The Dorian Gray Dental Dilemma: Are Veneers Hiding A True Picture Of Oral Health?
Dentistry As A Profession Faces The Promotion Of Contradictory Narratives
On the one hand, the traditional dental narrative has been all about looking after your teeth and gums via diet and oral hygiene. Regular checkups, brush your teeth twice a day, flossing, and watch what you eat and drink in moderation. Opposing this long running story is the new narrative, which goes like this – we can make your smile gleam brighter and whiter no matter the lifestyle you have lived and how you have neglected your oral health. We will bleach the stains from your teeth and failing that glue veneers over them to give the illusion of perfect white teeth. If you can afford to pay for restorations we can offer a range of crowning glory to adorn your previously broken toothed mouth. There is no denying that these transformations have provided the appearance of renewed youthful beauty to a plethora of mouths around the place for better or worse.
Social Media Driven Smiles Are Big Business in the 21C
It can be reliably argued that there has never been a more self-obsessed and narcissistic age, as the one we find ourselves currently living in. Our children grow up looking at images of themselves and friends on their digital phones ad nauseum. Life is not lived unless recorded digitally via images on social media platforms. Smiling faces are legion across multiple online pages and young people spend much of their lives gazing upon hand held small screens looking at these. In many ways, people have become leading characters in their own movies. Hollywood smiles become de rigueur and dentists are conscripted into servicing this increasing demand for them. At the same time, the junk food industry exponentially promotes its sugary and unhealthy processed foods and drinks. They target young people and kids with their billion dollar campaigns to sell instant sensory gratification. Sugar hits and complex carbohydrates packed with too much of everything. These processed foods are completely inappropriate for the sedentary lifestyles of people staring at screens whilst sitting down. Soft drinks have long been excoriating for the oral health of human beings. The evolution of labour-saving devices has resulted in the most obese generations of human beings ever seen, when combined with the oversupply of junk foods filling our supermarket aisles. Dental associations are not ignoring the junk food issue, especially in relation to its over-promotion to generations of children. There is a campaign to get the federal government to ban or at least limit the marketing of unhealthy food to children. Which currently is open slather for manufacturers of these junk foods to promote their unhealthy wares to kids via online and TV advertising.
“The Australian Dental Association has joined with more than 40 public health, consumer and community organisations backing a call by Food for Health Alliance for the Federal Government to reduce junk food ads for kids.
The ADA has backed a call-out by the Food for Health Alliance to the Federal Health Minster, Mark Butler, to protect children from unhealthy food marketing.“
– Bite Magazine
Obviously, having naturally perfect white teeth and consuming a diet rich with junk food throughout your childhood and into adulthood are mutually exclusive for the great majority of human beings. Therefore, a rather large opening exists for cosmetic dentistry to make its way onto the field of battle. Veneers, teeth bleaching, and restoration work can disguise the ramifications of poor oral health as a result of bad diet and general neglect. Second chances are wonderful things in life, especially in an area like oral hygiene, which traditionally was about looking after your natural teeth or paying a life long price. This, however, is where the Dorian Gray dilemma comes in: are dental veneers hiding a true picture of oral health? Comes to the fore. Do those fortunate recipients appreciate the second chance provided to them by modern cosmetic dentistry or do they just continue with their bad habits until the consequences spread to the major organs of their body? Medical science is now revealing the linkage between oral health and more serious declines in general health when the former shows the ravages of neglect and poor care.
“While the impact and oral manifestations of certain systemic conditions have been identified very early, later research examined the potential impact of oral diseases on chronic systemic conditions. To list a few, periodontal diseases have been linked to cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, dementia, respiratory diseases, and mortality, where an inflammatory pathway was depicted. Another line of research examined the association between the number of teeth, severe dental caries, and general health among older adult and children, suggesting a nutritional pathway. While a causal relationship between oral health and general health is still unconfirmed, co-morbidities due to common risk factors appear to be a more acceptable explanation in view of the current evidence.”
– Sabbah W, Folayan MO, El Tantawi M. The Link between Oral and General Health. Int J Dent. 2019 May 29;2019:7862923. doi: 10.1155/2019/7862923. PMID: 31275387; PMCID: PMC6560319.
If you hide things away do they still serve as the early warning that the body intends them to be? Are dentists doing us a disservice, in fact, via their industry’s emphasis on cosmetic dentistry? Is the picture of Dorian Gray hidden away in the attic or cellar hiding the damage done by poor oral health to the detriment of our real wellbeing? Is the mixed messaging of the two different oral health narratives doing attitudinal damage to generations of us? Teeth have long been arbiters of the consequences of human lifestyles, which is why they are used in forensics and archaeology. Will veneers be able to provide that same level of depth to future seekers of the truth?
Beyond The Smile: The Real Work of Life
Of course, everything in life is a matter of degrees, as none of us are entirely one thing or another. We are all complex beings with complicated views about things. Getting the balance right, however, between traditional dental care and the modern cosmetic dentistry is very important, in my view. It is something that the leaders of this sector would be well advised to pay attention to. What is being emphasised more cause or effect? Functionality or aesthetics? Style or substance? Because underneath all the glitz and glamour lies the actual health and wellbeing of every human being. Life is more than a veneered smile! Although a smile can open doors for you, once in, the real work of life begins.
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