You Think Covid-19 is a Pandemic? Here’s Another Pandemic You Didn’t Know
We all know eating sugar increases our chances of cavities. But did you know that how we eat our foods is just as important as what we eat? According to the Center of Disease Control, dental decay is a nationwide pandemic that affects 90% of adults in the United States (Hygiene-Related Diseases, Sept 26, 2016). If left untreated, it can lead to pain, the inability to chew, a lack of confidence, and infection that can put people off school and work for an extended period of time, not to mention the huge financial burden that usually comes with dental treatment. We all have to eat, but fortunately, there are certain methods of eating that can significantly lower your risk of developing cavities and decrease your dreaded trips to the dentist.
Before we cover how you should be eating, let’s quickly go over the process of how the food we eat can turn into a cavity. There is a sticky film of bacteria that constantly forms on our teeth called plaque. Plaque is constantly formed, even immediately after you brush your teeth! When you eat or drink foods containing sugars, those sugars sit on your teeth and mingle with the plaque. Bacteria in the plaque then eat up the sugars and spit out acid. It is this byproduct of acid that surrounds the tooth and makes cavities form. When the tooth is surrounded by acid, the enamel becomes weakened, breaks down, and a cavity has now started. Now let’s analyze the situation. By changing your diet, you are essentially depriving the sugar of the bacteria so it produces less acid, and in turn, fewer cavities.
Three Golden Principles exist to create a cavity-resisting mouth.
The First Golden Principle of Eating: Candy is not the only source of sugar! Many parents come to me and wonder, “Why does my child get cavities when they don’t even eat candy?” Almost 100% of the time when we question further, the child is still eating lots of sugars, just not in the form of candy. When we eat carbohydrates, for example, our body breaks down the carbohydrates into sugars as well. That means when we eat carbs like bread, rice, and pasta, we are also providing a sugar source for the bacteria to create cavities! Unfortunately, the American diet has overdosed on sugar. Sugar is present everywhere and takes its shape in unsightly forms such as coffee creamers, ketchup, low-fat yogurt, even vegetables, and cheese! So does that mean we stop eating altogether? Of course not. In fact, sugar is a crucial energy source for our bodies. What we need to do is to analyze our diets very carefully to detect those unsightly sources of sugar, recognize their presence, and reduce where we can.
The Second Golden Principle of Eating: When we eat snacks, it’s better to eat it in one sitting and immediately after a meal. If giving up M&M’s is something you can never imagine, then at least eat all of it in one sitting instead of munching on a few throughout the day. Why is that, you say? Every time we eat sugar, the bacteria on our teeth spit out acid. On the other hand, our saliva is basic. One of the saliva’s main functions is to counter the acid and bring your mouth back to neutral so cavities can’t form. When you eat all the sugar in one sitting, your mouth becomes acidic only one time before it’s brought back to neutral by the saliva. Your mouth stays neutral until the next meal. When you snack throughout the day, your mouth is constantly acidic, and the chance of developing cavities becomes much higher. Another interesting note is that our salivary flow is strongest when we are eating a meal as it tries to break down food. When we snack right after a meal, that strong salivary flow will also help flush the acids away. Who would’ve thought our saliva is so important, right?
The Third Golden Principle of Eating: If you want a snack, try snacking on something with less sugar like vegetables and cheese (that’s right, even vegetables contain sugar!). And remember, after you eat, you should either rinse your mouth with water to flush out the sticky carbohydrates or chew some xylitol gum. Gum-chewing stimulates saliva formation and helps to flush out the sugars after a meal. I stated, “rinse your mouth” instead of “brush your teeth” after eating because brushing is not recommended immediately after eating. In fact, brushing immediately after eating can actually weaken your enamel.
Hopefully, at this point, you now understand that how we eat is just as important as what we eat. But knowledge without execution is useless. They say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Make a decision to start implementing the principles today. What small adjustments can you make in your eating habits today that will benefit you a lifetime? Here’s to happy and healthy eating!
If you liked and learned something new from reading this article, leave me a comment below on what small adjustments you will make in your eating habits starting today! If you want to hear more from me about all the burning questions you’ve had about teeth and get more tidbits on what your dentist doesn’t tell you, go ahead and follow me on Medium and also join my Facebook page at “What Your Dentist Doesn’t Tell You”, https://www.facebook.com/What-Your-Dentist-Doesnt-Tell-You-111673077303715.
In my spare time, I also like to write about other topics like managing finances, tips on admission into professional schools, etc which I will be posting regularly on Medium as well.
References:
Hygiene-Related Diseases — Dental Caries (Tooth Decay), Center of Disease Control, 26 Sept 2016, https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/disease/dental_caries.html
About Me:
Dr. Jing Lin is a Dentist who graduated from the №1 Public University in the United States — UCLA with a full-ride scholarship. I then attended dental school for four years in Rutgers School of Dentistry NJ and completed my Doctor of Dental Medicine degree at the top of my class.
Today, I am a practicing Senior Managing Dentist in private practice in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. I am also an online instructor on Udemy on simplified dental education. Through years of practicing in dentistry, I realized that there is a lack of communication between some dentists and their patients, leading to a lack of dental knowledge that every patient is entitled to know. It’s shocking to me how many times patients tell me that the dental education that I gave them at their routine visits is the very first time the concept has been introduced to them. There is currently a decay pandemic that we are facing that is severely underestimated. I firmly believe that education is the only key that will cure the decay pandemic in our generation and the next.
I believe in a world where the average patient understands that dental decay is not just a cavity to fill, but is an infection inside their mouths that can cause problems in other parts of their body if left untreated. In this world, patients are willing to go back for dental treatment on their own because they understand the significance of why it needs to be done, not because the dentist told them to do so. Also in this world, basic dental knowledge is not exclusive to dentists but becomes second nature to the public where they can pass down the knowledge and benefit their next generations. Join me in this movement.
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