The last bite

Millions of teeth

A report over the summer estimated, on the basis of a survey of 2,000 people, that we in the UK are currently missing about 110m teeth. That sounds a lot, and represents a fair number of extractions but it set me wondering how many teeth we collectively do still have.

The first adult dental health survey in 1968 found that 37 per cent of us had no natural teeth at all, while by the time of the most recent survey in 1998 (the 2008 one was delayed and is yet to report) this had fallen to a mere 13 per cent. 

So, making some wild assumptions that we all had a full set of 32 natural teeth in each of those years and that the population was about 55m in the sixties and 60m in the nineties the numbers come out at 1,108m and 1,670m teeth respectively. That represents an increase in 562m teeth or over half as many again as when the Beatles were at their zenith; in comparison with which, 110m doesn’t seem quite so bad.