DT News - UK - Research finds tooth enamel fast track in humans

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 25 November 2014

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CANTERBURY, UK: New research conducted at the University of Kent in Canterbury has discovered a link between prenatal enamel growth rates of teeth and weaning in human babies. The research found that incisors grow quickly in the early stages of the second trimester of a baby’s development, while molars grow at a slower rate in the third trimester. This is so incisors are ready to erupt after birth, at approximately six months of age, when a baby makes the transition from breast-feeding to weaning.

Weaning in humans takes place relatively early compared with some primates, such as chimpanzees. As a result, there is less time available for human incisors to form, so the enamel grows rapidly to compensate.

The research findings could increase our understanding of weaning in our fossil ancestors and could help dentists, as dental problems do not register in all teeth in the same way. Enamel cells deposit new tissue at different times and different rates, depending on the tooth type.

Exactly when early weaning in humans first began is much debated among anthropologists. Current dental approaches rely on finding fossil skulls with teeth that were erupting at the time of death—which is an extremely rare find. Anthropologists will now be able to explore the start of weaning in an entirely new way because primary teeth preserve a record of prenatal enamel growth after they have erupted and for millennia after death.

The research, funded by a Royal Society equipment grant, was conducted by Dr Patrick Mahoney who works at the Kent Osteological Research and Analysis unit housed in the Human Osteology Research Lab of the University of Kent.

The study, titled “Dental fast track: Prenatal enamel growth, incisor eruption, and weaning in human infants”, was published online on 11 November in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology ahead of print.

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