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Your teeth are what they eat

Posted on Sep 17th 2007 9:30AM by Bethany Sanders

Filed Under: Healthy Habits, Diet & Weight Loss

When it comes to dental care, you already know that brushing and flossing are high priority. But did you know that what you eat and when you eat it can also have a significant impact on the state of your teeth and gums as well? For instance, eating sweets for a snack in between meals exposes your teeth to decay causing bacteria several times a day, but if you save them for after dinner, you can limit the damage. Other tips include:

Avoid all gum, unless it's sugarless.
Enjoy your coffee, then put your cup away. When you sip all day, you expose yourself to decay all day too.
Stay hydrated. Water doesn't activate those pesky bacteria, plus it can wash away food.
Avoid sticky and chewy candies and chewing on hard things like ice.
Get your fruits and veggies.

There are a lot of factors that determine your dental health, but these tips can help anyone prevent problems down the road.

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Tags: dental health, dental hygiene, DentalHealth, DentalHygiene, tips for cleaner teeth, TipsForCleanerTeeth

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

smdryad 9-17-2007 @ 4:19PM

Diet has a huge impact on your dental health. There is a huge influence exerted by diet, including prenatally and preconceptually. What parents or prospective parents eat influence the shape of the baby's head and the formation and alignment of the teeth. Once the baby is born, nutrition exerts much influence on the quality of the composition of the teeth. This trend continues throughout our lifetimes. The good news is that if nutrition has been poor in the past, processes such as decay and gum disease can be reversed by consuming a high quality diet now and in the future. The bad news is that the structure of the skull, face, jaw and tooth alignment are more difficult to alter.

This article by holistic dentist, Raymond Silkman is an excellent overview of the influence of diet on the skull structure and tooth alignment. http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/facial-development.html

For an example of the influence of diet upon processes like tooth decay and gum disease, see this article by Emmanuel Cheraskin, MD, DMD http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/toothbrush.html

Jen
http://www.squidoo.com/vitaminsthatwork