The following are enjoyable fun dental facts that you have come across for the first time.
Fun Dental facts –
1. Your teeth are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. The hard, white part that you can see is called ‘enamel.’ Your enamel means that you can chew food without hurting the soft part underneath.
2. Teeth are the hardest part of your body, even harder than bones!
3. Although teeth and bones look the same color and are hard, teeth aren’t bones.
4. Rats’ teeth are constantly growing, causing them to feel a permanent itch. That is why they are constantly nibbling and gnawing on everything they can get their paws on! Once your baby teeth fall out, you will grow your adult teeth, which last forever.
5. Sweets and candy make a bad acid in your mouth which hurts teeth. Make sure you brush for two minutes every time you do your teeth to keep them nice and healthy.
6. Your mouth will make enough saliva in your lifetime to fill two swimming pools!
7. You use four different types of teeth in your mouth to eat: incisors, canine, premolars, and molars.
8. A t-rex dinosaur had 60 teeth, but you only have about 20!
9. Nobody else in the whole world has the same shapes of teeth as you — your smile is special.
We smile, we talk, we eat… but how? It is our teeth that help us do all these things and almost every one of us have a habit of taking our ivories for granted. Perhaps our teeth are the most ignored ones in our entire body. It is about time that we start taking care of our teeth before it is too late! We really cannot push you about oral hygiene because that’s a matter of personal choice but we can definitely give you a list of 30 interesting human teeth facts that you will perhaps enjoy reading.
Just a heads up, these 30 facts are going to cover some serious and some fun facts. If you expect only serious stuff, you may find this a little disappointing.
Interesting Human teeth facts –
1. Humans get only two sets of teeth throughout their lifetime. The first set is the baby teeth with only 20 teeth in the set. The second teeth are dubbed as the adult teeth with 32 teeth in the set.
2. Teeth start forming way before birth. To be more specific, the foundation of teeth is laid during the fetal stage.
3. Despite the fact that teeth start forming long before birth, they don’t really show up until the baby is born and attains the age of about 6 months.
4. The tooth enamel is the hardest known substance in the entire human body.
5. The plaque formed on our teeth is known to have more than 300 different species of bacteria. Unfortunately, they aren’t healthy ones.
6. On average, a person spends around 38 days in his/her entire lifetime for brushing teeth.
7. Only one-third of the teeth can be seen. The remaining two-third is hidden inside the gums.
8. Several diseases have a connection to oral health such as diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart disease.
9. Just like fingerprints, teeth are also unique to every human being. No two humans will have identical teeth.
10. There are different types of teeth and each type has a specific function. For example, incisors are meant for biting off pieces from food, canines are meant for holding and tearing apart the food while molars are meant for grinding the food.
11. Just brushing teeth is not enough. Brushing takes care of 40% of oral hygiene. Remaining 60% is taken care of by flossing.
12. The first-ever toothpaste to be ever made was by the Egyptians some 5000 years ago. It was just a mixture of pumice and wine.
13. Mountain Dew Teeth or the Appalachian Teeth is the name given to the rotten brown teeth of people in the Appalachian region of the USA. Mountain Dew is their official drink which even replaces water most of the time. It is this constant sipping of this beverage that has caused this dental crisis.
14. Chinese researchers are trying to grow teeth synthetically. They collected stem cells from human urine (not a good place to hunt for stem cells) and used the same to grow human teeth in the mouth of a mouse. Beginnings of enamel and dental pulp were recorded but there is still a long way to go.
15. Studies show that keeping toothbrushes 6 feet away from the toilets does not really help in keeping toothbrushes free of germs. Toothbrushes get smothered with bacteria every day in our mouth and the best way to keep our toothbrushes free of germs is to keep them dry because bacteria thrive well in moist conditions.
16. Using a bristles cap for your toothbrush isn’t going to help either because those caps prevent the bristles from becoming dry. The best thing to do here is to dry out the bristles properly before using a cap.
17. Men in ancient Mayan civilization had small holes made on their teeth and fitted those holes with gemstones. They believed that doing so helped to make their mouths pretty.
18. Ancient cultures often used twigs for brushing their teeth. The use of twigs as toothbrushes still continues in many countries such as India. These twigs are often obtained from trees like neem and cinnamon that have antibacterial properties. Studies show that these twigs are equally effective as modern toothbrushes.
19. The Chinese were the first people to have invented an object closer to a modern-day toothbrush. The handle was made using bamboo and the bristles were made using boar hair.
20. Brushing teeth right after eating is not suggested. Right after eating, the saliva in the mouth contains high concentrations of acid. Brushing actually leads to abrasions and brushing right after eating will means acids along with abrasions lead to faster wearing of teeth enamel.
Interesting Human Teeth Facts: 21-30
21. Norway has the world’s largest tooth bank which stores milk teeth from babies. The bank has 17,000 teeth stored. According to Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) researchers, studying the milk teeth along with urine and blood samples from parents help them to find out how environmental pollution impact the health of both child and mother because the researchers believe that the milk teeth are good indicators of environmental pollution.
22. In Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, fake tooth braces are actually styled statements, and youth consider these braces to be cool as opposed to being ugly, geeky, and uncomfortable. These braces sell at a price range of $100 to $1200.
23. A 17-year old boy named Ashik Gavai from India was suffering from composite odontoma which led to the formation of a tumor in his lower jaw. The tumor was operated and doctors removed 232 teeth from his mouth. In addition, the doctors also found a brick-like marble structure that they had to break apart using chisel and hammer to remove it completely.
24. The saliva in the mouth is responsible for protecting teeth from bacteria.
25. Cavities or dental caries (usually referred to as tooth decay) is one of the most common diseases found in the world.
26. Lucy Beaman Hobbs was the world’s first licensed female dentist. She received her license in 1866.
27. The world’s first known dentist lived 5000 years ago. He was an Egyptian by the name Hesi-Re.
28. The scientific term used to describe toothache is Odontalgia.
29. Right-handed people will usually chew their food on the right side of their mouth and left-handed people chew food on the left side of their mouth.
30. The most preferred and commonly used toothbrush color is blue.