Editor’s Note: It’s important to understand this study is coming out of the BMJ’s Christmas edition, which is notoriously “silly”. Last year they had a study about “Men are bigger idiots than women“, in which they looked at Darwin Awards winners and found most were men. So, purposefully, they made a sweeping generalization that this was proof men were bigger idiots. It’s just the BMJ having fun. Yes, it’s actual research, but it’s also not as strict. Just scientists having a good time within the parameters of “getting published”.

You know all those stereotypical jokes about how bad British people’s teeth are? Turns out that folks in the UK are having the last laugh, as a new British Medical Journal study reports that the molars and incisors of the average American are no better.

According to CNN.com and The Washington Post, Professor Richard Watt of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London and his colleagues compared data from a pair of nationally representative samples: the British Adult Dental Health Survey (ADHS) in 2009 and the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005-08.

They found that the average number of missing teeth was actually higher in America (7.31) than in England (6.97), and adults in the differences in oral care quality among rich and poor adults in the US are much wider than they are in the UK. Similar inequalities among less educated people were also more pronounced in the States than they were in Great Britain, the authors noted.

“Contrary to popular belief, our study showed that the oral health of US citizens is not better than the English,” they wrote. “Indeed, our study showed a mixed picture, with Americans having significantly more missing teeth, the English reporting more oral impacts, and no differences in self rated oral health between the two countries.”

Smoking, eating habits of Americans may explain the results

Watt, himself a native of Scotland, told the Post that he and his colleagues were “surprised” by the results of their work. One reason for the difference, they explained, may be that dental care in the US is provided privately and can be on the expensive side, while they are provided as part of the nationalized health-care system in the UK.

Another possibility may be that Americans engage in more behaviors that could put their teeth at risk, such as smoking or eating sugary foods more often. However, despite having better teeth on the whole, the British reportedly said that dental problems had a greater impact on overall quality of life – something that Watt says may be because “the English complain more!”

The research also found that, in both the US and the UK, women reported a greater number of oral impacts and had a greater number of missing teeth than men. Among people aged 25 to 64, Americans were found to have a higher number of missing teeth and edentulousness, while UK residents 65 years or older tended to have a greater number of missing teeth.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

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