What do Freddy Mercury , Nero ’s mom , and an ancient Bulgarian lamia have in coarse ? That ’s correct : they all havehyperdontia – aka “ too many teeth ” .
But while for these three toothy icon , their dental situation was variouslya seed of embarrassment , a lucky omen , and agenuine benefittotheir goal of eating the local peasants , other mass might be confound , or even worried about the front of extra teeth in their mouth . So , what ’s the muckle with hyperdontia ?
What is hyperdontia?
It ’s in the name , really : hyper , as in “ too many ” , anddontia , as in “ tooth ” . But what does that mean incisively ?
Most of us , by adulthood , have32 tooth : eight incisor at the front , used for holding and cut food ; four canines , aka eye tooth , used forbeing a Draculatearing food into sassing - sized chunks ; eight premolar , aka premolar , which sit down after the canines and before the molars and front like a Pokémon middle - evolution between the two ; ultimately , there are 12 molar – include four wisdom dentition – which we use for jaw and grinding up our food .
Anymore than that , though , and you officially have hyperdontia . It ’s more of a symptom than a condition in its own right wing , so there are many ways it can certify : you could have “ subsidiary ” teeth , which basically look like normal tooth ; “ tuberculate ” tooth , which look like tube or barrels ; “ conical ” or “ peg - regulate ” , which – well , the clue is in the name ; and compound or complex odontomas , which technically are n’t single tooth at all – they ’re actually non - cancerous tumors , made ofclusters of tooth - like tissue .
Hyperdontia can present as an extra row of teeth.Image credit: 100Camomille viaWikimediaCC By 4.0
Supernumerary tooth are also classified bywherethey move around up : you ’ve get your paramolar dentition , distomolars , and mesiodens . The first two grow , as you might have judge from the names , near your molars – the distomolars are like extra grinder , get up in line with the normal set , while the paramolars are less well - behaved , bolt down up to the front or back or wherever they feel like .
Mesiodens , meanwhile , develop behind or around the incisor – most often in between the two front tooth . It ’s the most rough-cut type of supernumerary tooth , although that is n’t order much : none of the three crack more than a one or two per centum relative incidence rate .
It ’s pretty rare , in other word of honor – and for many hoi polloi , it might not be all that impactful in their daily living . You only demand one extra tooth in your sass to qualify as having hyperdontia , after all .
A case of “supernumerary” teeth from ‘The natural history and diseases, of the human teeth: in two parts illustrated with twenty-three copper-plates’ by Joseph Fox, 1814.Image credit: Wellcome Collection
Sometimes , though , things can get extreme .
“ A Black girl , of age 11 years 8 month , do for consultation ; shadowgraph showed 81 tooth : 18 deciduous , 32 permanent , and 31 spear carrier , ” reportedone medical display case from 2011 . For those of you keeping count , that ’s all but two of her baby tooth , all of her grownup tooth , andalmost an entire second seton top of that .
But what ’s even stranger ? Those 31 extra dentition were bump by fortuity . The lady friend originally only went to the dentist for the remotion of some ascendant fragments , left behind after a twosome of baby tooth devolve out . It took radiography to bring out the unfeigned extent of her odontiasis – the reason and consequences of her situation had stayed totally under the radiolocation . And that ’s because …
The causes and treatment of hyperdontia
Again , hyperdontia is n’t really a condition in its own right . postulate what causes it , then , is kind of like involve what do aheadache – it entirely depends .
“ It seems to be associated with several hereditary conditions , ” notesHealthline , including Gardner ’s syndrome , cleidocranial dysplasia , Ehlers - Danlos syndrome , Fabry disease , cleft palate , and more . These conditions are n’t linked by any rough-cut denominator – the first two are rare genetic disorders ; the latter two are inherit condition ; cleft palates are a birth fault .
That’sfar froman exhaustive listing of possible causes , and it ’s not unusual for suit to baffle the dental practitioner and health care supplier that recover them . Equally , sometimes you ’ll never read the cause of your extra dentition simply because you don’tneedto know : “ In some casing , hyperdontia does n’t cause any complication , ” level out theCleveland Clinic , and “ not everyone needs hyperdontia intervention . ”
In those cases , the casual NSAID ( nonsteroidal anti - incendiary drug ) might be all you need to “ treat ” your hyperdontia , they advise . “ But if your extra teeth interpose with your unwritten health or chewing function , ” the Clinic tally , “ your tooth doctor may recommend removing them . ”
It can be a life - transfer routine : hyperdontia can be irritating due to overcrowding in your jaw ; it can run you to bruise yourself by accidental bites ; it can even kibosh your regular tooth from erupting as they should . Their presence can make brushing and floss hard or impossible to do properly , causing problems down the route – and for many people , they just do n’t care how they bet .
Is hyperdontia on the rise?
gift the known causes of hyperdontia – inherited condition ; random genetic mutations ; parturition defect ; and unpredictable wound and encroachment , that kind of affair – there ’s no veridical reason to think that hyperdontia might be more common now than it used to be .
But farseeing term , somethingishappening that has a similar upshot . Even though the normal number of teeth is 32 , increasingly , even that is becoming too many .
“ Richard Klein , Stanford paleontologist and the world ’s expert on the human fossil record , said to me , ‘ I’venever seen a hunter - collector skull with hunched teeth ’ , ” biologist and evolutionist Paul Ehrlich evidence theStanford Reportin 2018 .
Today , though , orthodontic braces and overcrowding abound – and that ’s because our jaw are simply much diminished than theyused to be . And here ’s the matter : they ’re shrinking quicker than they ought to be .
“ Studies of skull from just a few hundred year ago compared with today show human jaws are still shrinking , ” Ehrlich said . “ There has n’t been time for this to be a genetic problem . you could get crowded jaws within a generation . ”
While it may not seem like it , that might be good news . It mean the trouble is at least partially environmental , Ehrlich say – so , with interventions such as give children tough intellectual nourishment and masticate properly , and head off leave your jaw loose , at least some of the problem can be averted .
“ [ This is ] an epidemic that is causing a bunch of expense – think pair – and wretchedness , ” Ehrlich admonish . “ Many people ’s lives could be improve if it were dealt with . ”
