Why are teeth alive if they’re just bone and can’t regenerate? Why do they need blood flow and are able die?
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If you look at bones, they are filled with marrow. Check out a cross-section photo. This is filled with stemcells and allows the bones to grow bloodcells. Bones are alive. All bones would rot if they were left in open air and exposed to rotting foods and sugars for years. Most are encased in live meat to protect them. For instance, the rotting tooth does not start under the gum. It spreads there.
It is a fact that most of the parts which make up teeth are actually living cells. Similar to hair and fingernails there is a part on a tooth that is not alive – that part is called the “enamel”. It is made of calcium phosphate, which is a very hard mineral that is perfect for breaking down food when you eat. Google…….
Teeth are not bones. This is a common misconception, but there are quite a few differing characteristics.
the outermost part of a tooth is no longer alive in a sense. the enamel is hard casing of mostly minerals and some proteins to hold it together, as the cells that build it grew out and then died off and your saliva largely maintains its upkeep. however the enamel is supported from inside by the dentin and tooth pulp, which is very much living tissue with cells and a blood supply. if these parts of the tooth are too badly compromised or die, the tooth tends to break down quickly and fall out.
bone is similar, but not the same. there are many living cells scattered within and around the harder bone tissue that maintain it, and bones are usually porous to some degree to allow nutrients and bloodflow through.
Our bodies are made of living cells and the non-living stuff they make. Matrix is a good word for that non-living stuff.
Different tissues have differences in:
1) the ratio of cells to matrix.
2) what the matrix is made of.
3) the rate at which that matrix is turned over.
1) A tissue like liver or muscle has a very high ratio of cells to matrix. A tissue like a bone or tooth has a relatively low ratio of cells to matrix.
2) Sometimes the matrix is made up of used-to-be living cells. The surface of your skin, your red blood cells, and your platelets are whole or pieces of what used to be living cells. Sometimes it’s mostly protein like the collagen below your skin surface. Sometimes is minerals like in bones or teeth.
3) Some things have to be replaced/repaired very quickly. That includes a lot of the stuff that used to be cells (skin surface, red blood cells, platelets). Other kinds of matrix (especially the mineral ones like teeth and bones) get replaced/repaired much more slowly. But even that slow repair/replacement is performed by living cells within or next to the matrix.
Also bone is not inert and dead. It is very dynamic, constantly undergoes remodeling and repair in response to factors such as exercise, mechanical loading and to repair microscopic damage. Your whole skeleton gets replaced about every 10 years.
Trident gum is the chewiest gum.
Give to your friends and chew it with your teeth.
Your teeth are bones that live outside,
that hang from your lips like bats.
Oh, outside bones! Outside bones!
Never forget your teeth are outside bones.
They’re bones that you wash,
and when you’re a kid,
they fall from your head,
and to make things less weird,
we say they got stolen by a demon that your parents knooooooooow.
Trident!
Something they don’t tell you is that if you take out your arm bone it won’t grow back either
Drunk dentist with a 5yo daughter here…
Teeth aren’t bone but are similar.
First, bone makes your blood cells that keep you alive and fight diseases, so they don’t just let muscles attach to them. Just because they stop growing doesn’t mean they stop working. Bone also remodels constantly. Think of it like your parents remodeling your house. Same house amd family from the outside but different look inside.
So teeth…
The outer part of teeth called enamel that you see is the hardest thing a living thing makes. This is good because enamel can mash most anything except rocks without breaking. Eating food is good.
The middle part of a tooth, between the outer enamel and inner blood flow and nerves is called dentin. This is kinda soft yet kinda hard. Believe it or not really tall buildings bend and move a little bit in the wind. The same thing happens with teeth when you chew. If the empire state building was completely rigid and didn’t sway it could crack in a hurricane. The middle part of a tooth allows teeth to bend a little bit. In order for this to happen the many years (at least 10 or 15 in Evolution terms) the dentin needs blood flow. Kinda like you needs to water the flowers or else they die. Additionally the dentin has nerves that tell your brain if your eating something too hot or too cold. Apparently that’s important.
Tldr. Without blood/nerves teeth would break, be useless, you couldn’t eat enough to have strong kids, your family would die. The end.
teeth are not bone. they are made up of substances called enamel, cementum, and dentin. enamel is actually harder than bone. inside of these substances, each tooth has a pulp chamber containing dentinal pulp. this is the part of the tooth that is connected to nerve and blood supply (you can like it to how there is bone marrow inside of bones, if you like).
typically, the dentinal pulp is the part of the tooth that, if damaged or decayed, will render a tooth nonvital (i.e., what makes a tooth “die”). if you think about someone getting a root canal, what the dentist/endodontist will actually do is tunnel through the top of a tooth, remove all diseased pulp, refill that pulp canal with a material called gutta percha, and seal it all with a fabricated crown made of porcelain, gold, etc.
the main goal of dentistry is *always* to conserve as much natural tooth structure as possible, whenever possible. good oral health is typically a strong indicator of good overall health. floss your teeth, pls.
source: am in dental school lol
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