20 Fun Facts & Figures About Teeth And Gums To Make You Smile
The news is a little glum, but these 20 fun facts and figures about teeth and gums might just cheer you up!
Here at Abbey Road Dental we are no stranger to the fact that the news is a little bit glum at the moment. Limiting your time reading the news may help and whilst staying informed is important, you don’t need every update every hour to do so.
Instead, indulge yourself in plenty of movement, fun, digital social interaction and lots and lots of brain breaks.
To help give you just the smallest piece of escapism, we’ve got a collection of 20 fun facts and figures about yes, you’ve guessed it, teeth and gums!
Lets go….
- The Tooth Fairy Used To Pay A Lot Less! – the tooth fairy is thought to pay out around £1 – £2 per tooth these days or maybe more for the biggest baby teeth. Did you know that in the 50’s the average going rate per tooth was more like 10-20p? We can’t see kids these days being quite as excited about a tooth being wobbly for those kinds of amounts!
- Every Single Tooth Is Unique – each and every tooth that you have is unique. No two are the same when it comes to their shape, or their size and they vary hugely from each and every person. They are specifically built for your mouth and yours alone and are as unique as your fingerprint.
- Women Are The Main Smilers – women smile much more than men do overall, or at least they are more likely to.
- Kids Are The Main Laughers – kids are much more likely to laugh than adults, over 25% more likely in fact. Judging by the fantastic kids we get in to our NW8 dental clinic for checkups, we know just how joyful they can be, even getting their teeth checked!
- You Make Enough Spit To Fill Swimming Pools – yep, it’s totally gross but true. Over your lifetime you can make enough saliva to fill two swimming pools!
- Mosquitoes Have Plenty To Smile About – mosquitoes have twice as many teeth as people, so they have all they need to give us wide grins! Maybe we would smile back if they weren’t coming to suck our blood!
- When Twigs Were Toothbrushes – can you imagine brushing your teeth with a twig? Well, that’s how they used to clean their teeth before toothbrushes were invented. Thank goodness for modern technology!
- Some People Are Born With More Teeth – the average amount of human teeth is 32, but some people have extra. One man who won a Guinness World Record actually lives with a massive 37 teeth.
- Smiling Can Make You Happy – when you smile you can feel better for it, even if the smile is forced. The muscles used to smile connect to signals in your brain telling it that you are happy.
- Women Who Smile Are More Attractive – apparently, men think women with makeup on without a smile are less attractive than those who are smiling and are makeup free. Funnily enough, if you are a man you are more likely to be seen as attractive by a woman if you don’t smile.
- Smiling Over The Phone Changes How You Sound – if you smile when you speak on the phone you sound friendlier. It is a trick often used in customer service call centres. Agents are trained to smile as they speak, even if its not genuine, as it translates to the way they sound.
- Smiling Is The First Thing We Do As Babies – as babies the first expression we learn is smiling, we even start smiling in the womb. It doesn’t necessarily mean happiness though. If you’ve held a gassy baby before, you’ll know all too well that baby smiles mean something different in the early days!
- Smiling Can Help With Health Issues – smiling can create endorphins in your body, the happy hormones. Those hormones then work to lower your blood pressure. Great news for your heart.
- You Can Build A Smile Six Pack – OK not quite, but it does take a massive 26 muscles to enable you to smile! If only it was that easy to build muscles up elsewhere.
- Happy Expressions Are The Easiest – it is easier to smile than it is to frown because of the muscles used for each expression. There’s no excuse not to grin!
- Smiling Is Thought To Extend Your Life – smiling is thought to make you live longer because of the health benefits. Apparently, smiling people are around for longer. What a great reason to show off those pearly whites.
- Smiling Means Happy To Everyone – whereas lots of gestures and expressions mean different things to different cultures, smiling means the same thing. No matter which country you are in, or which language is spoken, smiling means happiness.
- Ancient Egyptians Experimented With Dental Care – although there is no conclusive evidence that dental care existed in an organised fashion in Ancient Egypt, there is some interesting evidence of attempts at early dentistry. One example is of a prosthetic appliance using gold wire where it is used to connect a solid tooth to a mobile tooth next door. There are also records of early dental surgery where holes have been created to drain pus from an abscess.
- Blacksmiths Used To Do Dentistry In Ye Olde Times – in the Victorian era you really wouldn’t want to get a toothache! Treatment was done by blacksmiths and barbers who were famous for their botched treatment of dental issues. Commonly teeth were removed without the use of any anaesthetic at all, and various tools like pliers and forceps were used to remove the offending tooth.
- Refined Sugar Started A Trend Of Dental Issues – in Tudor times it is thought that teeth, overall were quite healthy. There was a lot of grit in the diet, which apparently helped to keep the teeth healthy. Once refined sugar came along, however, things were quite different. In the late 1400’s it arrived and only the rich could afford it, and subsequently overindulged. Queen Elizabeth, for example, was so into refined sugar her teeth went black, and later on in life, people struggled to understand what she was saying.
With a bit of luck the 20 facts above have given you a break from the constant difficult news and alerts going out at the moment.
Hopefully things will be back to normal soon. In the meantime, please know that your favourite St John’s Wood dentist is here for you as much as we can be. If you do need any emergency advice or guidance, please get in touch via email or phone. In the meantime, stay safe.
Sources:
https://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/fun-teeth-facts
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/11-facts-about-smiling.html
https://www.buzzfeed.com/smiletrain/facts-about-smiles-you-never-knew
https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2009.355
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4554324/Horror-Victorian-dentistry-exposed-grim-photos.html