I want to start a blog sharing some of the knowledge I’ve collected about oral health. I sit in markets every week, and I hear many stories of people’s hardships with their oral health. I hear of people now in their 60s who had all their teeth pulled out when they were teens!! Can you imagine? A 13 year old boy being marched to the dentist to have ALL his teeth pulled out, because it’s cheaper to pull them all out rather then fix the rotten teeth. Thank god these days are behind us, and we can start looking at solutions and prevention rather then take such extreme actions. Hopefully this blog will give you some idea about: What creates cavities? Is it possible to naturally fix them? What is gingivitis? Can we re-grow our gums? What food is damaging to our oral wellbeing and what food helps to re-mineralise your teeth and more. Information I’ve stumbled upon and will keep stumbling upon in my quest for natural oral care … I will give you links to great sites which will give you more detailed information that hopefully you enjoy.
This blog is about plaque and the correct cleaning of your teeth and gums.
Plaque – a bacterial ‘playground’
Your teeth have a hard protective coating called enamel, made up mostly of calcium phosphate. In fact, enamel is the hardest thing in your body, but just like steel, it isn’t impervious to acid. The residues of food in the mouth form a living film called plaque. This is a perfect vehicle for several species of bacteria, which produce acid as they ferment the plaque coating. This acid steadily breaks down tooth enamel to form caries (that’s dentist-speak for cavities).
As we might expect, all foods aren’t the same in this regard. Numerous studies have revealed that the longer a particular food stays in contact with the teeth, the more dangerous it is to dental health. For instance, without any intervention, cooked starches – such as those found in potato chips – cling to teeth much longer than many sugary foods. This boils down to: longer contact with teeth = longer period of acid production = more chance of decay.
The good news is that between meals, saliva helps to clean away food residues; it also works against the demineralisation* of teeth by alkalising the mouth. There’s some more interesting stuff on this here.
Of course, this suggests one actually has time between meals. That is to say – snacking is counterproductive in the fight against tooth decay as it doesn’t allow that down time for the natural clean up to take place. Perhaps the ideal is three meals a day – and no snacking. However, all of this only goes to highlight the importance of cleaning the teeth after eating.
Rinse, Floss, rinse again and brush
Plaque doesn’t just sit on the easily accessable outer surfaces of the teeth. In fact, it loves to hide in the points of contact between teeth and gums. Here it not only leads to cavities, but can create gingivitus (gum disease). The end point of this is wobbly teeth, sore and bleeding gums – and even heart disease. To remove plaque from these areas you need to floss correctly. That is, you need to hook the floss around the tooth, right down to the base, so it hooks out the plaque from between the contact points of the teeth.
When you’ve freed up all that plaque, a good vigorous rinse with tap water will allow you to get rid of it. Follow this up with patient, mindful brushing and you’re going to be visiting the dentist a lot less!
On a final – and hopeful – note, some UK scientists have been developing a gel that can actually repair tooth enamel. More about that here, although it’s early days for that particular avenue of dental care. In the meanwhile: clean teeth after eating.
* Mineralisation is the process by which organisms produce inorganic compounds. This process takes place on the exterior of teeth, leading to the formation of enamel. When the mouth gets too acidic, teeth begin to demineralise, weakening the enamel and allowing the possible formation of caries. This process is then reversed by the actions of ions dissolved in saliva which remineralise teeth.
Tooth Tonic 