Why More and More People Are Undergoing Teeth Orthodontics
Hello and welcome back to the Yuanqi Doctor Channel. In this video, we'll explore the reasons why an increasing number of modern people need teeth orthodontics. We'll also discuss the potential pitfalls during the orthodontic process that you or your orthodontist might overlook, which could exacerbate your dental problems. This video is crucial, even if you've already had orthodontic treatment.
The Evolution of Dental Problems
In a previous video, we mentioned the well-known Stanford University human skull research. In ancient times, without orthodontists, almost everyone had straight teeth and properly aligned wisdom teeth. However, modern humans often suffer from dental issues such as crooked teeth, buck teeth, small chins, or impacted wisdom teeth. The simplified explanation for these problems is the reduction in the size of the modern human upper and lower jaws. The reasons for this reduction were discussed in a previous video, and interested viewers can refer to it. When the jaw size shrinks, there isn't enough space for the teeth, just like a smaller parking lot with the same number of motorcycles, leading to overcrowding. This is why more and more people need to wear braces to straighten their teeth.
The Case of Miss Li
Let's share a classic case. Miss Li, a 25-year-old thin woman, first visited our clinic. She looked much older than her actual age, with tired eyes, deep dark circles, and poor skin condition. She also had a severely recessed small chin, which made me suspect she had serious sleep apnea. Indeed, she told me she had severe sleep problems and could barely sleep more than three to four hours a night. She had visited many hospitals and doctors, but most just prescribed medication or recommended seeing a psychiatrist. She felt on the verge of崩溃.
Miss Li's story began three years ago when she started traditional orthodontic treatment for her buck teeth. The orthodontist told her that due to lack of space and to improve her facial shape, she needed to have four wisdom teeth and premolars extracted. Without much thought, she followed the doctor's advice, had the teeth removed, and spent nearly four years completing the orthodontic treatment. However, shortly after the treatment, her nightmare began. She started having trouble sleeping, often felt short of breath, and even woke up suddenly at night.
The First Pitfall: Buck Teeth vs. Small Chin
The first pitfall is the misdiagnosis of buck teeth. In fact, most people who think they have buck teeth or are diagnosed with buck teeth by dentists and start orthodontic treatment actually have a small chin problem. If you or your orthodontist focus on correcting buck teeth, you may unknowingly fall into a trap because buck teeth and small chins are essentially opposite conditions. The topic of buck teeth and small chins, related to craniofacial growth and facial aesthetics standards, is complex, and we'll make a separate video to explain it.
The Problem with Common Orthodontic Practices
Miss Li's orthodontic approach is quite common in Taiwan. Her treatment plan seemed reasonable at first glance, but she is not an isolated case. Many patients who have undergone orthodontic treatment need to start over, indicating that our common orthodontic practices have significant problems. To understand what went wrong, we need to start with the mechanism of human craniofacial and dental growth and development, which also has a decisive impact on why some people are handsome or beautiful.
Human genes have not changed much in the past few thousand years. The "parking lot" was designed precisely to accommodate 32 "motorcycles" (teeth) neatly, as shown in Paul Ehrlich's research. Unlike sharks, humans are only designed with two sets of teeth, baby teeth and adult teeth, without spare teeth. So why, in modern times, when the number of "motorcycles" (teeth) hasn't increased, does the "parking lot" (jaw) become so small that we sometimes need to remove eight teeth and use orthodontics to align the remaining teeth? And what are the problems with this approach?
The biggest problem is that it doesn't address the root cause of the problem. Instead of solving the insufficient parking space, removing the "extra motorcycles" (teeth) actually makes the "parking lot" (oral cavity) smaller. A common orthodontic practice is to extract the first premolars on both sides and move the protruding front teeth inward to reduce buck teeth. This directly reduces the volume of the oral cavity. Since the original problem was a small oral cavity, removing teeth to make it even smaller leads to serious problems.
The Impact of Tooth Extraction on Sleep
A study reviewed the clinical data, sleep test results, and dental images of children with missing teeth or early tooth extraction in the past five years. It found that children with missing teeth are more likely to have symptoms of sleep apnea than those with normal tooth development. This is because teeth are crucial for the development of the upper and lower jaws. Missing teeth reduce the oral cavity volume, leaving no space for the tongue, which is forced to move backward, blocking the upper respiratory tract during sleep and causing sleep apnea.
Most children's sleep breathing problems are overlooked because parents are not very familiar with the symptoms of pediatric sleep apnea, and the symptoms can vary from child to child. Common symptoms include easy nasal congestion, dark circles, otitis media, nose allergies, snoring, an open mouth during the day, bad temper, hyperactivity, poor learning ability, or being easily distracted. These overlooked symptoms gradually worsen over time.
The study also found that children with missing teeth usually have a long face shape (Long Face Syndrome) and a high and narrow upper jaw, which increase the risk of upper respiratory tract collapse. This explains why Miss Li has such severe sleep problems. After tooth extraction, her oral cavity volume decreased, leaving no space for the tongue, which pushed against the upper respiratory tract, narrowing it. At night, when lying down, the tongue falls backward due to gravity, further narrowing the already narrow respiratory tract, causing snoring. In severe cases, when the respiratory tract is mostly blocked, it leads to sleep apnea.
The Consequences of Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea, known as the "mother of diseases," is a major cause of many modern diseases. Recent medical research has confirmed that it is related to insomnia, cancer, and even depression. The good news is that treating sleep apnea can significantly reduce the severity of many diseases. A recent cancer study also shows that sleep problems affect the antigen expression on the surface of cancer cells, meaning that people with sleep problems have a significantly increased rate and degree of cell canceration.
The Relationship Between Orthodontics and the Respiratory Tract
Now you can understand the close relationship between orthodontics and the respiratory tract. Humans are unique in that we are upright and have developed a special vocal cord structure that gives us complex language abilities. Our upright posture and vocal cords make our upper respiratory tract naturally much narrower than that of any other animal. Comparing humans with our closest relatives, chimpanzees, we can see that chimpanzees, which are not fully upright, have a much wider upper respiratory tract space behind the oral cavity.
Our upper respiratory tract has an inherent disadvantage, and orthodontic treatment may further reduce the space behind the tongue, forcing it to compress the respiratory tract. Even if you don't feel short of breath during the day, you may be suffering from sleep apnea without realizing it, as most respiratory arrests occur during deep sleep.
The Importance of Oral Muscle Training
Most people focus on physical exercise like running, weightlifting, or yoga, but they neglect oral muscle training. Only a few singers, actors, or vocalists train their oral muscles. This is why modern people have a severely reduced "parking lot" (oral cavity) and a high prevalence of sleep apnea.
In ancient times, humans had more physical labor and activity, and their food was rougher, requiring more chewing, which strengthened their oral muscles and respiratory tract. Moreover, ancient humans were breastfed from birth, and the process of breastfeeding requires a lot of oral muscle use, which is crucial for the development of the dental jaw and the establishment of correct oral and swallowing muscle-related neural connections.
However, modern humans have abandoned this key development mechanism by using easy-to-suck bottles instead of breastfeeding. This has many serious consequences that can affect a child's health from a young age. We'll make a separate video to discuss the importance of breastfeeding.
People with weak oral muscles usually have two characteristics: they were bottle-fed as children and often have nose allergies. These two factors indicate that they may be mouth breathers, which increases the risk of having weak oral muscles and developing sleep apnea.
Recommendations for Orthodontic Patients
If you have weak oral muscles and are planning to undergo or are currently undergoing orthodontic treatment, I recommend that you also seriously engage in oral muscle training. Oral muscle training can effectively prevent your teeth from moving back after orthodontic treatment, saving you the cost of having to do orthodontics again.
If your respiratory tract is already narrow, it's best to avoid tooth extraction during orthodontic treatment because a smaller oral cavity will make your respiratory tract even narrower. In this case, oral muscle training is even more necessary, as many studies have shown that it can effectively reduce the severity of sleep apnea.
Due to time constraints, we'll discuss how to do orthodontics without tooth extraction and how to correctly perform oral muscle training in other videos.