Who Needs Straight Teeth

Having straight teeth in our society is a sign of beauty and possibly status – but it’s about more than just looking good. Straight teeth are easier to clean, resulting in less accumulation of disease-causing plaque (bacteria) and tartar build up (calcified hardened plaque). This improved cleanliness could even lower your risk for gum disease, tooth loss, and various systemic conditions.

Besides being hard to clean, crooked teeth also interfere with our ability to masticate (chew) our food properly. Since chewing our food is the first step in good digestion, it can have a very real effect on our overall health. Perhaps most importantly, crooked teeth are often a sign of an underdeveloped jaw and in turn an underdeveloped airway.

There’s More to Your Pretty Smile

Conventional orthodontics (braces) essentially apply pressure to force the teeth into position within an underdeveloped jaw.³ This approach usually does not address underdevelopment of the jaw or airway. When there isn’t enough space for all the teeth, perfectly healthy permanent teeth are often extracted to make room. For younger patients, rapid maxillary expansion (RME) can be used to separate and grow the palate using a palatal expander appliance. ³ However, leading orthodontists Dr. Dave Singh and James Krumholtz describe several disadvantages to this method, including possible tearing resulting in mild hemorrhaging (a wound), often accompanied by pain.⁵ Dr. Singh and Krumholtz further explain that this type of bone healing involves formation of collagenous tissue, resulting in scar formation. As the collagen matures, the scar contracts as the child grows older and is partially responsible for relapse.

Dr. Robert Corruccini, an anthropologist, found that in cultures that were not modernized, people tended to have full development of their jaw with enough space for their wisdom teeth.² He found that soft “industrial diets” were detrimental to normal development of the jaw during childhood, even in non-human primates.¹ Dr. Corruccini saw that many behaviors in modern society could potentially hinder normal jaw development. For example, babies that are weaned from breast feeding early and introduced to soft baby foods may lack the normal jaw stimulation that tougher natural foods would provide. This lack of stimulation can lead to weaker tongue and muscle development, making it difficult for the jaw to expand and grow to its proper size. This lack of jaw growth commonly leads to crooked teeth and underdeveloped airways.

Is There Another Way?

If you had size 7 feet, would you squeeze your feet into a size 6 sandal? That would be silly! Even if the sandal looked pretty, it simply does not fit. So what do you do? If your toes were sticking out, you would change the sandal – not your foot! Similarly, the best solution to straightening crowded teeth is to correct the size of the jaw – not to remove healthy teeth.

What if we could help your jaw to grow so that your teeth had the room they needed? Osteogenic-Orthodontics remodels your upper and lower jaw to make room for straight teeth and a fully-developed airway.⁴ This approach lets us address two major problems at the same time – without removing healthy teeth!

This does not mean conventional orthodontics has no place on the shoe rack; in fact, these tools can be even more effective when used together! Osteogenic-Orthodontics gives you the space your teeth need by growing the jaw and airway, essentially giving you a “size 7 shoe for your size 7 feet”. Meanwhile, conventional orthodontics can help tweak and straighten your teeth to perfection, if not already accomplished with osteogenic-orthodontics alone.

GROW your jaw and upper airway, BREATHE better, SLEEP well and THRIVE!

References: 

1. Corruccini R.S., & Beecher R.M. (1982). Occlusal variation related to soft diet in a nonhuman primate. Science. 218(4567), 74-76. doi:10.1126/science.7123221
2. Corruccini R.S. (1984). An epidemiologic transition in dental occlusion in world populations. American Journal of Orthodontics. 86 (5), 419-426. doi:10.1016/S0002-9416(84)90035-6
3. Kilic, N., Kiki, A., & Oktay, H. (2007). A comparison of dentoalveolar inclination treated by two palatal expanders. The European Journal of Orthodontics, 30(1), 67-72. doi:10.1093/ejo/cjm099
4. Lauson, S. K. (2012). Straight talk about crooked teeth: The new orthodontics. Aurora, CO: Adams Publishing.
5. Singh, G. D., & Krumholtz, J. A. (2009). Epigenetic orthodontics in adults. Chatsworth, CA: SMILE Foundation.