Let’s look at the numbers around wisdom teeth. Dental professionals extract around 10 million wisdom teeth every year.
It costs between $1000-$3000 to get all four wisdom teeth extracted, which means this procedure generates around $2.5-$3 billion dollars in revenue each year.
A study from one journal estimated that around 67% of wisdom teeth removal procedures were unnecessary. In fact, the same journal found that out of 10 million wisdom teeth removals, only 20 were actually necessary. Dental experts, to the contrary, say that between 70%-80% of wisdom teeth need to be extracted.
Why Do We Have Wisdom Teeth Anyway? If so many people get their wisdom teeth removed, why do we have them in the first place? The reason is unclear, but some anthropologists think that this extra set of molars helped our ancestors process their tough, chewy diets. Since ancient humans were eating nuts, leaves, and meats, they needed some extra molar strength to reduce the burden on their teeth.
However, our ancestors also had larger jaws than we do today, jaws that could accommodate an extra set of molars. Over time, we developed tools (like forks!) and techniques to make eating easier and food softer, so we no longer needed our super jaws to process food.
When conditions in our environment change, our bodies often change over time to adapt; in this case, our jaws became smaller since we no longer needed the extra chewing power. As our jaws shrank, our wisdom teeth suddenly became the odd men out.
Hence, many of our wisdom teeth now become impacted or misplaced as we come of age, which is why many dental experts recommend that people get these teeth removed.