6 Easy Ways to Wreck Your Teeth.
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No one wants to have nasty breath, or big dental bills. Nonetheless, there are several very common habits that can produce both of those unpleasant results. And they can also leave your smile looking more Pirate of the Caribbean than Christie Brinkley.
Should your looks, breath and bank balance not be enough motivation to break those tooth-busting habits, maintaining your overall health should be. “It is absolutely clear that teeth are connected to the rest of the body,” says American Dental Association spokesman Dr. Matthew Messina. While the exact mechanism remains unclear, studies have shown links between bacteria in the mouth and heart disease, diabetes and low-birth-weight babies. “It’s about bacterial load,” Messina says. “If you’re fighting bacteria in your mouth, you have fewer resources to fight other things in your body.”
Here are the six most common tooth-defying mistakes and how you can avoid them:
- Constant Coffee Baths: Take a look around any office building or car interior and you’re likely to see desks and cup-holders littered with giant coffee or soda cups. Americans, particularly office workers, have a tendency to sip and snack all day. Not only do coffee and tea tend to stain your teeth, but if you’re drinking milky, sweet coffee or soda, you’re creating a mini-health hazard in your mouth. Consuming carbohydrates, particularly sugars, activates the acid-producing bacteria that live on the surface of your teeth. “Every time the bacteria get active they produce more acid, and that just causes more decay,” says Dr. Kimberly Harms, a dentist in Farmington, Minn. She encourages her patients to refrain from snacking or sipping drinks all day to reduce the amount of sugars these bacteria are burning.
- Dessert Without Dinner: Many of us are eating our cake—or cupcake or muffin—as a snack rather than an after-meal treat. If you don’t have the willpower to cut sweet treats and sodas out of your diet (and most of us don’t), then try to consume them as part of a main meal, when the decay-causing bacteria are already working. That way you limit your exposure to the bacteria to just a couple of times per day, rather than having them constantly active. If you can’t eat a whole meal, Harms says that eating a small piece of hard cheese after a meal can be good for your teeth. “First of all, cheese has calcium in it, and hard cheeses have been shown to neutralize the pH levels in your mouth,” she says. That means your mouth is less acidic, and therefore less prone to tooth decay.
- Water Deprivation: Everyone seems to be carrying a bottle of water lately, but most of us don’t know that one of the most tooth-friendly times you can drink water is after you eat. A glass of water after a meal will wash away food particles and some bacteria, and generally clean the mouth. But, unlike most beverages, it won’t introduce new sugars to your mouth or fattening calories to your system. Plus, water can help you feel full and stick to a weight-loss regime.
- Tough Love: If you adore chewy or sticky treats like taffy, Starburst candies, Skittles, Tootsie Rolls or even gnawing on those unpopped popcorn kernels or ice, beware. That’s one of the best ways to stuff a long-lasting chunk of tooth-rotting bacteria into a hard-to-clean spot inside your mouth, or even to crack a tooth. With all the sugar in sticky candy, even a tiny piece is like a siren song to bacteria. Ice, peanut brittle and popcorn kernels are also a problem for teeth. “Ice and tooth enamel are both crystals. When you push two crystals against each other, the weaker one will break most of the time—that’s the ice—but occasionally the teeth will break,” says Messina.
- Produce Avoidance: We all know fruits and veggies are good for your figure and can prevent disease. But avoiding them has oral consequences, too. Fruits and vegetables contain vitamins that are particularly important for your gums, helping prevent infections that may cause gums to become inflamed or bleed. “You can see the effect of malnutrition on gums almost immediately,” says Messina.
- Gumming up the Works: Maybe you just can’t shake that addiction to the little shock of sweet that comes with that first chomp of sugary gum, but try a little harder. Giving your teeth a regular sucrose shower, even with a tiny slice of gum, is a fabulous way to promote tooth decay. On the other hand, chewing sugar-free gum has all kinds of benefits. It increases the production of saliva, which is your body’s natural mechanism for washing away food and neutralizing acid.
Even if you just can’t break those tooth-busting habits, you can still work on developing consistently excellent tooth-care routines. “You can eat almost anything you want, as long as you brush and floss to get rid of it,” says Messina. He emphasizes the importance of flossing, saying that unfortunately only 25-30 percent of his patients floss every day. “Flossing every day is best, but even if you do it only three or four days out of seven, you’re doing better than most.” He says a lot of his patients engage in “social brushing” or brushing after eating to “get rid of that broccoli from between the teeth. But at least once a day you want to do a really thorough job.” Harms recommends using a soft toothbrush in a gentle, circular motion, and fluoridated toothpaste. “You don’t want to scrub your teeth with a hard brush. Also, visit your dentist on a regular basis to make sure that tartar is being cleaned off and your gums are healthy,” she says.
Electric toothbrushes can help ensure that you brush for the right amount of time and prevent hard scrubbing, but they aren’t necessarily better. Regular toothbrushes should be replaced every three to four months. And if you use mouthwash, make sure you choose one that carries the American Dental Association seal of acceptance, as that means it has undergone independent testing to verify its claims.
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
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