Boxers' teeth

[punchingsack]

Are boxers' teeth usually the healthiest and firmest with out decayed teeth and false teeth?

[Buffy]

What kind of boxers?

 

In general, non-decayed and non-false teeth are going to be healthier and firmer.

 

Could you explain your question in a bit more detail?

 

No, the other kind of German Shepards http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76TAf25SR0, :D

Buffy

[punchingsack]

Well...I mean good boxers in IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO. Is it mean if you had many false teeth you would hardly be an excellent boxer?

[InfiniteNow]

I thought the measure of a good boxer was in their punches? :rolleyes:

 

 

Tina Fey rocks, 30 of 'em. ;)

[punchingsack]

I thought the measure of a good boxer was in their punches? :rolleyes:

 

 

Tina Fey rocks, 30 of 'em. ;)

 

I don't think they have to bite each other either.... I mean whether the fixed teeth would reduce their defensive ability even if they wear tooth sockets.

[CraigD]

I don't think they have to bite each other either.... I mean whether the fixed teeth would reduce their defensive ability even if they wear tooth sockets.

Punchingsack, what do you mean by “wear tooth sockets”?

 

As far as I know, tooth sockets refer to the indentations in the mouth bones that the roots of your teeth go into. Do you mean mouthguards?

Are boxers' teeth usually the healthiest and firmest with out decayed teeth and false teeth?

To the best of my knowledge, no.

 

I’ve known some serious boxers with very healthy teeth, and some with terribly unhealthy ones. As best I can tell, the healthy teeth were due to the usual good diet and dental hygiene practices – brushing, flossing, etc – while the bad ones were due to the lack of same. Other than that good athletes of nearly all kinds tend to have better diet and general health than most people, I don’t think boxing had anything to do with any boxer’s either good or bad dental health.

 

Boxing – or other sports that involve punching – cause measurable physical changes to parts such as the finger and wrists, increasing the density of the bones and the size and strength of connective tissue and muscles. However, in my experience, boxing with gloves doesn’t put unusual repetitive stress on the teeth, compared to, say, a bad habit such as opening bottles and packages, or working leather of gnawing on pencils with your teeth. To the best of my knowledge, stressing your teeth, unlike stressing you hands and fingers, doesn’t make them stronger, and possible make them, and/or their attachment to your mouth, weaker.

 

Getting elbowed or butted in the teeth, punched with an ungloved fist, or knocking your teeth on a hard object, can of course do bad damage to your teeth, cracking or knocking them out. If I had to guess, I’d say that boxing poses less risk to the teeth than a lot of other activities and professions, such as farm or mechanic’s work. Few things can ruin teeth worse than a mouth full of metal tool.

[punchingsack]

Yes, I mean mouthguards but tooth sockets! I'm sorry for my poor English! Though my expression in English is not good, I can read English good basically! You hit all the problems in my thought of this topic, Craig D, you're great! But why can't stressing teeth make the teeth stronger like stressing hands and fingers, since they are all organism?

[freeztar]

why can't stressing teeth make the teeth stronger like stressing hands and fingers, since they are all organism?

 

Teeth do not contain muscles, ligaments, or tendons. Their structural integrity lies predominantly at the base. Hence, a swift knock to the outermost exposed area of a tooth can dislodge it, or cause internal tooth damage. But since teeth do not contain muscle, they cannot reform the same way that muscle groups do.

 

In other words, I can lift weights with my arms and see a change in muscle mass over time, but pushing on my teeth would not create a stronger resistance in my teeth, it would actually make my teeth weaker over time. This is because teeth do not have muscles, or any other form of resistance-reactant biological structures.

[CraigD]

But why can't stressing teeth make the teeth stronger like stressing hands and fingers, since they are all organism?

In principle, I think some stress on the teeth and their supporting gums and bones has a beneficial, strengthening effect. Too little stress, then has a detrimental, weakening effect. Too much stress can, I suspect, cause a gradual weakening of them. Much too much stress can cause catastrophic damage to them, knocking them out, cracking them, or damaging the small blood vessels supplying them, which can lead to a nasty condition where a tooth dies within your mouth.

 

The question is complicated by what precisely we mean by “strong teeth”. Teeth have a partial enamel coating and an inner mass similar to bones, which make them hard and strong enough that we can chew hard foods without them becoming imbedded in our teeth, but this is only part of the strength of our complete “tooth system”. The other part is their attachment to our mouth bones (the two upper maxilla and single lower mandible). The anatomy and histology of this attachment is complicated, involving specialized ligaments and tissues to support them, specialized parts of the tooth and specialized bones to which these ligaments attach. All this is pretty well documented, with good introductions available from several sources, including the wikipedia article “tooth”.

 

Even more complicated, the mouth in which teeth reside is full of a complicated ecosystem of bacteria and other germs and other juices with the potential to attack and destroy each other and the tissues important to teeth strength and health, and this ecosystem is sensitive to how we mechanically move our various mouth parts. For example, failing to massage the gums, either through eating fibrous foods or with fingers, brushes, and other gadgets, can cause them to become unhealthy and infected, leading to loss of tooth strength or even loss of teeth.

 

The main question in this thread is, I think, if stressing the teeth – specifically, wiggling them in their sockets – makes their attachment stronger, weaker, or has no effect. I can’t with confidence even guess an answer. Complicated connective tissues like the teeth’s sometimes react to stress by increasing their strength, but also can be injured by stress, decreasing their strength. My guess is, compared to having good dental hygene that keeps bacteria from attacking these tissues, stressing them, either through chewing or getting punched in the face with padded gloves, isn’t very significant – but that’s just a guess.

Teeth do not contain muscles, ligaments, or tendons.

Though freeztar’s correct about their lack of muscles and tendons, as described above, teeth have ligaments, and other important supportive tissues that might best be described as “goo”. Collectively, these tissues are called the periodontium – literally the “around the teeth”.

Their structural integrity lies predominantly at the base.

Diagrams and descriptions such as the one in the preceding link look to me like the structural integrity of the teeth depend on practically all of the structures beneath the gums – or, more technically, below the cementoenamel junction.

Hence, a swift knock to the outermost exposed area of a tooth can dislodge it, or cause internal tooth damage. But since teeth do not contain muscle, they cannot reform the same way that muscle groups do.

 

In other words, I can lift weights with my arms and see a change in muscle mass over time, but pushing on my teeth would not create a stronger resistance in my teeth, it would actually make my teeth weaker over time. This is because teeth do not have muscles, or any other form of resistance-reactant biological structures.

True as far as that the teeth don’t actually have muscles, but the jaw (mandible) does have several large groups of strong muscles.

 

When I was taught to box in school, I learned a couple of exercises intended to strengthen these muscles. The main reason was that if they’re weak, a punch to the jaw can move it so much that its major nerves get pressured, knocking you out.

 

PS: moved this thread to medical science

[freeztar]

Thanks for the correction on the ligaments Craig. :)

[questor]

The teeth are suspended in a socket, 10-20mm in depth with a periodontal menbrane on the root, and surrounded by a suspensory tissue called the periodontal ligament. Under under normal chewing procedures the surrounding bone will maintain normal thickness. Under increased pressures the bone will become thicker until the pressure becomes so great as to cause bone breakdown. All bone thickens in response to stress. If you exceed physiologic limits, the bone breaks down. Boxers mouths are like anyone else's. their jaw muscles may become stronger because of exercise. They wear mouthguards to protect against having their teeth loosened by repeated blows to the mouth. This does not prevent them from being knocked silly on occasion.