The Truth About Bone Loss and Dentures Revealed

Some of us really like our wishful thinking. And there are even those of us who believe if we focus our thinking hard enough we can manifest those thoughts into reality.

‍

In college, we are faced with a cafeteria full of food choices. We fill up our trays with food and go sit with our chosen group of people. In an attempt to live it up, we put whatever we want to on those lunch trays …

‍

Lucky Charms (because they leave that cereal there for you to grab all darn day), mashed potatoes, fat slices of bread with honey butter, cookies, cake, stir fry, homemade waffles … The options go on and on.

‍

It’s no wonder they came up with the phrase “the freshman fifteen” to refer to all the weight you put on your first year of college.

‍

Back in the day, they would put little plastic flags on the slightly healthier dessert options that said “fat free” in shiny letters. Well, dang skippy. That is a flag that dreams are made of! That flag became a magic wand of sorts for many a college girl wanting to pretend that her waffles and ice cream have health benefits.

‍

Yup. Stab that little wand right into the top of your food and Voila! It’s fat free.

‍

Totally, without a doubt, ridiculously wishful thinking. But what if those college girls focused all of their energy on believing that waffles, fried chicken, and biscuits are health foods? What if they tried to manifest that as their reality?

‍

Sorry, girls. Your little wing and a prayer just died an untimely death.

‍

Wishful thinking is fun. It keeps us positive in many situations. Sometimes it even helps us to cope and survive daunting circumstances.

‍

But what if your situation is a little more serious than wishing for junk food that won’t make you fat?

‍

What if you have an actual health problem that needs to be addressed? Then what? You can’t wish on a star and hope for the best. Nope. You need to be rational, do your research, and make an educated decision.

‍

Let’s take oral health, for example. In America, our smiles are pretty important to us. We have countless brands of whitening toothpaste, whitening strips, whitening pens, multiple brands of invisible aligners, braces, retainers, and dental professionals scattered in nearly every town across the country.

‍

We like a pretty smile, don’t we?

‍

But we most certainly lead lifestyles that often lend themselves to unhealthy mouths with missing teeth. B’bye pretty smile.

‍

‍

The Bad News About Missing Teeth

Missing teeth is very common among adults in our country. As a matter of fact, over *two-thirds of us in our mid-thirties and forties are missing at least one tooth! That’s almost hard to believe, isn’t it?

‍

Unfortunately, it is the ugly truth.

‍

Do you know what happens when you have missing teeth that go without a replacement solution? Bone loss! Yep. Bone loss occurs when we have missing teeth.

‍

How do missing teeth cause bone loss? This answer should make sense to you after we explain. It follows the same principles as arthritis settling in our joints.

‍

For the health of our joints, in order to prevent arthritis, rheumatologists may tell you to do weight-bearing exercises. The extra bit of work our bodies have to do while lifting weights or doing body-weight exercises like squats and push-ups helps our bones to become stronger and our joints to maintain their health much longer.

‍

Chewing on healthy, hard foods like carrots, apples, and broccoli essentially has the same effect in our mouths as weight-bearing exercises have on our bodies. The force that is exerted by biting and chewing stimulates our jaw bones.

‍

Who knew, right? If you thought chewing was all about the digestive process, you know better now!

‍

So, when we have gaps in our mouth from missing teeth, there is no stimulation happening to the bone that no longer has contact with a tooth. Unfortunately, when the stimulus is removed, our bodies just start to break down that bone. In the first year of missing a permanent tooth, the bone in that area begins to deteriorate fairly fast.

‍

As you can guess, it’s very important to replace that missing tooth if you don’t want to lose bone. You need your mandibles! There will be no more smiling if you have no jawbone left.

‍

What Can Be Done to Prevent Bone Loss?

The same way it holds true for the rest of our bodies, nutrition is very important when it comes to oral health.

‍

As we age, we must replace the nutrients that are frequently depleted from our bodies. This means that we need to eat a well-balanced diet that is full of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as high-quality proteins.

‍

Talk to your doctor to be sure you are taking the right supplements needed to support your bone density and be sure to hydrate well with water on a regular basis.

‍

Can Dentures Help to Prevent Bone Loss?

If you like Band-Aid solutions, dentures can replace missing teeth. They are made from a hard resin and fitted to your mouth to replace or substitute your smile.

‍

Yay! No more missing teeth! Right? Sort of. You do have replacement “teeth” when you go with dentures, but you haven’t actually fixed your real issue—bone loss.

‍

That’s no good.

‍

And those darn dentures might make you feel better temporarily about your missing tooth, but they are going to do absolutely nothing for further jawbone deterioration. You might even feel as though you’ve been sucker-punched.

‍

The purpose of those dentures was to fix a problem, huh? Well, we have more bad news. Dentures can even make your deterioration problem even worse. Yep. Your bone may atrophy even faster when you wear dentures.

‍

Guess what that means? To quote Damon Wayans, “Mo money, mo money, mo money!’ You may need to have your dentures fitted again when that bone atrophies because your dentures will end up being too big for your mouth.

‍

Wow. Dentures sound like a barrel of laughs, don’t they?

‍

To answer the question in plain terms, no, dentures do not prevent bone loss.

‍

If dentures aren’t a good choice, what is?

‍

Dental Implants Can Be the Best Choice for Replacing Teeth AND Preventing Bone Loss

It’s true. Our full mouth dental implants may be a better fit than dentures for many reasons. But for the purpose of this piece, we’re just going to address the question of bone loss.

‍

Our implants can put your worries about bone loss at ease. The implants work along with your actual jaw structure. The small posts are directly inserted into your jawbone.

‍

Don’t freak out at that thought, okay? It is a really good thing that you have an implant that is essentially fused to your jawbone. This allows for direct contact which means it’s copying your root structure.

‍

‍

Do you know why that is important? It’s important because our implants will be stimulating the natural growth of your jawbone. Ta-dah!! That is exactly what you want.

‍

You want your body to function as naturally as possible with your new teeth. That’s what our Nuvia smile does for you. No worries, just really great teeth you can trust.

‍

*Sources:

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/sponsor-content/did-you-know-that-by-age-50-americans-have-lost-an-average-of-12-teeth/