How Missing Teeth Can Affect Your Health

The Health Effects of Missing Teeth

Missing teeth can cause a wide variety of health effects. This is largely because when you’re missing teeth it’s harder to properly chew food. This mechanical breakdown helps the digestive system access and absorb the nutrients in food, but when you can’t chew properly, you may miss out on that nutritional value. 

When you’re missing teeth, you may be avoiding certain foods entirely because they’re especially hard or impossible to chew. This may be certain meats, nuts, raw vegetables, or other hard foods. The longer you wait to replace a missing tooth, the more nutrients your body misses out on and the more your health could decline. 

Why People Chew Their Food

This section header probably sounds like the answer is common knowledge. People chew their food to make it easier to swallow and easier to digest. However, did you know that If your body can’t properly digest food, you’re more likely to develop bacteria in your colon. This can result in indigestion.

You may think “how much should I chew?” Long enough so you no longer recognize the food in your mouth. Thoroughly chewed food shouldn’t have its original texture, size, or shape. For example, you should no longer be able to detect, say, the shape of a mushroom or a floret of broccoli. Bread should feel like a paste or a mush depending on how wet your mouth is.

So chewing becomes one of the key ingredients in a healthy lifestyle. This is just one of the reasons why replacing your missing teeth is so important. Another reason is that missing teeth often impacts your ability to speak properly and may discourage you from smiling, both can take a big toll on your self-confidence.

Some Prosthetic Chompers

Dental Implants

Dental implants are a prosthetic tooth root that’s made of titanium. They have a variety of benefits including preventing bone loss in your jaw, lasting longer than other tooth replacement options (15 years on average, potentially more with excellent care), and don’t affect any surrounding teeth, unlike dental bridges.

Dental Bridges

A dental bridge is a prosthetic tooth that is held in place by two crowns fitted onto both immediately adjacent teeth. This requires the dentist to shave off some enamel from both healthy teeth to make sure the crown fits. 

A dental bridge may be the right option for people that don’t want the invasive surgery dental implants require. Also, to receive a dental implant your jawbone must have a certain amount of density to support the titanium root, and those with less density may not qualify for an implant.

Dentures

Dentures are probably the most well-known option of all three. Dentures need to be kept moist at all times otherwise they will dry out, warp, and crack. When they’re not in your mouth be sure to keep them in a glass of water or denture cleaner. 

If you want the benefits of dental implants and dentures, ask one of our dentists about implant-supported dentures. If you need a whole arch of teeth replaced then dentures may be the best option for you. Partial dentures are also an option if you need to replace multiple consecutive teeth.

Request an Appointment

If you are in need of getting a tooth replaced, Dr. Adam Gibson provides dental implants, bridges, and dentures so you can choose what’s best for you. Call (614) 878-9562 to schedule an appointment. 

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This blog post has been updated.