Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: amalia on 26/11/2019 16:04:05
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Tom got in touch with a question:
If you cleaned your teeth too frequently with an alkali toothpaste would it eventually erode your teeth because of an overload of alkali?
Can you help?
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Toothpaste is mildly abrasive, which is in part how it achieves its cleaning effects; therefore, over-zealous or poor brushing technique can score teeth and cause erosions. As this distorts the tooth anatomy and can compromise the integrity of the hard enamel exterior, it can encourage further damage through decay, plaque accumulation and acid attack.
That said, the benefits of brushing far outweigh the damage done but poor oral hygiene, so this is, if anything, a compromise between too much toothbrushing and not enough.
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Toothpaste is mildly abrasive, which is in part how it achieves its cleaning effects; therefore, over-zealous or poor brushing technique can score teeth and cause erosions. As this distorts the tooth anatomy and can compromise the integrity of the hard enamel exterior, it can encourage further damage through decay, plaque accumulation and acid attack.
That said, the benefits of brushing far outweigh the damage done but poor oral hygiene, so this is, if anything, a compromise between too much toothbrushing and not enough.
I cannot believe that chris, i thought tooth enamel was the hardest thing in the human body, very hard and very tough as well. The dentists carefree scraping of the teeth with steel always amazed me due to the lack of damage. I know they put plastic microbeads in toothpaste at one stage to scour the tooth but i thought that was as harsh as it got,i would not like to try diamond dust though!. The alkali and acid question, I believe the teeth react to acid.