You can generally trust dentures to help you eat meals. Since they act as quality replacement teeth, they’re strong enough to chew many foods. Really, the more pressing question is whether dentures affect nutrition levels enough to harm your physical health. The good news is that your local Southlake dentist is here to provide an answer. With that said, read on to learn how dentures affect bodily nutrition and what you can do about it.
It All Comes Down to Chewing
To know how dentures affect nutrition, you must first grasp their relationship to your bite or “chewing force.” This latter point helps you see how the restorations alter your nutritional health.
You see, dentures can’t “chew” the same way as natural teeth. That they’re removable and insecure means they can’t exert a very strong or forceful bite. In other words, dentures chew with only a fraction of your former chewing force; they can’t grind or tear pieces of your food apart.
How Do Dentures Affect Nutrition?
Once you know their “chewing force,” you can see why dentures affect nutrition. They struggle to break down your food into small and manageable bites.
Remember, chewing is the first step in your body’s digestive work. It processes food into small particles that can be easily absorbed, maintaining your physical health over time. Dentures only break food into larger pieces that the stomach struggles to process, prompting you to swallow earlier. Such effects keep your body from fully absorbing your meals’ nutrients.
Why Dental Implants Would Help
All that said, you can overcome your dentures’ issues with nutrition and digestion. Just attach some dental implants to your final restoration!
Indeed, an “implant denture” doesn’t have the same chewing problem as a standard one. It relies on dental implants that can fully restore your bite’s strength, allowing you to eat with ease. Patients who get one should be able to chew food into small and digestible pieces. With that effect in place, you’ll be able to absorb all (or at least more of) the nutrients from your meals.
While dentures often affect nutrition, they don’t have to; just talk to your dental provider about adding dental implants to the mix!
About the Practice
Southlake Family Dentistry is based near the edge of Fort Mill, SC. Led by Drs. Priya Chougule and Ashley Fasone, our practice provides highly customized dental care. That means we tailor our preventive, cosmetic, and restorative treatments to each patient and their unique smile! By doing so, our team ensures your teeth and gums look and feel great for years to come! For more details or to book a visit, please contact us on our website or by phone at (803)-548-3342.