3 Things Your Teeth Need to Recover From a Sugary Snack

Each time you eat (or drink) something sugary, the bacteria in your mouth get to work digesting the traces of sugar left behind there. Once they've digested it, this sugar turns to acid.
Acid is corrosive, so these acids can start pulling the minerals that your tooth's surface is made of right out of the enamel structure. If acid attacks your teeth often enough or you don’t provide your teeth with the resources they need to preserve enamel, the damage will become a cavity.
Here are three things your teeth need if they're going to ward off the acid attacks that a sugary snack can produce.
1. Plenty of Time Between Snacks The longer you can go between acid attacks, the better (at least as far as your teeth are concerned). The worst thing you can do is to sit and eat one bite of cookie or take one sip of your sugary beverage every few minutes. That's because even a tiny sip leaves plenty of residual sugar to fuel a bacterial population.
Given the choice between drinking it all down in one go and sipping it, you should choose the quicker option. Taking a sip every few minutes for an hour could produce dozens of acid attacks, rather than just one a few minutes long.
You should also allow recovery time between an acid attack and anything else that might wear away your enamel. For example, dentists recommend that you wait around 30 minutes after eating before you brush your teeth. Otherwise, the scrubbing will happen while your teeth are at their weakest.
2. Minerals to Strengthen Weakened Enamel After your teeth have been eroded by acids, your body works hard to resupply them with the missing minerals to fill their framework back in. Your enamel structure is made up mainly of calcium and phosphate ions, but trace minerals such as strontium and magnesium are present as well.
If your body doesn't have the minerals available, though (for example, if you're deficient in magnesium), the repair process will be less effective. So taking a good mineral supplement daily can help.
You can also help out with the delivery system. Your body provides minerals to the outside surface of your teeth via your saliva. Chewing a piece of gum after a meal or beverage can help to increase the flow of saliva in your mouth and move it around to all the tooth surfaces that need it.
3. Vitamins to Facilitate the Process Taking a multivitamin along with your mineral supplement, as well as getting plenty of vitamins in your food, is important as well. Different vitamins play different roles in keeping your teeth strong.
For example, your teeth produce two types of protein called osteocalcin and Matrix-GLA protein that grab calcium and put it back into the enamel structure. Both these types of protein require vitamin K2 to work well. And vitamin C helps your body absorb calcium from your food in the first place so that it's available to repair eroded enamel.
These three factors can help your teeth bounce back from acid attacks. But remember, great oral hygiene is critical as well. Any plaque left on your teeth contains bacteria, which produce acids that then sit directly on the surface of your enamel. So you need to combine these three items with regular brushing, flossing, and professional dental cleanings.
For more information on the dental services we offer or to schedule a professional cleaning or a new-patient appointment now, call the office of Jeffrey L. Erwin DDS today. We'll be glad to help you with any dental needs you have, from preventive to restorative to cosmetic and beyond.