Teeth are very important organs for human beings. For example, the front teeth can cut and tear food, the back teeth can grind food, and play a role in supporting the facial soft tissue, maintaining the fullness of the lower part of the face, promoting the chewing and digestion of food, and improving human health. Long term tooth loss is not only harmful to eating, but also causes a lot of harm that people do not pay attention to. Today, life magazine invited Hu Jingyu, director of the Armed Police Hospital, to explain the harm of tooth loss one by one.

          1 crime: more teeth lost

          After tooth loss, the adjacent teeth will be tilted to the missing teeth, and the opposite teeth will elongate to the missing teeth because they are not blocked. After a long time, it will cause loosening, the opposite teeth will elongate, and the gap between the teeth will also increase. Sometimes, because of the lack of teeth on one side, chewing with the other side, forming a unilateral chewing habit, muscle tension imbalance, in the long run, muscle fatigue, condylar retrogression, joint disc edema, joint body deformation, when chewing food, will feel joint pain, open mouth Temporomandibular joint disorder syndrome (TMJs) is a common clinical symptom.

          In the clinical cases of tooth loss, more than 40% of the missing teeth had adjacent tooth displacement and opposite tooth elongation, which not only led to occlusal disorder, damaged the normal function of the whole teeth, but also increased the difficulty of later restoration. It is worth mentioning that if the missing teeth are not repaired in time, the probability of the loss of adjacent teeth and contralateral teeth will increase, which will eventually lead to more teeth loss.

          Two crimes: causing oral diseases

          The masticatory force of teeth is limited to a certain extent. When individual teeth are missing, the masticatory force is concentrated on the remaining teeth. Because the masticatory force exceeds the bearing limit of the remaining teeth, the remaining teeth will cause trauma, resulting in periodontal edema, gingival atrophy, alveolar bone absorption and other dental diseases.

          If the missing time is long, the inclination of the adjacent teeth and the elongation of the opposite teeth, the occlusal relationship and tooth arrangement will be disordered, so that the gap between the teeth will increase, and food will easily be embedded into the teeth, causing halitosis, dental caries, periodontal disease and other diseases.

          Three sins: accelerating facial aging

          Face shape plays an important role in the beauty of human body, and teeth and eyes are the most important organs. The beauty and harmony of facial appearance is maintained by complete dentition. It is often said that "beauty also needs beautiful teeth lining. Only with a healthy, white and neat tooth can we have a bright smile."

          After tooth loss, due to the loss of tooth support between the maxilla and mandible, and the alveolar bone or the whole jaw due to the lack of normal chewing force stimulation, it will gradually degenerate and absorb, resulting in shorter height of the lower face, cheek and surrounding muscle relaxation, lip and cheek invagination, mouth angle droop, facial deformation and wrinkles increase, the whole person looks older than their peers.

          Four crimes: forming chronic stomach disease

          Under normal circumstances, after the food enters the oral cavity, it is gradually chewed by the teeth and continuously mixed with saliva to form a food mass, which then enters the gastrointestinal tract through the esophagus for digestion and absorption. When food is chewed, it also stimulates the oral cavity, causing nerve reflex. On the one hand, it promotes the secretion of gastrointestinal fluid and helps digestion; On the other hand, it also promotes gastrointestinal peristalsis and accelerates the absorption of nutrients.

          When teeth are missing, chewing efficiency will be reduced or lost, saliva secretion will be reduced, gastrointestinal peristalsis will be slowed down, and the burden of gastrointestinal system will be increased, which will lead to gastrointestinal dysfunction and affect the absorption of nutrients. In severe cases, digestive system diseases may occur.

          Five sins: worsening memory decline

          Scientific research has found that long-term tooth defects in the elderly are closely related to memory loss. According to a research report released at the Stockholm Dental Conference, researchers tracked 1962 volunteers aged 35 to 90 over a period of 15 years, and compared the memory of people with sound teeth with those with teeth removed and dentures used When the disease history and other factors were all similar, the memory of people with perfect teeth was significantly better than that of people with missing teeth.

          Researcher belidar said that their research is the first large-scale study of this kind in humans, and the results are very consistent with the results of recent Japanese scientists' research on the relationship between mouse teeth and memory. Onosuzuka, a scientist at Gifu Medical University in Japan, believes that tooth loss is not the direct cause of memory loss, but tooth defect will reduce people's chewing strength and frequency. In the long run, it will accelerate the degeneration of hippocampal gyrus cells and affect people's memory.

          Six sins: susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease

          The risk of dementia is 1.9 times higher in elderly people with more missing teeth who have not been repaired in time than in elderly people with less missing teeth, according to a study released by the research group of the Ministry of health, health and labor. Researchers believe that the increased risk of dementia in elderly people with tooth loss is due to the association between some oral diseases leading to tooth loss and cerebral infarction, one of the causes of dementia, and the lack of stimulation to the brain due to low chewing ability.

          In ancient China, Huangdi Neijing also said that teeth are "kidney's excess", so-called "kidney generates bone, bone generates marrow, marrow sea is insufficient, easy to forget". This theory also proves the relationship between tooth loss and memory, Alzheimer's disease.