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Episode details

Sounds,22 Oct 2026,27 mins

Do Brits have bad teeth?

Here for the History

Available for over a year

British people have terrible teeth. That’s the stereotype - but is it true? And what’s the story behind it? Ben Henderson and Alice Loxton explore how Brits got a reputation for bad teeth thanks to our love of sugar, and we see how British and American teeth took wildly different paths after the Second World War. Key Sources: June Thomas - Journalist. The Bad-Mouthing of British Teeth - Decoder Ring podcast. Drills, Dentures and Dentistry: An Oral History - BBC Four. Dr Irwin Smigel - The Times. Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys - British Medical Journal.

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