How Brushing Your Teeth Before Breakfast Could Reduce Your Risk Of Tooth Decay
Posted on: 27 January 2021
Tooth decay is the most common dental problem that dentists deal with. One reason for this is that many people make crucial mistakes in their oral hygiene routines. These mistakes, such as skipping nightly brushing sessions and eating breakfast before brushing your teeth, increase the risk of tooth decay.
By tweaking your oral hygiene practices, you can reduce your need for dental treatment. One way to do that is to make sure that you always brush your teeth before you eat breakfast. This can help you in a number of ways.
Kick-starts your saliva production
While you sleep, your saliva production decreases and almost completely halts altogether. This is ideal for oral bacteria, because a mouth without saliva is a mouth within which bad oral bacteria can thrive. You need saliva to fight oral bacteria because saliva neutralizes the acids that bacteria secrete, and it contains antibacterial agents that kill oral bacteria.
Brushing your teeth before breakfast, then, will get your saliva flowing once more.
Places a protective film on your teeth
Not long after you brush your teeth, a biofilm called the pellicle forms on the surfaces of your teeth. This protective film protects your teeth from acids like acids in food and those produced by oral bacteria.
This means that the acidity of your morning cup of coffee or orange juice won't damage your teeth.
Removes built-up oral bacteria
As mentioned before, your mouth becomes the playground of oral bacteria while you sleep. When you wake up, then, that pleasant smell of morning breath is an indication that your mouth is teeming with oral bacteria that have been able to multiply out of control overnight.
If you eat your breakfast before you brush your teeth, those millions upon millions of oral bacteria will happily devour the simple sugars in your breakfast. And once they have metabolized those sugars, oral bacteria will damage your tooth enamel by producing an acidic waste product.
You can stop that from happening by brushing before breakfast.
Ensures you don't damage your teeth after breakfast
If you eat your breakfast first, then you run the risk of damaging your tooth enamel. This is because if you brush your teeth soon after a meal, especially a meal that contains acidic foods like coffee and acidic fruits, you will brush those acids deeper into your enamel. And acids soften tooth enamel, too, meaning that you could wear away the surface of your teeth if you brush soon after breakfast.
Don't eat your breakfast and then brush your teeth before rushing out to work or school. Brush first thing, and then eat your breakfast. Contact a dentist to learn more.
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