Research from the University of Adelaide's Australian Research Center for Population Oral Health challenges current thinking on whether many people with tooth loss really need dentures.

Studies have found that people with tooth loss do not have their quality of life interfered with provided they still have a certain number and type of teeth left.

These patients are considered to have shortened dental arches, enabling them to maintain functional use of many teeth. The researchers say there is a cutting off point at which tooth loss interferes with quality of life, but patients only need dentures when they reach that cutting off point.

The study, based on data of more than 2,700 Australians, is to be published in a future issue of Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology. The researchers say as many as 434,000 Australians who currently would be considered for dentures at some stage in their lives may not really need them.