Did you know that dental implants have a range of health benefits? In this blog post we take a look at how the benefits of dental implants can help with long-term health benefits when compared to doing nothing at all to replace that missing tooth. Our top 6 benefits are…

1. Eat better food
2. Healthier gums and surrounding teeth
3. Support of missing bone
4. No cavities
5. Definition to your face
6. Reduced likelihood of headaches and jaw joint problems

It’s not always possible to save your natural teeth so let’s look at each of these tooth replacement options in more detail and then answer more questions you may have about dental implants.

1. Dental Implants Can Help You Eat Better

If you have missing teeth then you may find you are unable to eat many foods and have to rely on processing them or making softer by overcooking in order to eat them. Victoria Taylor, a registered dietician and writer for the British Heart Foundation says:

How you cook your food is as important as whether you cook it, in terms of the nutritional content of your meal. To retain more heat-sensitive vitamins, cook vegetables lightly by steaming or microwaving them and stopping while they still have some crunch, rather than boiling them to death.

It is clear that if you have missing teeth or perhaps loose and wobbly dentures that you may not be able to eat so many vegetables with a lot of crunch and may need to boil them a lot. Dental implants can help to provide a stable base on which to chew and eat these more crunchy vegetables and therefore help you to stay healthier.

2. Dental Implants for Healthier Surrounding Teeth and Gums

If you have gaps between your teeth then food can get lodged, if food gets lodged and isn’t cleaned out adequately then the risk of developing tooth decay and gum disease in that area increases. If you replace the missing tooth it helps to protect the teeth either side by preventing food getting lodged in the gap, with the enormous caveat that you still clean in between your teeth with floss or an interdental brush! Implants are also a good healthy way to replace missing teeth because they protect the adjacent teeth from taking all of the load themselves. If you have a missing tooth then that tooth is likely to be taking the full biting force from 2 opposing teeth, this can lead to fractures and sensitivity in those teeth. If the truth is replace the dental implants this can help to share the load equally and therefore protect your existing teeth.

3. Dental Implants Can Help to Support Surrounding Bone

When you lose a single tooth, either from tooth extraction or an accident it leaves a socket in the bone. Unfortunately the bone does not regenerate in this area, what happens instead is that the surrounding bone collapses into the space where the original tooth was. This can lead to a loss of bone in the jaw bone, the soft tissue which is attached to the bone then collapses also. In itself this doesn’t necessarily cause too many problems but it could mean that in future:

1. If a dental bridge is placed the aesthetics of the dental bridge can be compromised as there is not enough gum to ensure that the bridge looks natural.
2. If a dental implant is placed at a later stage there may have been so much bone resorption that there is not enough bone to place an implant without additional surgical treatments such as bone grafting or a sinus lift.

4. Dental Implants = no cavities

Of course dental implants are not made of natural tooth and therefore are not prone to cavities. This should never be taken as a reason to wonder dental implants however it is a reality that implants are not susceptible to tooth decay. They are however susceptible to breakage and also disease around the implant itself if they are not kept clean. Having dental implants does not mean you can skip on your oral hygiene procedure, you still need to clean your teeth twice per day and ensure you clean in between them with a floss or interental stick. Inflammation or infection around the dental implant is still possible and you should look after your dental implant as though it is a natural tooth root, this is to maintain your overall dental health.

5. Dental Implants Helping the Shape of Your Face

We’ve all seen that classic look of a person without any teeth at all, there are a few things going on here.

• The distance between the tip of the nose and the tip of the chin reduces.
• Wrinkles appear around the mouth.
• Wrinkles appear on the sides of the cheeks and face.
• Wrinkles appear around the side of the face and eyes.

Of course, many of this is the natural sign of ageing but having dental implants to replace a full set of missing teeth will dramatically help. Your teeth not only help you eat but also provide support your face. With a full set of teeth the tip of the nose and tip of the chin increases, as the jaw opens up this stretches the skin around the face, mouth and neck thereby removing some of these wrinkles. There really can be a dramatic difference in the perceived age of your face if you have the full support of all of your teeth!

5. Reduced Jaw Joint Problems After Dental Implants

What can happen if you have a tooth lost is that the surrounding teeth and opposing teeth can start to drift into the space. When you have replacement teeth with dental implants this can help to stabilise the teeth either side of the space as well as the tooth opposing it. This then stabilises your occlusion (the way your teeth bite together) which can then mean you are less likely to suffer from headaches as the way your teeth bite together changes.

In summary

So remember, our top 6 benefits of replacing missing teeth with dental implants:

1. Eat better food
2. Healthier gums and surrounding teeth
3. Support of missing bone
4. No cavities
5. Definition to your face
6. Reduced likelihood of headaches and jaw joint problems