Dentistry can reveal a lot about a country. A classic episode of The Simpsons gave a glimpse of how the Americans saw us back in the 1990s. It featured dentist Dr Wolfe brandishing a large volume of “British smiles” full of yellow, crooked and missing gnashers as a warning to American children about the perils of poor dental hygiene.

Even that represented some progress. In the early days of the NHS, dentures were considered so aspirational that it became a common rite of passage to have all your teeth pulled out. Seventy-six years later, a mouth full of gleaming white, regular and highly Instagrammable teeth is the latest must-have. Veneers, straightening, whitening and implants have all been available for decades, yet it’s only in recent years that demand has really taken off in the UK.

According to a new report from the Oral Health Foundation, four in ten people under 35 have had tooth whitening. A further 48 per cent are planning to have their teeth whitened within the next 12 months.

Hampstead dentist Linda Greenwall has seen an “exponential” increase in demand for cosmetic treatments of all sorts, which she attributes in part to the upsurge in social media and celebrity culture. She says that improving your smile “makes you look better, feel better, look ten years younger”. A diminutive figure in bright pink scrubs with blonde hair pulled away from her face, South African born Dr Greenwall is keen to stress the links between good oral health and overall wellbeing. A leading expert in tooth whitening, she says there is clear scientific evidence that the process improves gum health. With other treatments the case seems less clear-cut, but if partnered with good maintenance, an improvement in overall oral health is often the result.

Dr Greenwall says that some patients come to her ahead of a big simchah or even a divorce. But for other people the need is largely caused by medical problems.

Julian Lewis, 57, lost most of his teeth after suffering a life-threatening bout of sepsis, which had long-term impacts both mentally and physically, he says. “The integrity of the teeth was just lost, and they started to crumble one after the other. In the end, I was left with three bottom teeth and four front teeth.” After illness made it impossible to continue running his Hampstead property company, Julian moved to Thailand to live near his wife’s family. He had 14 dental implants fitted at a Bangkok clinic, each one replacing a missing tooth. The procedure involves inserting a titanium post into the jawbone, to which a porcelain crown is then fixed. For Julian, the £14,000 package was costly but worth it, and a fraction of the price in London, which can be around £3,000 per implant.

“I want to be able to eat things and chew, which I couldn’t do, and that was my primary motivation”, he says, while acknowledging how much his new teeth have also helped his self-confidence, “I’ve had enough hardship with this illness. I just didn’t want to suffer any more from the consequences of it. This was one of the things I could address.”

Though Julian is very satisfied with his treatment, which took 12 months to complete by a qualified practitioner who trained in the US, Dr Greenwall does urges caution to anybody thinking of having major dental work done abroad simply because it is cheaper.

She says she’s come across some “horror stories” of work failing and needing to be fixed.

“Although they saved, maybe £5,000 pounds on one treatment, the rest of their life they pay to repair the damage.”

Decades of smoking resulted in Helen Stollar, 73, losing several teeth to gum disease, which made her highly self-conscious, “I hated having gaps in my mouth, and I hated having wobbly teeth”.

Fitting nine implants into her upper jaw cost the retired personal assistant “enough to buy a small car”. Giving up smoking was essential to maintain her new teeth, as tobacco smoke can affect the titanium implants but despite the cost and pain, Helen has no regrets, “It was simply quite amazing. I never, ever looked back.”

While there is plenty of evidence of record levels of tooth decay amid a huge shortage of NHS dentists, at the same time cosmetic dentistry has become big business in the UK. A radiant, regular smile is no longer the preserve of film stars and the super-rich, as more people are prepared to dig into savings in order to look good and feel healthy, and for some patients it is an essential brick in the road to recovery.

New test for Parkinson’s disease

For anybody grappling with the many physical and emotional challenges of Parkinson’s, it’s been a week of good news, with hope for preventative treatment, and a new fund to help patients.

Researchers at University College London have discovered a blood test that can diagnose the condition seven years before symptoms appear. The tremor and stiffness that are the most visible signs of Parkinson’s result from the loss of brain cells producing dopamine, which is essential for good health.

Professor Kevin Mills of UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health said that by the time symptoms are evident, it is too late to repair the damage.

“At present we are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted,” he said. “We need to diagnose patients before they have developed the symptoms. We cannot regrow our brain cells and therefore we need to protect those that we have.”

In the UK some 153,000 people are living with Parkinson’s, which mainly affects the over-50s. Though environmental factors play a part, in some cases, the progressive neurological condition is due to a genetic mutation, which is more common in Ashkenazi Jews.

Harris Frazer, 69, who has been living with Parkinson’s for 14 years, was cautiously positive about the new test. “Obviously I’m not medically qualified,” he says, “but I’m all for these research projects and I think it can only be a good thing and welcomed and encouraged and fostered.”

Last year, Harris received a Prime Minister’s Award for setting up a Manchester exercise club that aims to slow down the progress of neurological conditions. The Neuro Kinetics club offers twice-weekly exercise sessions with trained specialists.

In the same week as news of the blood test emerged, a new fund was launched to promote understanding of the debilitating disorder. King’s Parkinson’s (KP) is fronted by Professor K Ray Chaudhuri and Sir Nicholas Mostyn, the retired High Court judge and co-founder of the award-winning podcast Movers and Shakers. KP will campaign for better access to neurologists and a greater awareness of the condition’s many complex symptoms, such as impulse control disorders, gut problems and mood issues. It describes Parkinson’s as a “Cinderella” condition because it lacks the fund-raising pull of other serious illnesses, such as cancer.

The aims of the new fund resonate deeply with Frazer. He says consultations with a specialist are infrequent, while raising money for his project has been a challenge despite its extraordinary success because “we get lost among all the big charity names in Manchester.”