“Almost everyone brushes their teeth,” concluded a group of researchers from the University of Gottemburg in 2012. The problem is that “only one in ten does well.” The results were limited to Sweden, but from what we know they are still perfectly valid in the western world: we dedicate a disproportionate amount of time and resources to clean our teeth badly.
Not only is citizens’ fault. And, as the BBC explained, studies have found at least “66 different types of expert advice, sometimes contradictory to each other.” So we have asked ourselves … What does the evidence available about washing your teeth?
How to wash your teeth? The most effective way to wash our teeth is one that understands what we wash them for. Usually, we usually believe we brush to eliminate food from the mouth; But there is something else. The teeth develop a dense biopay (the dental plate) that surrounds it and that is not easy to remove only with a rinse.
We brush our teeth to remove that sticky layer manually and as much as possible. To remove it from the teeth and gums, of course.
There are several techniques for this, but now we are going to focus on the most important: that “the movement should not be made horizontally, but the brush must move from the gums to the bottom of the tooth,” explained the dentist Juan Casado Adam.
How many times do you have to wash your teeth? Twice at least, experts tell us: one before going to sleep and another as soon as we wake up. It may seem strange, but it has its explanation: saliva has a key role in inhibition of the bacterial plaque. But while we sleep we produce less saliva.
As, while we sleep, our mouth becomes more hospitable to bacteria, prior washing helps eliminate ‘waste’ that bacteria can use to develop their activity and weaken the enamel. Therefore, the washing after waking ourselves has as a key function to renew the medium loaded with bacteria that we have in the mouth and help saliva to fulfill its function.
Do not you wash your teeth after meals? Actually, using medium hardness brushes, we can brush our teeth as many times as we want. And yes, it is usually a good idea to do it after eating because we remove waste that bacteria could use.
However, there are exceptions: if we have consumed a lot of acidic drinks (“such as soft drinks, coffee or alcohol”), sweet or we have vomited, brushing can immediately be an error. According to Luis Cabezas Vallejo, pediatric nurse, when the pH of the mouth is acidic, the enamel weakens and brushed at that time, it can cause damage (even if they are invaluable).
As Juan Carlos Llodra explained in ABC, deputy secretary of the Executive Committee of the General Council of Dentistas Colleges of Spain, in that situation it is better to wait, let the saliva neutralize the acids (or sugars) and then brush.
Imagen | Joni Ludlow
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