About 15 years ago I read an obscure government publication on the use of uranium in dental porcelain. It said uranium is added to dental porcelain for cosmetic reasons, to make the porcelain more luminous like natural teeth. It was estimated that this use of uranium causes about 2,000 cases of cancer per year. I’ve since mentioned this to many dentists, but none of them had ever heard of this.
Real teeth have natural fluorescence. If you shine a black light on your teeth they gleam a brilliant white. To give dental work the same glow, the use of uranium in dental porcelain was patented in 1942.
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In the 1970s some began to wonder if this had been the world’s smartest decision. The amount of uranium used in dental porcelain was small–0.05 percent by weight in the U.S., 0.1 percent in Germany. Nonetheless the fake teeth bombarded the oral mucosa with radiation that was maybe eight times higher than normal background radiation. None of the research I came across mentioned a specific number of cancer deaths, but clearly this was not something you’d do for the health benefits.
What’s the safest dental material? One guess: real teeth. Guaranteed against silent horrors unless someone sneaks up and bites you. Brush ’em after every meal, because who knows what the dental industry will think up next?
