People are twice as likely to recall a face with straight rather than crooked teeth. Straight teeth improve your smile, which boosts your confidence and enhances your quality of life. Studies highlight that people associate straight teeth with happiness, health, and higher intellect. Let’s read about the benefits of having perfectly aligned teeth.
The benefits of straight teeth
A set of straight teeth can help you maintain proper oral hygiene and, thus, overall health. Let’s see how.
Boosts confidence and self-esteem
Everybody has a different set of teeth. However, if your teeth are seriously out-of-alignment, it might lower your self-esteem. Estimates show that 70% of Americans are unhappy with their teeth.
Interestingly, studies highlight that straight teeth help to build a positive body image, increase societal acceptance, and help young people to get hired for jobs.
Better chewing and digestion
Straight teeth allow a better bite and improved chewing efficiency. This simplifies swallowing and digesting solid foods by breaking them into smaller pieces. As a result, you can better digest food when you chew it properly.
Crooked teeth often overlap, making it harder to reach particular places with your toothbrush. In the long run, it damages general gum and tooth health. These often lead to chronic gum diseases like gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) and periodontitis (infections of the structures around the teeth).
Promotes good heart health
Crooked teeth increase the risk of gum disease. In addition, studies highlight that periodontitis is linked to an increased risk of heart disease.
Dentists recommend being more meticulous about maintaining good oral health if you have prosthetic heart valves. Furthermore, poor oral health increases the risk of bacterial dissemination (a bacterial infection in the bloodstream), which can harm the heart valves. A study from the University of Helsinki discovered a link between infections of the root tip of a tooth and coronary artery disease.
Lower risk of teeth injury
You’re also more prone to biting your cheeks and tongue with crooked teeth, which can lead to painful sores.
Misaligned teeth lead to an improper bite. This can cause pain and put too much pressure on some teeth, increasing the risk of breaking. When you break a tooth, you have to cope with the discomfort as well as the high cost of dental care.
Prevents jaw strains
Straightening your teeth might help attain proper jaw alignment. Straight teeth reduce the chances of clenching and stretching the jaw and teeth grinding. This is because muscles are more relaxed and can function normally.
Crooked teeth can lead to frequent headaches, chronic facial pain, jaw ache , earache and migraine attacks. A set of aligned teeth will make you feel calmer since you won’t have headaches or other problems from too much tension on your jaw joint.
Clears your speech
We pronounce words with our tongue, teeth and lips. Straight teeth help with proper pronunciation.
Crooked teeth increase your chances of having speech issues such as lisps or other speech impairments. Furthermore, malaligned teeth might contribute to early tooth loss, which can exacerbate speech problems.
Straight teeth last longer
A set of straight teeth puts less pressure on the opposite teeth, gums, and supporting bone. This helps to protect teeth surfaces from flattening out rapidly. Subsequently, they undergo less wear and tear with age and last longer.
Research highlights that crowded, irregularly spaced, or misaligned teeth tend to wear unevenly over time, causing the teeth to weaken and fall out.
Risk factors for developing malaligned teeth
Issues with the growth and positioning of specific teeth or jawbones and the tongue, lips, cheeks, and muscular tissue can cause malaligned teeth and jaws. Because genes play a part, these issues can “run in families.”
Additionally, childhood habits are considered high-risk factors. For example, practices such as persistent thumb or finger sucking, pacifier use (at demand), or mouth breathing affect tooth alignment. For example, if a 3-year-old is still sucking, they are in increased danger of developing crooked teeth and misaligned jawbones.
What are the ways to straighten teeth?
Teeth can be straightened by applying continuous and steady pressure, a process known as orthodontic teeth movement. This can be achieved with dental braces, dental aligners, and teeth retainers. However, dental surgery is often reserved only for severe cases.
