Drinking plenty of water isn’t just great for your bones, skin, muscles, digestion, and circulation; it’s quite excellent for your teeth as well! Even if people don’t typically associate a healthy white smile with proper hydration, it can reinforce your teeth, clean your mouth, and keep your immune system strong. Read on to learn why your dentist wants you to drink plenty of water for the sake of your smile.
Water Keeps Your Teeth Strong
America’s tap water is fortified with fluoride, a mineral known among the dental community as “nature’s cavity fighter” because it serves to remineralize teeth in places that have been eroded by use or acid exposure. This makes drinking or brushing with water from the sink one of the best things you can do to prevent tooth decay. In fact, when the Canadian City of Calgary stopped fluoridating its water in 2011, researchers compared the second graders there with those in another city that continued fluoridation. The children in Calgary were found to have more tooth decay than those from the other city.
Water Cleans Your Mouth
Drinking water can get more than a bad taste out of your mouth. Foods and sugary beverages can leave your mouth coated with food particles, acidic residues, sugary films, and all sorts of other things that tooth decay-causing bacteria love. Drinking ample water after meals can wash away much of this debris, helping to keep your breath fresh and your smile free of leafy greens stuck in your teeth.
Water Prevents Dry Mouth
If there’s one thing your teeth don’t like, it’s dry mouth. Saliva serves as your first line of defense against tooth decay and gum disease by washing away leftover food, facilitating swallowing, and remineralizing your teeth with fluoride, calcium, and phosphate. Since the primary ingredient in saliva is water, failing to drink enough of it can leave your mouth dry and at the mercy of the bacteria breeding in the food particles that aren’t being washed away. Staying hydrated will prevent tooth decay by keeping your teeth strong and your mouth moist and lubricated.
Water Has Nothing That Can Harm Your Teeth
If you look at any other beverage such as soda, tea, coffee, wine, beer, or milk, you will find that they contain something that can harm the teeth if consumed to excess. Sugar breeds bacteria, acid erodes enamel, dyes stain teeth, and so on. On the other hand, water has none of these, meaning that you can drink as much as you want and never hurt your teeth.
If you’ve been relying on sodas, energy drinks, or juices for hydration, you might want to consider cutting back on them to make room for more H2O. Water is the favorite beverage of teeth everywhere, and drinking plenty of it will help keep your smile and the rest of your body healthy for life.
About the Practice
Smile by Design of Virginia Beach works hard to put a smile on patients’ faces in or out of the dental chair in Virginia Beach, VA. Led by Drs. Stephanie L. Santos, Vinita J. Folck, and Madison A. Squire, the staff is dedicated to providing world-class care in a friendly and welcoming environment. Services include general, restorative, cosmetic, and emergency dentistry. To learn more about the dental benefits of proper hydration, contact the office online or dial (757) 394-8233.