Some dental facts are obvious and well-known.
Others, I find here in our Oakland dentist office, aren’t as well-distributed. I’ve listed a few of both for your Monday reading enjoyment.
Here are 8 things you should know about your teeth:
1) For optimal dental health, you need to visit your dentist for a professional cleaning and checkup at least twice per year.
2) The average person buys 18 yards of dental floss every year…but if they’re flossing every day, they should be buying 122.
3) In the Middle Ages, kissing a donkey was the cure for a toothache. (I don’t know that you should know this, but now you do.)
4) Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body.
5) 25% of US adults have lost all their teeth.
6) Teeth begin to grow before we are born, even if they aren’t visible.
7) If you’re an average person, you’ll produce 100,000 gallons of saliva in your lifetime.
8) Tooth disease is the second most common disease in the US.
I think I’ll end there, and leave you with one question bouncing off of the last item: can you guess the first most common disease?
