The Toll That Time Takes On Teeth: 3 Reasons Why Your Teeth Look Shabbier With Age

Posted on: 15 April 2018

Everyone knows that a sparkling white smile looks great and makes you look youthful, but why do teeth tend to look worse the older you get? This guide will explain what's happened to your teeth and how the aging process tends to make teeth look less than their best.

Enamel

Tooth enamel is there to help protect teeth from damage, bacteria, and infection. However, an extra benefit is that dental enamel is what provides that toothy white color on teeth.

Taking care of your tooth enamel as you age can help to reduce the amount of damage to it. At the end of the day, though, time does damage to everything, including teeth. As your enamel gradually weakens after repeated exposures to hard, hot, and acidic foods, it will start to show the surface underneath it. Unlike enamel, the dentin of your teeth tends to be brown or yellow. This is what you're seeing when your teeth don't look white anymore in older age.

Pressure Damage

Another common culprit that harms teeth and leaves them looking older is damage from pressure. Teeth are meant to put up with a lot of pressure, as they're designed to help you to eat by chewing, biting, and grinding away at your food. However, that doesn't mean that they're invincible to damage.

Over time, damage to teeth just happens. Whether you bite into something that's too hard and it cracks or chips one of your teeth or your tooth simply gives out after decades of use, excessive pressure can damage your teeth and leave them looking misshapen.

Receding Gums

Lastly, one problem with that you perceive to be your teeth might actually be your gums. Older people often complain about how it seems as though their teeth have grown over time. In reality, this is an optical illusion caused by the gums receding.

As the gums pull further away from the tooth, more of the tooth is exposed. This makes it look as though it's grown larger over the years.

The years may have taken it out on your teeth, but that doesn't mean that you have to accept having older, discolored, or dented teeth. Cosmetic dentists can fix up the color, shape, and alignment of your teeth easily and readily with dental veneers, and receding gums can be fixed with gum grafts. If you want your smile to look youthful again, visit a cosmetic dentist, like Leo Uicker DDS, today.

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