About Dental Implants & Smoking

Dental implants count as cosmetic dentistry. They act as tooth prosthetics and take the place of missing teeth. They stay in your mouth permanently, as opposed to dentures, and look much more realistic. Dental implant placement begins as a surgery. Sometimes that surgery succeeds, and other times the implant fails. Smoking hurts dental implant success rates.

Risk

• Researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain concluded in a study that tobacco use puts people at a 15.8 percent risk of having a dental implant failure. Compared to a 1.4 percent failure rate with nonsmokers, smoking highly affects implant success, according to findings published in the "Journal of Periodontology" in 2007.

Cause

• The higher dental implant failure rates has to do with blood flow. Smoking decreases blood flow to the oral tissue like the gums, teeth and bone. The less blood flow, the slower the healing time. If the implant site doesn't heal and become a part of the surrounding bone, it fails, says the American Academy of Periodontology.

Expense

• Dental implants cost a lot of money. Dentists should ask you if you smoke and let you know the success and failure rates depending on your situation. A failed dental implant due to smoking wastes a lot of money. Potential dental implant patients may have better luck quitting smoking before the procedure.

Time Frame

• People who quit smoking before the dental implant can have the same success rate as non-smokers. They must quit at least four weeks before the procedure and continue living a non-smoking lifestyle for at least 12 weeks after the surgery, according to Family Gentle Dental Care.

Other Factors

• Smoking isn't the only thing that puts you at greater risk for dental implant failure. If you are a smoker, however, having other detrimental habits or other problems could make your odds worse. People who drink alcohol, have diabetes, heart disease or bruxism (teeth-grinding) have higher failure rates as well, reports Family Gentle Dental Care.