Are Healthy Habits Damaging Your Teeth?

You usually hear about those little quirky things that people do to improve their overall health. Things like eating more to weigh less, seems odd right? How about the one where listening to music can boost your brain power or calling your mother can help reduce stress. There are unique ways people go about maintaining a healthy lifestyle but we recently discovered that not all of these things are completely healthy for you. When we think about maintaining a healthy lifestyle we usually forget about one major factor, our teeth!

Oral Health and Diabetes

Oral health habits can have a direct result on your health, such as the development of diabetes. Inflammation in the mouth will weaken your ability to control blood sugar. People with diabetes have trouble processing sugar because of a lack of insulin.

Oral health and heart disease

Gum disease and heart disease often go hand in hand. The two conditions have several risk factors in common, such as smoking, unhealthy diet, and excess weight. Inflamed blood vessels allow less blood to travel between the heart and the rest of the body, raising blood pressure.

So to prevent a few of these issues we wanted to touch on a couple of things that can actually be bad for the overall health of your teeth.

Oral health and brushing right after a meal

You should brush twice daily but it isn’t a good idea to brush immediately after you eat. Brushing too soon after you eat foods that are acidic such as tomato sauce or red wine or hard crunchy foods like nuts might damage the enamel. Wait 30 to 60 minutes to avoid the negative effects.

Oral health and smoothies

Smoothie drinkers are coating their teeth in liquid sugar that breaks down in fruits. Sugar on teeth forms sticky, hard to remove plaque very quickly, so be sure to clean your teeth afterwards.

  • Chase your smoothie with some water.
  • Consider sipping your smoothie through a straw.

Oral health and wine

A daily glass of wine has been linked heart health benefits. Both red and white wine contain acid, which eats away at tooth enamel. This makes teeth vulnerable to decay as well as staining from other foods like coffee. If you do drink, swish with water afterwards to help lessen the effects.

Are some of these habits part of your daily routine? We encourage everyone to maintain a healthy lifestyle but to just consider the extra precautions one should take to ensure the overall healthy of your smile!

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