In an experiment on two groups of rock hyraxes fed hardened or softened versions of the same foods, the animals fed softer food had significantly narrower and shorter faces and thinner and shorter mandibles than animals fed hard food.A 2016 review found that breastfeeding lowers the incidence of malocclusions developing later on in developing infants.During the transition to agriculture, the shape of the human mandible went through a series of changes. The mandible underwent a complex shape changes not matched by the teeth, leading to incongruity between the dental and mandibular form. These changes in human skulls may have been "driven by the decreasing bite forces required to chew the processed foods eaten once humans switched to growing different types of cereals, milking and herding animals about 10,000 years ago." Treatment
Orthodontic management of the condition includes dental braces, lingual braces, clear aligners or palatal expanders. Other treatments include the removal of one or more teeth and the repair of injured teeth. In some cases, surgery may be necessary. Treatment
Malocclusion is often treated with orthodontics, such as tooth extraction, clear aligners, or dental braces, followed by growth modification in children or jaw surgery (orthognathic surgery) in adults. Surgical intervention is used only in rare occasions. This may include surgical reshaping to lengthen or shorten the jaw. Wires, plates, or screws may be used to secure the jaw bone, in a manner like the surgical stabilization of jaw fractures. Very few people have "perfect" alignment of their teeth with most problems being minor that do not require treatment.
Bolton developed a method to calculate the ratio between the mesiodistal width of maxillary and mandibular teeth and stated that a correct and harmonious occlusion is possible only with adequate proportionality of tooth sizes. Boltons formula concludes that if in the anterior portion the ratio is less than 77.2% the lower teeth are too narrow, the upper teeth are too wide or there is a combination of both. If the ratio is higher than 77.2% either the lower teeth are too wide, the upper teeth are too narrow or there is a combination of both. Other conditions
Other kinds of malocclusions can be due to or horizontal, vertical, or transverse skeletal discrepancies, including skeletal asymmetries. Increased vertical growth causes a long facial profile and commonly leads to an open bite malocclusion, while decreased vertical facial growth causes a short facial profile and is commonly associated with a deep bite malocclusion. However, there are many other more common causes for open bites (such as tongue thrusting and thumb sucking) and likewise for deep bites.The upper or lower jaw can be overgrown (macrognathia) or undergrown (micrognathia). It has been reported that patients with micrognathia are also affected by retrognathia (abnormal posterior positioning of the mandible or maxilla relative to the facial structure). These patients are majorly predisposed to a class II malocclusion. Mandibular macrognathia results in prognathism and predisposes patients to a class III malocclusion.Most malocclusion studies to date have focused on Class III malocclusions. Genetic studies for Class II and Class I malocclusion are more rare.