Don’t you just feel like every good break requires a great drink to accompany it with? It is as if you cannot relax until you have got that perfect drink to parch your thirst on one hand. One sip and it feels like your guard is lowering down and you allow positive energy to flow into your body.
It is a hard feeling to explain; it is a blend of relief, resignation, and decompression. The kind of feeling you would want to experience after a long and tiring day.
While this certain feeling is something we all want to experience (over and over again to no end, even), some beverages have implications on our health (read more). And I am not just talking about how sugar can cause diabetes or how too much consumption of dairy products can cause kidney stones, I am talking about something more apparent and obvious – dental health.
We all want to achieve that perfect smile. The kind that is contagious and makes people want to share more happy moments with you. Your set of pearly whites is one of your face’s prettiest asset. So, what happens if your teeth begin to lose their lustre? What happens if from white and pearly, it turns into something that looks foul and yellow? Now, that will be very tragic.
Some drinks can be bad for your teeth. They eat away the shine of your precious teeth and replace them with dull, uneven, and irritating shades of grey and yellow. You certainly don’t want to be going out in public with your teeth looking like this. Fortunately, there are several ways that you can do to maintain that beautiful smile of yours. Be it through regularly dental cleaning or home made natural whitening, these would make an impact to your teeth. If you have crooked teeth, getting braces or invisalign are one of the many ways you can take to straighten your teeth as well.
Does this mean your favorite drinks have to go?
Well, not exactly. For one, I think that denying yourself of simple pleasures that actually give you renewed vigour in life is just cruel. Second, I do not really think you can deny yourself of such temptations in the first place! Some loves are just that hard to let go. You might even choose to live toothless for the rest of your life if that means you can keep on chugging down liquid comfort.
Instead of pulling away from drinks that give you joy, you should focus more of your energy on looking for ways to take better care of your teeth. Lucky for you, you won’t have such a hard time looking anymore because we took the liberty to list down many expert tips for you!
Here’s a list of beverages that can negatively affect your dental health. Learn how you can keep drinking these without having to worry about the state of your teeth below:
Coffee & Tea
Unfortunately, two of people’s most favourite drinks fall under our teeth-staining drinks category. That’s right. As much as these two beverages are beloved by all because of their perky taste that gives you just the right push to get through your day, they are also a known cause for yellowish teeth. This is because they have chemical compounds that encourage stains in teeth.
Coffee, for example, contains tannins. This is a substance that breaks down H2O (also the reason why coffee is a well-known diuretic. This substance allows compounds with colour or certain hues to stick to the enamel easily. This is why our teeth turn yellow when we’re avid fans of coffee beverages. The same goes for tea.
Of course, it is not like you can just stop your caffeine supply cold turkey. Instead of trying to deny yourself of such pleasures, just put in more work in keeping your pearls healthy. Look into ways and methods to keep yourself white and pearly like maybe adding baking soda to your usual toothpaste. Or, you can get teeth whitening sessions from your family dentist every 6 months or so.
Beer & Soda
Whoops! More crowd favorites join the list! Sorry to tell you guys but your sinful obsession with cold, malty beer or an icy can of soda is secretly damaging your pearly whites. If you have been drinking long enough, I do not think the effects are such a secret anymore. The evidence is probably showing itself already.
Anyway, beer and most carbonated drinks like soda have very high sugar and acid content and if you’ve ever read some of our previous entries before, you would know that acid plus a load of sugar is basically festival grounds for bacteria. Read more in this link: https://www.rethinksugarydrink.org.au/facts/tooth-decay.html.
Sugar increases the acidity level even more and it joins up with existing bacteria in the mouth to form plaque around teeth. Now, beer may not taste like but it’s got a high amount of sugar. Now you know where that beer belly comes from!
Same with coffee, the high acidity level of beer encourages “chromogens” or what I referred to as color compounds earlier to stick to the enamel. Yellow teeth still aren’t in fashion so if you don’t want to look like you haven’t brushed for weeks, make sure you clean up well. So, here are some other tricks to remove soda stains on your teeth that you can check out. And lastly, do not forget to drink water in-between drinks to neutralize the acid in your mouth!
Red Wine
They just keep adding up, don’t they? I am pretty sure it is a shock to know that many of your favorite drinks are giving your precious dental health a hard time. Red wine has a strong color already. However, it is not really the color that stains your pearly whites. You will not have red teeth if you drink too much wine – unless you do not brush off the plaque and tartar off before you start drinking.
So when you go out for drinks, it is advised to brush your teeth thoroughly before taking a sip. The plaque might absorb the color of the drink and thus give you a stained smile. After the drinks, experts also advise not to brush the teeth right away as the high acidity level of the drink causes the tooth to become more sensitive to abrasion.
Does this mean you can still drink wine if it is not red? Well, red or not, it will still have the same effect. Red wine might cause temporary discoloration if you do not brush your teeth clean beforehand.
The long-term damage is really because of the acidity of the drink. Red and white wines have just about the same level of acidity. This means that discoloration will still eventually happen if you are not too careful about your dental care.
With all that being said, please enjoy your favorite beverages as much as you like but don’t say you haven’t been warned! Just make sure that you care for your teeth enough as much as you care to have another glass of your favorite beverage. Otherwise, you may find yourself having dental implants in concord because of damaged teeth.
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