Your dentist acts as a perfect guide to maintaining good oral health and hygiene. You can always consult your family dentist to clarify your various dental concerns.
At Anoka Dental, our dentists recommend four daily habits for good dental hygiene. These easy-to-practice habits are brushing, flossing, rinsing and chewing. You know the importance of brushing twice a day, flossing once a day, and using mouthwash. But you may not be aware that your dentist wants you to chew gum on a regular basis.
To know more about chewing and how it helps, you can talk to our experienced family dentists.
Table of Contents
Why a Dentist focuses on Chewing?
You might not be able to understand initially why chewing is given importance. Chewing encourages you to chew sugarless gum after eating your food. It is because when you chew a gum it stimulates saliva production in your mouth. This reduces plaque, removes food particles from your mouth, and neutralizes acids which break down tooth enamel.
Clinical studies have shown the effectiveness of chewing gums that are sugar-free for 20 minutes after meals. As a result, it prevents tooth decay and strengthens the enamel on teeth.
To attain healthy teeth and keep away bacteria from your mouth, you can chew gum after your meals.
How Chewing stimulates Saliva Production?
Saliva helps to wash out your mouth several times during the day. Saliva contains proteins and minerals needed to keep your teeth healthy and digest the food.
The dentists recommend chewing sugar-free gum after meals as it stimulates saliva production. Saliva is beneficial in the following ways-
- It helps you to swallow the food easily.
- It enables you to taste the food and chew it better.
- It supports the tooth enamel.
- It offers your mouth protection against tooth decay.
- It prevents bad breath in your mouth.
- It helps fights germs in your mouth.
If there is not enough production of saliva in your mouth, it can cause many dental problems. It can result in bad breath or a dry mouth. Dry mouth is a temporary thing but if it persists for long it can cause Xerostomia.
Xerostomia causes your mouth tissue, tongue, and gums to swell and hurt. Without enough saliva to rinse the mouth bacteria is formed and causes bad breath.
Therefore, Anoka Dental urges you to chew gum as part of a good oral care routine.
There is no replacement for brushing, flossing, or using mouthwash but chewing sugarless gum is an easy and proactive choice. Along with practicing the four habits of brushing, flossing, rinsing, and chewing regular dental check-up is also important.
Seeing your family dentist on a regular basis allows you to keep up with your dental routine. You can easily schedule an appointment with our expert dentists whenever needed. However, it is best to regularly visit a dentist near you to prevent any severe dental problem.
Contact us to get your teeth checked and ensure you have a healthy mouth.
