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Short Stuff: Wisdom Teeth · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave. So this
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: is short Stuff, the uh uh Hurts Edition.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Did you have your wisdom teeth come in? And did
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: you have them removed?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I had them removed.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I had mine removed. Kind of at the
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: now that I'm reading this sort of a standard time,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I was probably seventeen years old.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, appreciate the sitation.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my first experience with that, and I
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: was like, oh wow, yeah that was the gateway drug.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember like just kind of looking around, like
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: trying to play it off because it wasn't connecting in
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: my head that they were the ones who were making
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: me feel this way. Yeah, like I was in public
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very strange, but yeah, we're talking about wisdom teeth
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: aka the third molar, which sometimes start to in there.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: By the way, I'm very turned off by how many
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: times you type the word erupt in this thing.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You don't like that, huh?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I think there were like five or six erupts. Oh yeah,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: so yeah, it was not pleasant to read that over
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and over, but I will use it once just to
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: honor you. They can erupt from the gums. Well, they
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: can start to come in as early as like five
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: years old and as old as fifteen. But when they
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: actually erupt this twice that can usually come that's usually
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: like a later thing, like seventeen, maybe all the way
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: up to mid twenties.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And that, friends, is why they call them wisdom teeth.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: That moniker, I hate that word, but it works. Yeah,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it dates back to the Greeks. I don't know if
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the Hellenic Greeks or the post Bronze Age Greeks, who knows,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: but their word for wisdom teeth was odantius sophius, and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that is the teeth of wisdom, is what that means.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And the whole point is is that these teeth come
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: in much later than your other teeth. You've got some
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: experience in life by the time your wisdom teeth come in.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: So that's why they call them wisdom teeth.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: That's right. And if you're wondering why we even have
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: these teeth that are many times removed to begin with,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: there's been a lot of debate in theories over the years,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: but it seems pretty clear to me, and I think
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: most people basically agree is that we needed them back
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: then when Tiktook was out and had a bigger jaw
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: to fit these things and was gnawing on nuts and
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: raw meat and stuff like that, not cooked food in
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: other words, not soft stuff. That they needed these things.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: They had larger jaws, they had bigger teeth, and they
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: needed them to chew and grind all this stuff down
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to palatable sized, swallowable stuff. And we just don't need
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that anymore.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: No, because usually people place it around the time of agriculture.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You can make a case it's much later than that.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: But say with them, the last like several thousand years,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the human diet changed dramatically, so much so that our
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: skulls change shape. My question is this, chuck, didn't our skulls,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the skulls of modern humans change shape much further back
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: than just a few thousand years.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, buddy, you know, I don't know the answer to.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: That, Okay, but I feel like, yeah, I feel like
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: it's it's definitely older than that the skulls are. But
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the people, when you start researching wisdom teeth, they're like, yeah,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the human diet got soft, so our teeth got kind
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of woos and our skulls got shorter and smaller, and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: hence when we get wisdom teeth, there's just not enough
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: room for them because we don't need them anymore. But
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: stupid natural selection isn't caught up yet and keeps producing
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: wisdom teeth in modern Homo sapiens that don't need it
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: because we eat a devil ham.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean that makes sense to me. Right, you're
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: just saying the timeline doesn't match up.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole Yeah, it makes sense. Sure, it's the timeline.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, I don't question the timeline. That's your mistake.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: You know what, though, when I was researching this, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: found there's apparently a creationist argument. They used the wisdom teeth,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: like as a vestigial thing, as an argument for creationism,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: because apparently a lot of people are like, well, it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: clearly evolution. Explain that creationists, and they're like, how about this.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to have three molars, but because of this
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: modern human diet that we all agree is making the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: third molar superfluous. That's what did it. You're supposed to know.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: But it's the human intervention that kept us from being
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: able to use it, and that's the problem. So I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: thought that was kind of fascinating.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Interesting take that podcaster, Yeah.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Because they took the argument that people who believe in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: natural selection use and turned it on them. They flipped
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: us script that very well put.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: All right, so we have four of these, not all
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: of them irrupt?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: What else are you going to say?
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Poke, present themselves?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, kind of coming out party, No, present themselves.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Debutante ball show up, Yeah, show up, and about eight
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: of ten people, usually one tooth will not come in.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And the teeth that don't come in are called impacted teeth.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: If you've ever heard like, oh you have impacted wisdom teeth,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: that's what they're talking about. Sometimes they don't develop at all,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: and some people that's called a genesis. But the impaction
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: is sort of the start of the show here, because
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: that is why you will generally have them removed. Either
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: they're impacted or they're coming through and just crowding things
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and making life a problem for your other molars.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Like poor Lisa Simpson when they showed that age progression
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of what she would look like if she didn't have
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: dental insurance.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The braces. I say, we take our break and then
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: come back and talk about wisdom teeth.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: All right, let's do it. Job. So the main reason
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: why they're impacted to begin with is kind of what
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: we've been talking about. There's just not enough space back
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: there for some people. And when they're developing that space
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: is like you know, there's teeth there and for most people,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: and so those teeth can get really well impacted by
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: the wisdom teeth not being impacted.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Wow, that was great, man. Yeah, there's just not enough
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: room because your other teeth have shown up, right, another one.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: This is the thing that really kind of comes home
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to me. Your jaw might not actually be the size
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: that it would be if you ate harder foods. And
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: in fact, I saw it recommended to make sure that
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: your kids have a nice set of chompers as they
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: get older, like once they start eating solid food, start
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: getting giving them stuff that challenges their teeth because as
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you're chewing, the more you chew, that promotes bone growth
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in your jaw, and it can actually make your jaw
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a little longer, so that if your jaws just slightly longer,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you're going to have that room for the third molar
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that you otherwise wouldn't. Well, again, we come back to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the Western industrialized diet that is soft enough that the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: teeth aren't challenged quite as much, so the jaw doesn't
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: grow quite as well to accommodate the third molar. I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: think I might have just I think I might have
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: just been born again. I guess did you square the timeline? Yeah,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and so you have room for the third molar after all.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That's right. But space isn't like every bit of this.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: It's not just about space. There is some stuff about
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: it that science really hasn't explained why they might become impacted.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Because apes don't have impacted wisdom teeth, which I don't
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: think we mentioned. Some of our primate friends, you know,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: have wisdom teeth still, which is great, good for them.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: There's that natural selection thing.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. The extraction has become a really common thing.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I don't know about numbers, but I
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: feel like most people these days, at least in the
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: United States, will have their wisdom teeth removed. But you
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: don't have to. It's not like you really need to
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: talk to your dentist and eventual oral surgeon if it's
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: really really necessary. Because I don't know, I'm not a
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I get the feeling that they
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: push this on people who don't necessarily need it, because
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: that's their business.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: After our orthodontia episode, my eyes were kind of opened
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: a little bit too. Yeah, supposedly your dentists should essentially
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: tell you, let's take a wait and see approach to this,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you know, like, get your teeth checked every six months
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and we'll keep an eye on it, and if they
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: start to come in wonky, we'll get rid of them.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: But wisdom teeth can come in normal healthy, can actually
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: help promote like further bone growth and stabilization and development,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: to help your teeth stay in your head better. And
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: in that case, you shouldn't remove your wisdom teeth. You
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: shouldn't also, I think, prophylactically remove them just in case
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: they come in wonky. Right, So that's supposedly the consensus,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: or that should the consensus, that you shouldn't take them
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: out proactively, and this University of Sayskatchewan evolutionary anthropologist Julia Bonner.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: She's basically comparing getting your wisdom teeth removed unnecessarily to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: what we used to do with kids getting their tonsils removed.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, interesting, you know part of the problem with
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: my teeth that are no longer a part of my
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: body was bone loss. So I'm wondering if I would
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: have benefited by leaving those wisdom teeth in there.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Probably sure, I mean, like it definitely helps you keep
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: generating bone. But also, like I was saying earlier, you
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: have to also eat hard foods too, nothing but like
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: rock candy.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also don't remember my deal. I just remember
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: they were like, you need your wisdom teeth out, Like,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I don't remember if they were impacted or what the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: deal was. I feel like I remember them coming erupting
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but I also don't trust my memory
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: of that. The only thing I remember is coming out
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: of the anesthesia and hallucinating. Don't ever tell the story.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It sounds vaguely familiarbody, you should definitely tell me.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I came out when I was seventeen of my
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: first anesthetic experience and hallucinated a poster on the wall
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: that said locomotive Lasagna and then later on obviously it
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: was a poster of whatever, like some sort of dental poster.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: But my theory is is that they were screwing with
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: me and switch out this weird poster for children coming
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: off their first drug experience.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: It's awesome. That would be a fun thing to do.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I'll bet the cursing dentist does that.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know why none of my bands
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: that I've ever been in or Locomotive Lasagna. That was
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: just right there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a either a song name or
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: an album name. I don't know about a band name.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, Oh well it's not over. Then I can just
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: write a song for sure.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear that one.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I already got a lyric local Locomotive Lasagna. What do
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: you mean?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: How about this? Let's write this together. I'm Bernie Topping
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Locomotive Lasagna. What's going on you right?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Oh? Man, genius?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: This thing just writes itself, It really does. We should
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: say there's another reason besides this surgery being potentially unnecessary,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: for why you should wait and see keep an eye
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on your wisdom, teeth, throat and have them taken it out.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: There's risks to having oral surgery, like you can damage
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: nerves and tissue and your jawbone like sometimes I know
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you mean, She said her oral surgeon was sweating. He
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was having so much trouble pulling hers out. She just
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: got local anesthetic and she regretted it quite a bit. Yeah,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and the guy was working hard so that it can
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: actually cause damage to get your wisdom teeth removed, which
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: is why they say if they're healthy and they're in,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: just leaving them alone.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And uh, she should have known this is coming
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: because he had a baseball cap on that said never
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: let him see you a sweat and he just turned
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: it around backwards when she got in the chair.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: That's right, man. Can you imagine having your dentist sweat
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: on you.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: No, that's not a good look.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: No, I guess short, stuff's out, don't you agree?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I think so. Stuff you Should Know is a production
• 13:22
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• 13:29
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