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Fun Dental Statistics!

32% of Americans cite bad breath as the least attractive trait of their co-workers.

73% of Americans would rather go grocery shopping than floss.

Only 40% of young people, ages 6 to 19, had ever in their lives had cavities.  That’s down from 50% a decade ago.

Over the last ten years the proportion of people age 60 who’d lost all their teeth had decreased from 33% to 25%.

30% of kids had had at least one sealed tooth.

33% of low-income adults have untreated decay.  This compared with 16% of middle- and higher-income adults.  19% of kids living in poverty have untreated decay compared with 8% of wealthier kids.

83% of American adults stated they were very satisfied with services received from their dentists.

92% of American adults stated that they would recommend their dentist to someone else.

40% of children in poor or near-poor poverty level had a preventive dental visit in the past year.

44% of dental care expenditures are paid out-of-pocket.

Dentists rate big (61%) in ethics poll for honesty and trustworthy.

34% of teens and 42% of adults chose the toothbrush first when asked to select the invention they could not live without from among five choices. The other four: the personal computer, automobile, microwave and cellular phone.

50% of men and 35% of women said they would have a teeth whitening treatment.

94% of Americans say they brush nightly; 81% say they do it first thing in the morning.

75% of the U.S. population has some form of periodontal gum disease.

50% of Americans do not receive regular oral health care.

83% of people believe their teeth are more important to their appearance than hair and eyes.

33% of Americans have untreated tooth decay.

74.1% of people ages 2-17 had a Dental Visit in the year 2000.

65.3% of people ages 18-64 had a Dental Visit in the year 2000.

56.4% of people ages 65 and over had a Dental Visit in the year 2000.

78% of Americans have had at least 1 cavity by age 17.

90% of systemic diseases have oral manifestations.

74% of Americans are affected by some type of periodontal  or gum disease or gingivitis.

In children under age 16, regular brushing with fluoridated toothpaste results in 24% fewer cavities than does brushing with non-fluoridated toothpaste.

Random Dental Facts!

38.5 = the total days an average American spends brushing teeth over a lifetime.

Good teeth and a nice smile came second in the list of what females look for in men, after eyes. For men a good body was the important thing they look for, followed by eyes, hair, and teeth.

A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.

A sore jaw, when combined with chest pain, can signal a heart attack – especially in women.

Dentistry is the fifth most trusted profession in America.

Adults with post-high-school degrees had an average of three more teeth than those without a high school diploma.

More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.

Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.

The average woman smiles about 62 times a day.

The average man smiles about 8 times a day.

Kids laugh around 400 times a day.

Adults laugh around 15 times a day.

People who smile in school yearbooks are more likely to have successful careers and marriages than poker faced peers.

More than 51 million hours of school are lost each year by children due to dental related illness.

Employed adults lose more than 164 million hours of work each year due to oral health problems or dental visits.

Royal smile -there is someone whose job includes squeezing Prince Charles’s toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush. That someone is Michael Fawcett, the prince’s personal valet. Since Fawcett is, according to various news reports, the only person Charles trusts with this awesome responsibility, one must presume that the heir to the throne’s dental hygiene declines precipitously whenever the valet goes on vacation.

In a Michigan poll, Republicans brush their teeth more often than Democrats.

In a Michigan poll, Protestants brush their teeth more often than Catholics.

In a Michigan poll, Women brush their teeth more often than Men.

In a Michigan poll, 2% of people said they don’t brush at all.

You are not “too old for good dental care” the average 65 year old has 17.3 years of life remaining!

The most valuable tooth belonged to Sir Isaac Newton.  In 1816 one of his teeth was sold in London for $3,633.00 or in today’s terms $35,700.00. The tooth was set in a ring.

Student’s ages 5-17 years missed 1,611,000 school days in 1996 due to acute dental problems-an average of 3.1 days per 100 students.

People with red hair are more sensitive to pain and consequently need more anesthetic during operations than other patients. Those with red hair needed 20 per cent more aesthetic to numb the pain.

Chemical manufacturers use sugar to grow penicillin.

A teaspoon of sugar after a hot curry will extinguish the furnace in your mouth.

A spoonful of sugar added to a vase will prolong the life of freshly cut flowers.

More than 300 types of bacteria make up dental plaque.

Earliest Known Dental Work: A total of 11 teeth from 9 adults who lived between 7,500 and 9,000 years ago contain holes drilled with sharpened flint points, according to a report in Science News Online. Flint-wielding specialists drilled holes, which are believed to have been filled with some type of material. The teeth came from residents of a prehistoric farming village called Mahrgarh in what is now Pakistan.

Dental Economics!

Americans spent nearly $2.025 billion on Halloween candy this year. That would fund the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for almost six years.

Americans spent $21 billion on candy in 2001. That is more than the gross national products of Lituania, Costa Rica and Mozambique combined.

Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum

$1.8 Billion is the total annual consumer spending on toothpaste.

$777 Million is the total annual consumer spending on toothbrushes.

$885 Million dollars is the total annual consumer spending on oral antiseptics/rinses.

Americans spend $2 billion a year on dental products — toothpaste, mouthwash and dental floss.

Dental Health Facts!

Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

Smokers remain three times more likely than non-smokers to lose all their teeth.  This figure has not changed from a decade ago.

Tooth decay remains the most common chronic disease among children ages 5-17 with 59% affected.

At birth the only fully developed organ is the tongue.

For the first two months of life our mouth is our primary organ.

The average person only brushes for 45 to 70 seconds a day, the recommended amount of time is 2-3 minutes.

Two ‘Fs’: Fluoride (use fluoride toothpaste daily) Frequency (avoid frequent snacking between meals)…..this is the “practical way to help avoid dental decay.

People who drink 3 or more sugary sodas daily have 62% more dental decay, fillings and tooth loss

Facts About Your Toothbrush!

The average toothbrush contains about 2,5000 bristles grouped into about 40 tufts per toothbrush.

The tufts are folded over a metal staple and forced onto pre-cored holes in the head and fused into the head with heat.

The handle is made of at least two materials, usually plastic and rubber.

The grips used for the handle is: precision, power, spoon, oblique and distal oblique.

Facts About Floss!

Year commercial floss was first manufactured: 1882

Material it was first made of: silk

Newest material: Gore-tex

Amount bought per person: 18 yards

Amount that should be bought per person: 122 yards (figuring one foot a day)

Percent who say they floss daily: 28% (some are fibbing, according to the sales data above)

In 1994 a prison inmate in West Virginia braided floss into a rope, scaled the wall and escaped.

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Sources Include: CDC & ADA 1/06; AGD Impact 2/2003; 1997 Gallup Poll; IDF  Joseph Chamberlain, D.D.S; Issue Briefs on Challenges for the 21st Century: Chronic and Disabling Conditions; Marvin Mansky; AGD Impact pg 8 March 2004; Lemelson-MIT Invention Index survey, 2003; MSNBC.com; ADA Nov 2002; RepConnect #13 June 2003; Survey conducted by Roper ASW in conjunction with ReachMax; Cochrane.org; CDC, 2002; AGD, 2002; ACNielsen, 2002; Surgeon General David Satcher; Guinness World Records 2002; Academy of General Dentistry; New Scientist. Oct 2002; Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter 2002 November: 3; Coppa, A., D.W. Frayer, R. Macchiarelli, 2006, Early Neolithic tradition of dentistry. Nature 440 (April 6):755-756; A survey by Louis Harris and Associates; A survey of 1,000 people in Britain; American Hygienist Ass 2/03; A poll conducted in Michigan; Science News Online.

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