Orally Right

The health of your teeth remains steeped in controversy but are dental caries really a disease of choice or a modern affliction? Beyond oral hygiene and trips to the dentist, is there something more you can do to restore the health of your teeth?

- Linda Moon

Able to survive fire and the grave, your teeth are unique, identifying you like a fingerprint. Like the rings of a tree, they’re also a time capsule of information about your diet and lifestyle, reveals Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg in her 2016 book What Teeth Reveal About Human Evolution. Your pearly whites may contribute to a great smile, the shape of your face and the pronunciation of speech, but their most important function is to tear apart and grind down food for further breakdown and digestion in the stomach.

This frontline role in the digestive process also makes your teeth vulnerable. “Teeth are the only parts of our skeleton that interact directly with our environments,” Guatelli-Steinberg states. “A less well-appreciated fact is that, as parts of our anatomy, teeth are affected indirectly by changes occurring elsewhere in our bodies.”

To help protect them — against food, drink, microbes and other things in our mouths — our teeth have a tough enamel layer, an inbuilt, natural crown as such, that covers and protects the softer dentine structure beneath. Built to last a lifetime and the hardest substance in the human body, tooth enamel is 96 per cent mineral, primarily hydroxyapatite, a crystalline calcium phosphate.

Yet, as a society, our teeth are in bad shape, with health experts reporting a global epidemic of dental problems. Over half the world’s population is affected by severe tooth decay (caused by the interaction of bacteria and sugar on tooth enamel) and gum disease, according to a 2013 study in The Journal of Dental Research.

A 2015 government report into oral health in Australia found that 30 per cent of Australians aged 25–44 have untreated tooth decay; 55 per cent of six-year-old children had experienced decay in baby teeth while 19 per cent of those 65 and over had no natural teeth left.