Why is it that some people have sharp and pointy canine teeth, and some don´t?

I%26#039;m a dentist.





Attrition, my good friend. Attrition.





As we age, our teeth tend to wear a little, but just a little. Not enough to significantly alter the shape of any tooth.





Did you know that the only time that our upper teeth and lower teeth should come into contact with each other is when we swallow? Other than that, they should never touch. Not when chewing your food. Not when talking. And certainly not at rest. This is a fact. The key words here, however, are %26quot;should never%26quot;. Unfortunately for most people, they touch much more frequently.





What really changes the shape of our teeth is wear against the opposing teeth. Many people grind their teeth or have some sort of habits that involve touching teeth together.





Additionally, dental work (with the exception of metallic materials) wears away the opposing teeth more quickly. Porcelain crowns are notorious for causing excessive wear on teeth opposing them, as porcelain is much more abrasive than enamel.





Canine teeth, both upper and lower (but especially the upper) serve an extremely important job in the mouth, and it is why any good dentist would make every last effort to save a canine tooth rather than extract it. To explain this, I have to give you a little info about our masticatory system. We have various muscles that close our jaws: masseter, temporalis, and medial pterygoids, all of which are controlled by the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve (Cranial nerve 5). This nerve originates in our brainstem, if memory serves.





Teeth do not sit directly in bone. They are suspended by the periodontal ligament (PDL for short), which has many nerves in it, some of which are pressure sensors that tell your brain how much pressure is being applied to the teeth. That%26#039;s how you know to chew hard on beef jerky and softly on ice cream. When your molars%26#039; PDLs pressure receptors are stimulated, your brain knows that it is ok to provide full biting force with your muscles of mastication. After all, they are thicker, more robust teeth that can withstand those forces.





In contrast, your front teeth (canines included) are less robust and are not suited to withstanding heavy biting forces. As a result, when the PDLs of your front teeth are stimulated, feedback is sent to the brain causing your muscles to reduce their force.





When your jaw is in its %26quot;neutral%26quot; position (for lack of a better word that the lay person can understand), your molars will occlude with each other, but your anterior teeth won%26#039;t (i.e. the shouldn%26#039;t, unless you have some abnormality). Your teeth are safe this way. Move your jaw side to side or even forward a little, and what happens? Your canines start to hit eachother, and through feedback from the canines%26#039; PDLs your brain knows to relax the muscles. It is a protective mechanism for both your teeth and your jaws that prevents you from biting hard with your jaw in a position that can cause damage to the teeth or TMJ. This is known as %26quot;canine guidance%26quot;.





Individuals who, for one reason or another, move their lower jaws more than usual are rubbing their canines more, hence the attrition.





This is about as simple as I can make the explanation. I hope it helps. I%26#039;ll bet you never knew there was so much to the profession of dentistry!

Why is it that some people have sharp and pointy canine teeth, and some don´t?
I do not know. Genetics? Also some people, the way their teeth are next to each other when they close their mouth, edges get grinded down over time.. thats sort of what happened to my teeth, some of them, not just the canines are pointy, and my canines are really sharp and pointy too.
Reply:Don%26#039;t you know that vampires really do exist. I was bitten by one last year. The only side effects that I have are, the sun hurts my eyes, and I know have sharp pointy canine teeth. I wear sunglasses at all times, and am looking into porcelian venures to get ride of my fangs. My doctor said the reason I did not turn into a vampire myself is because through generations the virus has mutated so much by being transmitted from human to human lessining the actuall blood count of the virus that the mutation effect is far less than what it was thousands of years ago, when pureborns existed.



Visual Arts