I've thought about this as some kind of future tech thing, wherein instead of braces, everyone just gets a full set of perfect teeth, possibly even just one long gap-less tooth for top and bottom with a standard set of surfaces. That way, no more flossing and much less chance of getting food stuck in places and causing problems.
And here's where tech goes boink. Teeth are living things, and the teeth, gums, and jaw are an integrated living system, not just interchangeable machine parts. The jaw in particular interacts with the teeth in a way that maintains bone density and health.[1]
Likewise, modern implants are a huge improvement over prior tech (e.g. bridges), esp. for bone loss, but still aren't a 100% tooth analogue.
My friend was talking about this recently. He is trying to put together the money to get a new tooth fitted, and mentioned that there is talk of having insurance cover replacement teeth for young people due to the fact that not having teeth can severely weaken the jaw over the course of your life. Not such a big deal when you're 80 and your teeth are falling out, but when you're 25 it has potential to become a big problem.
I guess my question is why would insurance care? If the bone in your jaw weakens and causes severe problems, it'll likely be your medical insurance that covers it.
I can't see a dental insurance giving a crap.
This is US/Canada specific of course. Any country that has single payer dental/medical coverage would care.
Not to put words in his mouth, but I think the above poster was referring to having medical insurance cover said dental costs because the loss of bone in the jaw would cause other medical complications down the line in young people.
That's how I took it, but don't dentists normally put the implants in? If dental insurance is paying for the implants and medical insurance is paying for the bone damage, there isn't a lot of incentive for the dental insurance to pay for expensive implants.
Thanks, that's very interesting. I think it's very easy to look at something and say "oh, well we could make this better!" without fully understanding the implications.
Well, GP wasn't talking about pulling out all his teeth and replacing them with implants today. It's just an idea for future biotech.
It's certainly conceivable that once we've figured out exactly how teeth affects the health of the jaw and gum, we'll be able to create implants that emulate the effect when combined with some sort of drug and/or regular treatment.
Besides, we'll need to do that sooner or later if we're going to aim for an average lifespan of 100 years or more. Biological teeth just don't last long enough.
