Dental

The Drive for Cosmetic Dentistry Remains Strong
by Kevin A. Roberts

The adult mouth has 32 permanent teeth, going from the back molars, to bicuspids and canine/eye teeth, to your front teeth, the lateral and central incisors. With the annual cost of dental coverage for a single employee in the hundreds of dollars, you would think that each tooth gets more attention than that special someone does on Valentines Day.

It’s true; a recent Lemelson-MIT Invention Index survey listed the toothbrush as the number one invention Americans could not live without, beating out the automobile, computer, cell phone, and microwave. Maybe the ipod was not included. Nonetheless, daily dental hygiene rates right up there for most people. We are a society that is obsessed with personal appearance, and as the Baby Boomers age, the need to recapture the swagger of youth will only increase.
The toothbrush is the starting point for dental hygiene. Prior to its arrival, the method for cleaning teeth was to rub a rag on one’s teeth with soot and salt. Oh, that sounds like al lot of fun. The man credited with the creation of the first toothbrush in 1780 was actually in prison at the time. With the abundance of free time on his hands, he took a small animal bone, drilled small holes in it, obtained boar hair bristles from a guard, tied them in tufts, then passed the bristles through the holes and glued them. Somehow holding a bone with animal hairs on it still doesn’t seem all that appealing.

It wasn’t until February 24, 1938, just 70 years ago this month that the first nylon bristle toothbrush went on sale. It wasn’t until after World War II that the concept of brushing teeth really caught on in the U.S., in part, because it was part of the American soldier’s regular duty to clean their teeth. I guess a bright smile was part of the strategy to free Europe.

Our attack on plaque is not limited to the toothbrush. Two thirds of United States residents on public water supplies have fluoridated water. Water fluoridation is the practice of adding fluoride compounds to water to reduce tooth decay in the general population.
In the early 1900s, children from the Pikes Peak area in Colorado had a high frequency of brown stain on their teeth, but also had fewer cavities than other children had. Pikes Peak’s rock formations contained the mineral cryolite, which contains fluorine. The snow pack run off dissolved the fluorine into the water supply. Reducing the fluoride level removed the brown stain, but still helped prevent tooth decay. Starting in 1945, communities have added fluoride to their drinking water as a way to benefit dental health.

The electric toothbrush came along in 1959 and was followed by the rotary action toothbrush in 1987. Research shows that they tend to be somewhat (but not extremely) more effective in removing plaque than good old fashioned manual toothbrushes. Still, where drugstore.com lists as its top selling toothbrush a $1.29 manual, the next two in line are the $170 sonic ultrasound turbo charged variety. Studies in young adults show that manual tooth brushing gives a reduction of 27% in plaque while these new super duper ones can knock out a 40% reduction in nasty plaque. Cleary, price is not a roadblock for Americans seeking tooth perfection.

The push for innovation has led manufacturers to incorporate timers into their products to give users an idea of how long to brush, including signals that let the user know how long to brush each quadrant of the mouth in order to do a thorough job and have no tooth left behind.

Our desire for a white, attention-grabbing, perfect Hollywood smile will drive over 10 million of us to invest in tooth whitening products and services this year. Years of coffee, wine, soda and other unsightly stains will drive us in droves to use abrasive whitening toothpastes and bleaching compounds containing carbamide peroxide gels to remove years of sinful indulgence. A combination of in-office whitening provided by your dentist and at-home systems can achieve up to 12 to 15 shades of whitening for most users. The combination of these in-office and at-home systems can cost between $300 and $1,000.
That’s not all. More and more of us are investing in other dental options such as porcelain or resin veneers; tooth colored fillings, gum lifts, and tooth shaping to achieve our perfect smile.

Truly, group dental insurance is the one product that employees know they will use. More and more, the average employee is becoming a savvy reader of the dental benefit booklet. Coverage and discounts for these popular cosmetic procedures will become important selling features. After all, we only have one chance to make a good first impression, and a happy smile goes a long way to getting us there.
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Kevin A. Roberts has over 20 years of Group Long Term Disability sales experience with CIGNA, Reliance Standard, Canada Life, AIG and is living in the San Francisco, California area. He can be reached at kar925@comcast.net.