Typically, people may think more about the food that they’re eating then the actual act of chewing it (unless chewing is especially difficult for them). Aside from preparing food for digestion and processing, chewing serves a number of vital functions for a patient’s good oral and overall health. Unfortunately, the loss of even a single tooth can inhibit a patient’s ability to chew properly, depriving the patient of the benefits that proper chewing can provide. Downey dentist, Dr. Pasha Hakimzadeh, warns that missing teeth and the resulting diminished ability to chew can drastically affect your quality of life, and offers a variety of teeth replacement options to restore your smile’s beauty and function.
Proper Chewing Stimulates a Healthy Smile
There are obvious effects to tooth loss (such as the gap left in your smile) that can drive you to replace lost teeth. Dental bridges, partials, and full dentures can resolve most of these cosmetic issues, but they cannot resolve the destruction of your jawbone that follows the loss of adult teeth’s roots. Biting and chewing stimulates these teeth roots, which are embedded in the jawbone, and the stimulation invites nutrients to help the jaw support and sustain a patient’s teeth. Losing teeth means a diminished ability to chew properly, and losing teeth roots means losing vital nutrients. Eventually, the combination of reduced chewing force and nutrient deficiency can cause the jawbone to deteriorate until it can’t support all of your remaining teeth, either. To restore root stimulation, we may recommend one or more dental implants to support your replacement teeth. Dental implants are titanium root devices that are surgically inserted into the jawbone to act as anchors for a dental crown, bridge, or denture, and can help stem jawbone deterioration after losing teeth roots.
Can Chewing Ability Relate to Dementia?
According to research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, your ability to chew in later years may affect your risk of developing dementia. The study, which compiled data obtained from 557 people ages 77 and older, discovered that participants who had difficulty biting and chewing hard foods due to tooth loss were also at a significantly higher risk for diminishing cognitive ability. The researchers explain that chewing stimulates blood flow to the brain, and that a reduced flow of oxygenated blood could increase your risk of developing dementia, although more comprehensive studies are required to determine a solid connection between chewing ability and dementia.
About Downey Family Cosmetic Dentistry:
Dr. Hadis Reyhani, Dr. Ben Reyhani, and Dr. Pasha Hakimzadeh provide a wealth of combined experience, along with innovative technology and personalized care, to help improve our patients’ dental health and function and help them enjoy smiling again. To schedule a consultation, call Downey Family Cosmetic Dentistry today at (562) 472-2433.
