How To Prevent Tooth Decay

Tooth decay is the second most common disease on this planet. Virtually everybody has some form of tooth decay. Alarmingly, in large studies recently, over a third of children under the age of five years old have got actual holes in their teeth forming decay.

So, how can we prevent it? Well, the key is basically diet. But when do we start? If we want to look at the future of our next generation, we actually start before birth. It has been shown that if a mum or expectant mum actually has a low sugar diet, then the likelihood of the offspring having tooth decay reduces considerably.

Now, of course if we are looking at long-term planning, this also means when the baby comes off of milk - don't forget that the formula milk actually contains some form of sugar - then we will actually see the potential for tooth decay. The sooner we start introducing the children to solid foods, stay away from sugars, especially what we call refined sugars. If you look at the label of anything that is in a jar if it is processed, there is always some ingredient that contains sugar.

It is no doubt that unfortunately, sugar is the main cause of tooth decay. Now, if we can start training our children on a low sugar diet and start bringing unrefined carbohydrates, things like potatoes, rice, cereals which haven't got sugar in them, we will hopefully see a new generation who haven't got these disastrous cavities at a young age. Seek dental advice.

There are various forms of treatment that can be applied especially to the young teeth as they are growing. We can put sealants on them. We can use special fluoride toothpastes under supervision from a dentist.

These need to be done professionally. The soonest would be at two years old, bring your child to the dentist and get advice on prevention of tooth decay. Tooth decay is a young person's disease.

It really fades out when you get to over thirty, so the prevention needs to be done at a younger age. If you can imagine a tooth that's filled at the age of six, which may be a permanent molar, these days when we are expected to live to our eighties or nineties, that tooth will most likely need to be refilled with a bigger filling and causes more damage, possibly leading to a crown, fillings, root fillings, all because we didn't do the prevention at the early age. So, this is a huge investment, not just in pain and discomfort of having treatment, but also in the cash that is spent to keep repairing this tooth over the years.

To prevent tooth decay on a day-to-day basis, the first thing with young children is to get them brushing their teeth as early as you can. Initially, mums and dads, you've got to do it for them. And this means gentle brushing, sometimes starting with a cotton ball or a tooth brush sometimes with no toothpaste.

It's important to get them used to actually getting their teeth brushed because on a day-to-day basis, brushing is really going to be the most effective prevention for tooth decay. Now, tooth decay can appear in various parts of the mouth and various parts of the tooth. Now, on the back teeth, they often will occur on the biting surfaces and this is very common in children.

Now, as we get older and our teeth get tighter together, we find a hole will occur right down in between. That is actually much more difficult to get to. This is where we often get tooth decay right at the gum line.

That is often because we are not brushing quite properly because we should also be brushing at the join and also brushing the gum as well as the tooth. So, this is a time when seeking advice at the dentist is very important. The game is about prevention.

Plaque is the cause of tooth decay because it's basically a film that builds up on the tooth's surface and to start with, it's very thin and it's actually made from the saliva which then combines with the bacteria that naturally live in the mouth. When you add food to that especially sugars, that's what causes