Smile with Confidence: A Comprehensive Guide to Dental Health and Care

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How Do Teeth Age?

Teeth are not quite as unique as snowflakes, however, they do vary in size, shape and location in the jaw.  These differences in the teeth are what give our face shape and form and how we chew, speak or smile.  Did you know that we are born with 20 baby teeth (a/k/a “primary teeth”) that will begin to “erupt” or break through at about 6 months, and, by age 12, all 32 of our permanent teeth have usually erupted?

A Child’s Smile

There are many gap-toothed photos of you in your parents’ family albums.  Face it, all of a sudden your “cuteness quotient” goes down substantially when you begin losing those baby teeth.  The first teeth to go are the lower center teeth (a/k/a the lower center incisors) at approximately 6 to 7 years old.  Next are the top center pair.   It’s scary looking when you resemble a Halloween pumpkin, but, at least the Tooth Fairy helps make this time bearable.  Happily, a baby tooth typically doesn’t loosen until the permanent tooth below pushes it up to take its place.

When Do Teeth Start to Age?

Benefits of Eating More Dairy Products

The older you get, the more you realize that the meals you had growing up were maybe not so bad after all.

While Mom may not have had the resources about nutrition that are available to you today, especially via the internet, she really did know her stuff when you think about it.  So, where did Mom learn about the types of foods that make up the food pyramid – perhaps in her home economics class?  If you look back on meals when you were a youngster versus the suggested food groups to include in your daily diet, you might just concede that Mom was a smarter cookie than you ever gave her credit for.

For example, she filled your tummy with nutritious food, based on the five recommended food groups, a chart which really has not varied much through the years, and which guidelines are currently found at www.choosemyplate.gov and are listed below:

  • Vegetables (including legumes/beans);
  • Fruits (all fruits and juices);
  • Grains (mostly wholegrain and/or high-fiber cereal and bread);
  • Protein (lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts/seeds and legumes/beans); and
  • Dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese and/or alternatives, mostly reduced fat).

Indeed you are what you eat, and a diet consisting of these foods will give you the nutrition needed to stay healthy from youth to old age.

Best Diet to Prevent Bad Breath

It’s hard to resist raw chopped onions on a Coney dog or a big burger with a thin slice of raw onion, but you’d better hope you don’t have to socialize too much after downing these tasty treats.

Battling Bad Breath

As a general rule, bad breath is related to what we drink or eat.  As to beverages, alcohol is sure to give you bad breath, coffee does as well.  Different cultures have spicy foods, and people who consume these foods on a regular basis, will experience odors, not only emanating from their mouth, but also from their pores.

Listerine, a leading mouthwash manufacturer, says there are five top foods that will give you bad breath – of course, we are familiar with onions and garlic being the biggest culprits, and even canned tuna is no surprise, but horseradish and dairy foods also make your mouth feel a little funky.

Dairy products as a source for bad breath may surprise you, but, while dairy products may be good for your teeth and bones, they make your mouth feel unclean.  This is because naturally occurring bacteria from your tongue feeds on the amino acids in dairy products (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt and cheeses), resulting in a foul odor.

What Does Wine Do to Teeth?

Red wine and concord grape juice have been long known to do two things:

#1 – make an indelible stain on clothes or carpeting; and

#2 – prevent the oxidation of bad cholesterol that leads to the formation of plaque in artery walls.

As to #2, if you were looking for an excuse to have that morning glass of grape juice or a  nightly glass of red wine perhaps you have one now.  After all, if a mere beverage can help lower the risk of developing blood clots that lead to heart attacks, you might as well go for it, right?  One important thing to remember is that having stained teeth does not mean that your teeth are unhealthy, and if you have stained teeth there are solutions such as a visit to a top dentist and an in office tooth whitening procedure.

What Does Smoking Do to Teeth?

A cigarette loosely tangling from your mouth, or cinched between your teeth, is a menacing look to be sure.  But, just in case you were wondering, smoking is also a menace to your teeth, besides your general health.

We all know smoking is bad for your health, and, we did not have to read the warning label on the side of the pack to know this fact.  There are public service announcements galore which point to the fact that smoking causes cancer.

Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, and, about 70 of them are known to cause cancer.  The number one risk of smoking cigarettes is lung cancer, but, smoking is known to affect your entire body.  Did you know it can also affect your oral health as well?

Health Benefits of Smiling

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do” ~Mother Teresa

Those are wise words indeed, spoken by the late Mother Teresa.  These days, world events have us weary and worried.  Many times we shuffle out of the door, breaking a smile to those to whom we feel obligated to smile at, but, admittedly our smile is not always heartfelt.  We are wise to cast our cares aside when we venture out, so that we let others see the good in our soul, and not the sorrows or angst that we might carry with us.  Even those who suffer from depression will benefit from a smile – a shared smile that they give away or one that they receive.

Just Grin

The idea of presenting a happy face to the world is good for your psyche.  In fact, smiling is the best present we can give to ourselves.  It is free and people will be more enamored with you from benefiting from your positive influence on them.

What Causes Morning Breath?

We all hate that icky feeling we get when we get up in the morning with “morning breath” and we often scurry right away to the bathroom to brush our teeth before we offend our significant other.  Heck – sometimes we even offend ourselves.

Morning breath

Halitosis, or bad breath, in general, may be caused by several factors, only one of which is poor dental hygiene.  The foods you enjoy eating, like curry, garlic or onions, are a major culprit and emit a foul odor, no matter how much you brush and floss. In the case of garlic and onions, they actually go right into your pores and the smell emits from your lungs, not just your mouth.  Garlic may keep you healthy but you might lose a friend or two along the way as well.

Other foods besides onion and garlic cause morning breath and this is because they are notorious for creating a sticky film on your teeth.  One infamous offender is spinach. It’s believed that the residue spinach leaves on the teeth is from oxalic acid, which also can be found in beets, kale and rhubarb.

The biggest reason for bad morning breath is because when we are unconscious and sleeping during the night, many of our bodily functions stop or slow down, and this includes our salivary glands.  Saliva is very important in fighting bad breath because it is high in oxygen and this kills the anaerobic bacteria.  It also helps break down the food particles and remove them from the mouth when the saliva is swallowed.  Due to the lower amounts of saliva during sleep, the mouth is exposed to less oxygen and there is less of it circulating to cleanse and remove particles from the mouth.  Thus, before going to bed you should ensure your mouth is as free from particles of plaque and food as possible because those items are like magnets that drag bacteria toward them and cause them to multiply.  Bacteria in the mouth thrive in an alkaline environment that inhibits the growth of bacteria.

Health Benefits of Tap Water

The trend today is toward drinking bottled water – sometimes it is vitamin-enhanced or flavored, but, don’t you wish you had a dollar for everyone you see walking around with fingers wrapped around a bottled water?

Unless there is a reason why you use must use bottled water, like water contamination issues, regular water from your tap will do the trick to quench your thirst, and, to help prevent cavities!  And look at all the money you’ll save by not buying bottled water, not to save the inconvenience of lugging cases to and from the store.

That’s right… your bottled water cannot give you the natural fluoridation properties that regular old tap water can, and tap water has been giving you this little dental boost for some 70 years.

Common Myths About Dental Care

There are old wives’ tales and urban legends on every topic imaginable.  Once upon a time, household hints and medical tips were passed along from generation to generation and circulated by housewives at a kaffeeklatsch  or via the glossy pages of “Good Housekeeping” magazine.  Through the wonders of the internet, we no longer need to rely on the written words and collection of “how to” tips from our ancestors –  we need only “Google” to get what info we need.  If the solution is dubious, we go to “Snopes” to verify the facts… but, even in this modern age, there are still many myths about dental care that exist.  Wherever do these stories come from?  Many of them are untrue, and simply unbelievable!  Have a look for yourself below:

The Anatomy of Teeth

The Tooth Fairy deposits spare change for each tooth she collects from under your pillow while you are fast asleep.  I don’t know what the going rate for teeth which have wriggled free from their gums is these days, but once you read about just how extraordinary your pearly whites really are, you’ll realize that all these years later you were gypped!

Composition of a tooth

If you Google Images to find the composition of a tooth, you might be surprised just how many layers or actual components you will see.

There are four major tissues that make up the tooth:

The tooth is supported in place by:

  • Gum
  • Bone