserts is a problem and misery erupts if it’s desired. It is not a total let down to not be sipping hot soup or anything piping hot in temperature as the heat actually damages our throat. We can burn our tongue, mouth and throat! Think of burning your skin! If you don’t want to damage your mouth area don’t eat or drink excessively heated foods and drinks. The mouth is one of the quicker healing parts of the body and it has a great capacity to heal any sore, cut or incision in super speed. Our teeth have a natural shield around the inner pulp cavity, called dentine. Dentine is strong like our bones. Calcium phosphate is a key player in tooth structure. One minor mineral that also has a spot on tooth health is fluoride. Fluoride is needed in minute amounts only. Then to top it all off we have a thin layer of enamel, like an icing on the cake. As icing is sweeter than cake, enamel is stronger than dentine. Although enamel is tough, we can help it by maintaining it. The sad part about tooth health is that once we damage that strong barrier of enamel and dentine, there’s no going back. Eating foods with high simple sugar content has been recognised to cause cavities. Even milk drinking before bed should be discouraged if teeth aren’t cleaned afterwards! Lactose is a simple sugar in milk. Confectionery and fruits carry ample free simple sugars that settle on our teeth. Regular teeth brushing (it’s recommended twice daily) removes these settlements of residue on and around teeth. If they reside for long, bacteria begin to ferment or process those food residues and produce acid. The acid ‘eats away’ at our enamel and possibly even dentine. Acidic fruits are highly healthy! Think of lemons, oranges, tangerines, limes and naartjies. A glass of acidic fruit juice daily may be better had if sipped via a straw. Acidic foods tend to weaken and ‘thin’ our teeth when they come into contact regularly.  ral Health Month is here in August and we can have a healthy strong bite by regularly checking up on our teeth. Halitosis (smelly breath) is commonly a sign of need of some health check up, mainly the mouth. If you eat fresh garlic, a breath of anti-social garlic odour can be disguised by parsley being eaten along with it. The number of 32 permanent teeth sounds like ample. Many people don’t have the full set as often the wisdom teeth fail to fully erupt out and usually are removed. Wisdom teeth are the biggest teeth amongst our ‘munchers’. They are the last teeth to creep out, unlike our earlier sprouting teeth. Wisdom teeth are similar to molars in that there main function is to grind. It’s a tug by your dentist to remove rotting teeth but it’s a loss that can be replaced with substitutes but it’ll never be the same. Basically we have three types of teeth for certain functions. Front incisors for biting, side canines for tearing and molars for grinding. Have a bite! Look after that bite before it’s too late. Anastacia Sampson D.N. Med |