Dr. Victoria Veytsman on The Foundation of the Smile

The smile is really one of the first places where aging shows up.

So when we talk about anti aging in general, in the beauty industry or in the wellness industry, dentistry is not something that people often talk about. We're often talking about skin, hair, nails, vitamins. But dentistry is often not looked at as part of anti aging or things that we could do to help with anti aging. The smile is really one of the first places where aging shows up. We see that in a myriad of different ways. We see chipping of the teeth, yellowing of the teeth. We see loss of volume sometimes of the teeth. Skin loses volume, we lose collagen in the skin, but our teeth also lose volume with time. And what happens then is this lower part of the face starts to collapse as the teeth lose vertical volume. So what we can do then is restore that volume to the lower third of the face, and we could take 10 to 15, sometimes 20 years off of a face. Often patients will come in and ask me, well, should I get a facelift? Should I do my teeth? I always say, do your smile makeover first. Get back that foundational support that you have lost. And then maybe any other procedures that you might need to that lower third of the face or your entire face could be more conservative. So what we try to address with anti aging dentistry is loss of volume and collapse of the lower third of the face. Also, there are things that happen not, not just that we see on the outside of the face, but internally when we look at the gums. The gums also go through an aging process. They become thinner. You'll have potentially gum recession, bone loss. These are all things that we need to look at and be proactive about. And there are definitely things that we can do for all of us, whether it's regular dental visits, seeing a specialist, certain supplements you could take, like antioxidants, and all those things that are good for your body are definitely good for your mouth too.