Dentures. Why do so many olde people have dentures?

[Fordian]

It has occurred to me a couple of times.

I work in health care and see The Ages of Dentition 😊

No one under 40 has a filling. Everyone from 40-70 has a face like a Cornish tin mine. Everyone older has dentures.

Why?

Please, I'm not looking for any 'Well, I'm 80 with a full set of natural teeth'- I'm generalising 😂

But given that the older folk didn't encounter a grain of sugar on their entire youth (if you were to believe my mother, RIP, b. 1933)... why?

What changed? What factors came into play?

I'm 36 and have had rubbish luck with my teeth. Had an accident and damaged a lot of them, then had a terrible dentist who damaged some others. I'm trying to sort them out now but it's so hard.

I was born in 1955. I had regular dental check ups every six months as a child, and NHS orthodontic treatment with braces while at primary school.
Now aged nearly 66, I have all my own teeth apart from my lower wisdoms (removed as crowding) and just three small superficial fillings from my thirties. I haven’t needed any treatment other than scale and polish in thirty years.
However, I regularly had to anaesthetise children, up to my retirement in 2016, for dental extractions of carious teeth. Sadly, these were largely due to parental neglect of basic dental hygiene, and a diet of fizzy acidic drinks, sweets and sugary snacks, which were much less available in my childhood.

In the 60's my dad paid for my mum to have false teeth as a wedding present . Gifting false teeth was a thing way back then. Apparently.

I'm from the next generation when dentists drilled and filled everything.

My 3 adult kids have great teeth and no fillings.

And as for the next generation after that- no NHS dentists mean they are all screwed and false teeth will be back

My gran lost hers due to medication taken for rheumatic fever. Apparently the medication back then made teeth go black and fall out.
My dad only ever knew his mum with a full set of dentures - she was 35 when he was born and I think they'd been gone years by then.

I am early 40s and only have a handful of fillings. My teeth are ok, but now due to depression I have periodontitis.

My mother was born in the 30's and brought up on a sugar filled diet. She had dentures at 15. I was brought up on a similar diet and every single tooth is filled and they are currently rotting away. I hardly ever went to the dentist when I was young. That's the difference.

I'm 61 and have partial dentures. The teeth I have left are in bad condition.
Mine was due to - bad '70s dentistry, smoking, ignoring toothache as an adult, too much sugar as a child. My mum was quite strict about cleaning teeth and visiting the dentist, though she did also believe the 'apples are good for your teeth' myth.
My mum also had a very poor diet when she was pregnant with me, my teeth are very small and not very strong. I've always thought they might be connected. Though to be fair I am healthy in other ways.

@oneglassandpuzzled

Past a certain age it’s poor gums that lose you teeth and people didn’t understand how to keep gums healthy. Nobody flossed when I was a child.

Definitely this. My teeth started being sensitive, at my last check up my dentist x-rayed me and showed me the very beginning of receding gums.

It was a huge wake up call about flossing. She said that's the main cause of losing teeth as you get older, they just loosen up. She said she's trying to drum it into people now before it's too late.

I'm in my mid 40s. We had school dentists come in once a year to check everyone's teeth (state primary school) - presumably this suggests that a lot of families still didn't attend a regular dentist for checkups in the 1980s?

We certainly ate a lot of sugar. We were the first generation to have a wide range of sugary breakfast cereals available, super-sweet yogurts that were loaded with sugar and marketed specifically at kids (Frufoo yogurts / Petits Filous), snacking between meals became more normal during our childhood etc.

But equally, our drinking water was fluorinated (not in all areas of uk), toothpastes contained fluorine and became available in milder flavours and had branding to appeal to children.

Most of my friends had one or two fillings by the time we finished school and as an adult I'd say that's the same now. Very few of my friends have no fillings but equally I don't know any who have a mouth full of them.

My mum (now mid 70s) had lost many of her teeth to gum disease by my age.

I'm in my 70s and had regular dental checkups as a child. I know my friends did too as you got off of school when you showed your dental appointment card. I had toothbrushes and toothpaste, my parent's generation didn't so I reckon the date for improved dental health is probably for those born from 1950 onwards.

I'm late fifties. There was no fluoride in the water when we were growing up. Also, many dentists drilled for cash. I had fillings in every tooth, every time I went to the dentist. My dad claimed he went to a party and overheard my dentist boasting that if he wanted a family holiday he just gave everyone fillings or extractions, whether they needed them or not, As a result I had lots of weak teeth that needed capping, then bridgework and finally dentures.

My mum is nearly 80. She had an unpleasant dentist as a child so was really fussy about who we saw. We had regular check ups every 6 months in the 70s.. I'm in my 50s. I have some fillings but not every molar. My teeth are OK.
My nan had hers out in her 20s.
My children have had the spray to protect their teeth.

But given that the older folk didn't encounter a grain of sugar on their entire youth (if you were to believe my mother, RIP, b. 1933)

Don't believe your mother!
You're talking about people younger than her. Sugary foods and drinks and sweets were extremely common in the 60s and 70s.

My DM was born in 1936 and has top dentures.
Growing up she didn't have access to toothpaste. She says she sometimes used soot instead 😱
Didn't have access to regular dental care - too poor.
Most dentists didn't try to protect teeth, if there was a problem they just extracted them.

Hardly rocket science as to why older people have poorer teeth.

@ZealAndArdour

*No one under 40 has a metal coloured filling.

Lots probably have white composite ones.

My friends are 30-40, there are those who have (white) fillings, and then there are those who don't have any...because of dental phobia and not having been in a decade or more!

I have six white composite fillings and a colour-matched crown, because I was too scared to go for 8 years.

Only read OP. If you work in dental healthcare it might be interesting to look into it more? There's a lot of history!

I would say that-

1. Loads of/most old people have their own teeth now surely? My grandparents had dentures but I'm nearly 50! Fizzing in glass next to bed etc. My grandparents would all be well over 100 now.

1. It used to be seen as easier to remove teeth. Not sure why. Less advanced dentistry? Fillings crowns etc expensive materials? Less successful than now? It definitely used to be common. Anecdote. Aunt of friend needed a few teeth out. Dentist said it would be better to take them all out and have dentures. And she said ok..

Plus.

Not at all true that no one under 40 has fillings. Loads do. And can be first as children. You've never seen one?!

Plus there are big issues with teeth for those with certain disabilities. It was on the news a lot recently. The approach to treating the result to tooth/ gum health can be (often). Not agreed, extreme, poorly executed, and there have been deaths afterwards esp among patients with down syndrome due to not taking into account some well known additional risks.

If you Google it's there was all over the news. Warning- very distressing.

And yes fluoride in the water makes a massive difference.

Although there's a cohort of people who say we're being poisoned by it etc. It's prob the same type as anti vaxx etc. Some people seem to see prevention/ reduction of the bad thing happening as deeply suspicious and very possibly evil. No idea why!

Didn't they take them out to prevent future problems?

I always cleaned my teeth but my 1970s dentists used to fill them nearly every time you went so they all had a filling somewhere. I bought all the latest brushes and floss etc. Then a dentist did a root filling (I found out later) after I had the last baby when I was having a sensitivity problem. That tooth broke later and now I have a post and crown there which cause problems. Now I have menopause problems. Hate my teeth.

None of my children had any fillings - dentist said it was fluoride in toothpaste.

When I was young the public health information was either to brush your teeth before going to bed, or eat an apple.

"NHS dentistry has made a massive impact on our dental health something that has never really been championed.*

And that has an impact on all-over physical health.
Preservation of teeth makes it easier to eat a variety of foods.
A mouth free of decay and gum disease means the rest of the body is not poisoned by it.

Are you a dentist? Or a hygienist? If not not sure you are really qualified to say what level of restorative work people have

Plenty of people under 40 have fillings and dentures. There are many reasons why the older generation have lost more teeth. Firstly they are older, they've had longer to do the damage. More years of wear/erosion. More likely to be on medications that cause dry mouth, or have medical problems that lead to dry mouth/dental decay. Worsening dexterity as we age, so they struggle to maintain oral hygiene in the same way, or if they are cared for by others oral care is often very poor.

Gum disease. The older you are the more likely you have to have lost bone support. Smoking is a big factor in gum disease, but also things like diabetes which you are more likely to get as you age. Even in your heavy smokers perio disease doesn't really become noticeable until 40/50.

Also the invention of composite/white fillings and a push towards more aesthetic dentistry. The younger you are the more likely you are to have white or aesthetic restorations which are less noticeable. Also older teeth don't bond as well to composite, so dentists are more likely to use metal fillings in the elderly

Improvements in dental care, materials, equipment, techniques mean we are able to hold onto teeth longer. Plus a move towards preventative care -flouride varnish/fissure sealants in children etc. (Most of the UK does not have fluoridated water)

In summary you could probably write a whole essay on the subject. But it's really not a massive mystery.

An old lady, probably born in 1920s, told me that, as a young woman, she had toothache so told the dentist to take all her teeth out to prevent it happening again.

A lot of people, now aged 60+, got all their teeth out at 16 or 21. Probably for similar reasons to that lady.

@FreezerBird

Lots of people mentioning fluoride in water but only parts of the midlands and I think the northeast of England artificially fluoridated water. There are a few areas where fluoride levels are naturally high but most of the UK doesn't have fluoridated water.

I think this is set to change, going by something I vaguely heard on the radio this morning.

I heard this too. Fluoride in the water is only localised at the moment. They also said children's tooth decay in general is down on previous years. The problem is again regionalised though, with deprived areas far more likely to have children who need to have rotten teeth removed. I teach in a deprived area and there is more than one child in my class of 6 year olds that has had several teeth out.

A lot of people, now aged 60+, got all their teeth out at 16 or 21. Probably for similar reasons to that lady.

Not 60+. I would say 80+. I'm nearly 63, and regular visits to the dentist for check ups were certainly a thing when I was a child in the 1960s. I had orthodontic treatment in the early 1970s.