Dr. Kevin Boyd
Topic of the lecture:
The importance of respiration and mastication in the etiology, diagnosis and treatment of malocclusions in preschool-age patients
Abstract:
In 1921 distinguished Boston orthodontist Leroy Johnson presented, ‘The Diagnosis of Malocclusion with Reference to Early Treatment’ concluding, ‘The face has evolved with the functions of mastication and respiration. The perversion of either or both of these functions will result in some degree of modification of the structure of the jaws’ (1). Similar observations had been expressed in 1912 by physician-dentist EA Bogue, ‘When the dental arch is narrow, the nasal openings are also narrow, and are accompanied with more or less nasal stenosis…..A large percent of these cases are caused by the lack of natural capacity, due largely to the contracted dental arch and nares…..The roof of the mouth is the floor of the nose…The proper lateral expansion of the upper dental arch especially in young patients, while in their developmental stage increases the narial openings and improves the breathing capacity…’
Historically, until approximately 300-400 years ago, over the 300,000 + years of H. sapiens’ evolution, the human diet had been mostly derived from hunted and gathered fresh, fibrous and firm edible plants, and raw, or minimally-cooked, animal product sources. Consequently, surviving on these crude (i.e., minimally-processed) food products had required vast quantities of energy and time for chewing and digestion. The great physical challenge posed to the soft and hard tissues comprising the human masticatory apparatus (i.e., jaws, teeth, tongue, muscles of mastication and salivary glands, etc.), was also conducive to optimal growth and development of the interconnected craniofacial and respiratory complex (CFRC). In contrast however, nowadays, the consumption of readily-available ultra-processed foods requires very little masticatory effort for adequate digestion and thus poses minimal challenge to the growing/developing CFRC. This presentation will propose a hypothetical relationship exists between changed food processing and feeding/dietary practices since the advent of mechanized industry (circa, mid-18th-Century thru late 19th-Century) and a coincident increased prevalence of human malocclusion phenotypes and associated impaired naso-respiratory competence often observed within industrialized populations.
Biosketch:
Dr. Kevin Boyd is a board certified Pediatric Dentist in Chicago who holds an M.Sc. degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics. He teaches in the Pediatric Dentistry residency training program at Lurie Children’s Hospital and also serves as a dental consultant to the Lurie Sleep Medicine service. Dr. Boyd is an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas mentoring PhD research, and also serves as a Visiting Consulting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archeology and Anthropology where he is collaboratively exploring a hypothetical relationship between changed dietary practices since the Industrial Revolution and diminished human dentofacial development. He lectures worldwide on the topics of Early Childhood Malocclusion (under age 72 months), pediatric sleep-breathing hygiene and Evolutionary Oral Medicine/Darwinian Dentistry.
