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Dental implants are artificial teeth utilized in cosmetic dentistry, and modern-day implants are almost always placed in the mandible, or jawbone, created particularly to resemble teeth roots. Prior to this, implants may have taken the form of a framework that was specially constructed to lay on top of the mandible, set in place with screws.

Today’s dental implants tend to be made out of titanium, though ancient Mayan burial sites have yielded primitive implants made of seashells. And here lies an interesting story concerning dental implants that involves their construction these days. For titanium is preferred for modern dental implants since bones accept the material so well.

Usually, the body will reject any foreign object it finds in its midst, including foreign cells. This is why blood types need to match when performing blood transfusions, and why many other procedures, for instance bone marrow and organ transplants, have such a high chance of failure. But in the situation of dental implants made out of titanium, bone tissue in fact grows into it with no issues whatsoever!

It is unknown why this is the situation, but experiments using zirconia, a ceramic material that’s related to titanium, have proven just as effective. Few theories exist as to such seemingly magical biocompatibility, but one generally accepted guess is that titanium and zirconia are not so much accepted by the body but are simply not rejected. There is, however, no idea at all why titanium and zirconia should cause the body to, in effect, forget itself. And just as mysteriously, research has indicated that dental implants placed directly into extraction sockets particularly created for the purpose of dental restoration are a lot more effective than those put into healed bone.

But no matter the material of the dental implant, some fundamental criteria should be met to best ensure success, such as surgical skill and having enough healthy bone to work with in the first place.