Y'know it's hard out there for a dentist...

It truly is. The future of dentistry is in decline. Why? Because people just aren't loosing their teeth like they used to.

As long as there are hockey players, there will be niche markets for false teeth. But the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn't much of one. Toothlessness has declined 60 percent in the United States since 1960. Baby boomers will be the first generation in human history typically to go to their graves with most of their teeth.

The introduction of cavity-preventing fluoride into drinking water and toothpaste is viewed as one of the 10 greatest public health accomplishments of the 20th century, right up there with vaccinations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And it's not just your flossing and brushing (like you should) that is creating this pandemic for dental professionals, it's also regrowing teeth. The whole idea of dentures will become a bygone thought. Lose a tooth? Fuck it! Grow some more and shove 'em in there. All thanks to the miracles of stem cells. (which will probably all cause our brains to implode or stricken us with horrendous mutations later on in life)

So what's the future of dentures?

"Hopefully, they will become a relic," says Mary MacDougall, director of the Institute of Oral Health Research at the University of Alabama. "Like Washington's false teeth."

Regenerating a whole tooth is no less complicated than rebuilding a whole heart, says Songtao Shi, of the University of Southern California, who heads a team working on creating such a tooth.

Not only do you have to create smart tissue (nerves), strong tissue (ligaments) and soft tissue (pulp), you've got to build enamel -- by far the hardest structural element in the body. And you have to have openings for blood vessels and nerves. And you have to make the whole thing stick together. And you have to anchor it in bone. And then you have to make the entire arrangement last a lifetime in the juicy stew of bacteria that is your mouth.- Source

Okay, maybe it isn't so easy to do. But we'll get there one day.



"Welcome! To the world of tomorrow!"