There are very good reasons why dentures and partials fail you—why you can’t chew comfortably and smile confidently no matter how hard you try.
Natural teeth with their roots implanted in the gum and surrounded by bone are able to exert about 250 pounds per square inch. For normal chewing, natural teeth exert an average pressure of 45 pounds per square inch of force, ranging up to 75 pounds.
With dentures, the average chewing pressure is reduced to 14 pounds per square inch and for some as little as 5 pounds per square inch. This is a 5 to 15-fold decrease in chewing effectiveness. And the longer you wear dentures the worse it gets.
If you are a denture wearer, you know this tremendous loss of pressure means having to completely change your eating habits. Many foods need to be eliminated completely or you have to cut them into small pieces.
Other difficulties include:
- Experiencing your dentures shift from side to side by an average of a half inch during chewing
- Struggling with being overweight or underweight because you either eat soft foods, which are inevitably high in carbohydrates and calories, or you eat very little because it’s just too painful.
- Not being able to enjoy the taste, temperature and texture of your food, requiring you add additional salt and spices.
- Plastic in the dentures that insulates the tissue responsible for giving you a “sense” of your food. This may require you to add more salt than usual, which can lead to high blood pressure, and problems of the digestive tract. Forty percent (40%) of heart disease is related to high blood pressure and arterioscleroses.
- Shorter life span. According to Misch, the average denture wearer’s life is 10 years shorter than non-denture wearers!
Did you know studies indicate that after 2 months of having implanted supported replacement teeth, patients were able to increase their maximal biting force by 85%. After 3 years the average chewing force increased 300% compared to before implant treatment.
Overall, the chewing ability of patients with implant supported teeth is roughly equal to patients with healthy, natural teeth, and vastly superior to patients with conventional dentures! All this, plus they get the benefit of the process being almost entirely pain-free.
