The Showdown: Male Teeth Vs. Female Teeth —
Let’s start with the basics.
We might assume that because men are generally bigger than women that
their teeth would also be larger. This
isn’t always the case. The shape of
natural teeth varies from person to person.
Alas, there seems to be conflicting research as to
determining if men’s teeth are in general, larger than women’s teeth. According to the Journal for Dental Research,
they find men’s teeth do in fact, tend to be larger, especially the canines, or
“eye” teeth. But, according to a study
done by researchers for the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Center in Berlin
(the researchers included dentists, dental students, dental professional and
non-dental professionals) gender differences could only be detected about 50%
of the time when shown images of front teeth.
There are anthropologic studies that tend to prove differences in men’s
and women’s teeth, but this particular study done in Berlin showed that gender
differences were not visible to the experts eyes more than half of the
time. The researchers looked for things
that were known in previous dental research, like how women supposedly have
more rounded teeth than angular like men and they still could not determine
from the images as to if it was a man or woman.
So, they found that shape, size, or color of the canine teeth was not
always a determining factor as an indicator of male or female.
Now, onto a more important finding. There have been numerous studies that have found
that tooth decay is more prevalent in women.
An article that was published in the International Journal of Dentistry
reported research that determined women had a higher rate of decay due to
things like salivary composition and flow, hormone fluctuation, and dietary
habits.
It was found that women, especially older women (due to
osteoporosis) had a lower flow rate of their saliva. Hormones, which effect saliva, fluctuate
through women’s lives due to puberty, menses, pregnancy, birth control and menopause. Saliva is beneficial as far as buffering,
washing and remineralization of teeth.
When there is less, bacteria tend to hang onto teeth and cause problems.
Women’s hormones fluctuate for obvious reasons month to
month. Because of this change in hormones,
it can effect the “protective” composition of saliva and make it less effective
and cause problems in the oral cavity.
Even with all of these issues against the fair ladies, women
still end up statistically healthier than men with their dental health. It is because women tend to be more proactive
in caring for their teeth as far as brushing and flossing (goarticles.com).
Alrighty, lets look at some fun facts (Journal of
Periodontology and Doctorshangout.com).
Keep in mind that we think that they are fun but we are into the whole
dental thing, you know:
- Women
are much more likely to use floss on a daily basis than men.
- 75% of
women would feel embarrassed if they were missing a tooth compared to 50%
of men.
- Women
notice much faster if another person is missing a tooth than men.
- 33% of
men consider dental health important to maintain overall good health as
compared to 44% of women who believe so.
- Women smile about 62 times a day compared to men who smile eight times a day on average.
Szmanda Dental Center is ambivalent to male or female
teeth. We love them all and would love
to see you at our office! Please make
sure you stay on a 6-month cleaning schedule (or more frequent if you suffer
from those pesky periodontal bugs) so we can keep your teeth looking great and
maybe we can get those guys to smile a bit more……
Information
compiled from the Journal of Dental Research, the International Journal of
Dentistry, the Dental Tribune, the Journal of Periodontology, goarticles.com,
doctorshangout.com and Staff at Szmanda Dental Center
©
Szmanda Dental Center, S.C. 2013
