Medicine: Ultra-Bite

New braces for older smiles

Max Nottingham, 33, a beer wholesaler in Hartford City, Ind., had crooked teeth as a child and recalls, "I just wasn't ready emotionally for braces." Years later, looking at a family photograph, he noticed that even as an adult he was holding his mouth "very strangely" in order to cover his malaligned teeth. Last October a dentist spent 1 hr. 45 min. fitting Nottingham with braces. Two weeks later his teeth were wired. "Within 60 days, there was a tremendous amount of difference," says Nottingham, whose 18-to 24-month treatment will cost $3,000. "I'm seeing an aesthetic and a health difference." The one thing that nobody is seeing—even when Nottingham smiles broadly—is his wires. He is wearing "invisible" braces, which avoid unsightly steel bands on the outside of teeth. Says he: "I can go out in public, and people have no idea I'm wearing them."

Nottingham is one of hundreds of thousands of adults who are discovering braces are not just for youngsters. The American Association of Orthodontists (A.A.O.) estimates that since the 1970s the number of adults wearing braces has increased 50% to 75%. The A.A.O. claims that of the 4 million Americans currently wearing braces about 800,000 are over 18. (Adults who openly sport braces include Nancy Kissinger, 48, and Miss America of 1975, Shirley Cothran Barrett, 29. Barrett, in fact, appears fully wired in an ad the A.A.O. has been running in magazines to foster a positive image of grownup braces.) Says Spiro Chaconas, chairman of the department of orthodontics at the University of California, Los Angeles, Dental School: "If Eleanor Roosevelt were alive today and had braces put on her teeth at, say, age 60, she could have near perfect dentition within a couple of years."

Much of the credit for the new acceptance of adult braces must go to the invisible, or lingual, appliance, which offers an alternative to people who cannot face the world with a "tin grin." It was invented by Craven Kurz, 39, a Beverly Hills, Calif, orthodontist who once was a faculty member of UCLA Dental School. Some of Kurz's patients, among them actors, announcers and even Playboy Bunnies, had a professional investment in their smiles. "They were in a Catch-22 situation," explains Kurz. "They needed to have their teeth straightened, but they couldn't use conventional braces—it would be disastrous for their jobs."

Kurz came up with the notion of using a new bonding technique to attach a brace to the back of the tooth. The braces were tightened by a wire anchored to the patient's molars. After trying a prototype on his receptionist, Kurz filed for a patent in 1976 and sold it two years later to Ormco, a dental-appliance manufacturing company. At present 3,000 of the nation's estimated 7,400 orthodontists have signed up for Ormco-sponsored seminars in Kurz's technique.