The universe has pledged to feed you any amount of food or beverage at any hour of the day, right at your doorstep, making sure you indulge way beyond your capacity or necessity! While writing a FOODIE in your social media handle makes you look cool, mindless eating/drinking can really take a toll on your oral and overall health!
Carbonated and Energy Drinks: A dentist’s nightmare is definitely a mouth full of popcorn infused with your soft beverage. Despite multiple warning against this sugar laden drink, even the DIET versions are no lesser culprits due to presence of citric and phosphoric acid. Stop bathing your teeth in a pool of sugar in low pH environment and ditch your sodas for healthy alternatives like water, fresh fruit juice, kombucha, coconut water etc.
Sour Candies: Sugar and acid is the most lethal combination for your mouth. Candies remain glued to your teeth for prolonged period and invite bacterial attack resulting in demineralization of teeth. Frequent intake is bound to give you cavities on your chewing teeth.
Alcohol: The best way to have your alcohol is neat or with plain water. (Of course in moderation!). Alcohol dehydrates your system overall typically representing as dry mouth. Lack of flushing action of saliva causes stagnation of food in the mouth and overall acidic environment acts as a bigger deterrent. The mouth becomes conducive for bacterial multiplication and subsequent weakening of tooth structure. Red wine needs a special mention due to the purplish hue imparted on teeth typically causing teeth staining.
Ice: Chewing or accidental biting on ice may result in enamel cracks, chipping or fracture leading to a dental emergency. Extreme temperature exposure and the hardness of ice can lead to sensitivity problems and even toothache in the middle of the night.
Sticky food like dried fruit and gummy bears: Sticky food items remain stuck in fissures of teeth for a long time as they are not washed out by normal salivation or rinsing. TIME is more crucial than sugar and acid attack as bacteria gets enough exposure for harming the teeth.
Wafers/Chips: A bag of crunchy potato chips while binge watching Netflix is too hard to resist! The clinginess and richness of starch enables us to relish the flavours for a long time and makes the mouth difficult to clean. Plaque accumulates along gum margins and can harden with time forming tartar leading to gum bleeding, soreness, bad breath etc.
Citrus Fruits: Citrus fruits like lemon, orange, strawberry, kiwi, berries are acidic in nature. Frequent intake besides mealtimes lead to erosion of enamel with time eventually causing dentin exposure. Dentin is much softer than enamel and susceptible to decay and teeth sensitivity issues due to lack of protective covering of enamel. Citric fruits/juices can also agitate pre-existing mouth sores or ulcers.
Habitual Tea/Coffee: Are you prone to migraine if you skip your regular tea/coffee at specific hours of the day? With every milk cup smeared with sugar and inherent dehydration of mouth, regular sipping can lead to both teeth staining and cavities. The salivary glands can’t cope up with constant attack and fail in neutralizing the mouth promoting dental problems.
Eat everything- but at the right time and always within limits! If you are looking for a dentist in Gurgaon, feel free to contact us to resolve all your dental problems. Experienced team of dentists at Dental Panache always take pride in educating the patients to help them maintain a healthy smile!