What Your Teeth Color Says About You

The most dissapointing thing most people ever learn is that teeth are not meant to be white. For most people, the lifetime of their teeth will range from an off white while theybare in their early 10s to a dark yellow as they inch towards the twilight of their lives. The color of teeth has been known to be a reliable reflector of oral health. In the same light, it can be used as a predictive aspect of someone’s general health, albeit with a wide margin of error.

Teeth usually come in yellow, off white, brown and gray. These are the commonest physiological/ pathological hues associated with adults teeth. Each of these can offer some kind of insight into the health of the teeth or the person in general. To start with, yellow is supposed to be a normal color. If you think of a tooth as a dressed up man, the enamel is the white shirt he is wearing while the dentin is his undershirt. This undershirt is yellow and most of the time, it’s color is visible through the translucent layer that is the enamel( white shirt). Teeth will appear yellower the older we get because the enamel becomes thinner. This is not a bad thing. Bad things start with brown colored teeth. It is true that some people genetically have brown colored teeth but for the most part, brown arises from stains we pick up in coffee, in wine and quite predominantly, in cigarettes. Of course the longer one has smoked, the darker the shade of brown and of course, the higher the potential for smoking associated comorbidities. Gray, is essentially the color of death. Teeth that pick up gray discoloration during their lifespan are usually teeth that have suffered some kind of traumatic event. Think of that time you got punched in the mouth by a bully, or you fell down teeth first onto a ground filled with stones. As a tooth dies overtime from such an event, it’s color changes slowly , tending towards a darker grade of gray. Finally, the white color of teeth has variations. Uniform, non opaque white usually belongs to Hollywood and shouldn’t be used as anything other than evidence of the fact that money can get anything done. Opaque white patches or complete opaque white usually indicates a problem with mineralization; ,something along the lines of excessive fluoride.

In a nutshell, teeth that are yellow are not usually concern for worry. Teeth that are brown, grey or patchy opaque white usually indicate that there is something begging correction.

in the next issue, we’ll talk about what can be done for these different types of scenarios. Hit the share button if you found something new.