While dentistry has come a long way to provide treatments for maintaining healthy teeth and gums, it is ultimately up to the patient to care for their teeth as best as possible.
This means developing and following a daily regimen that includes flossing and brushing with tooth paste or gel a minimum of twice per day.
Maintaining a proper diet can contribute to healthy teeth. Natural fruits and vegetables should be eaten daily. Unfortunately, convenience often wins out over healthy and many food and drink choices provide little, if any, nutritional value.
Sugar appears in almost all processed foods. Even things we think are “healthy” like cereal or yogurt contain sugar. It isn’t just cookies, cake, candy, and ice cream that we need to be aware of their sugar content, which is why natural foods like fruits and vegetables should play a prominent role in our daily food consumption.
Soda is very damaging to teeth as well. Again, sugar is a problem. But carbonated beverages in general can do harm to the teeth’s enamel. Plain or flavored water is a much better choice. For people that are going to drink soda, the best way is to drink it through a straw. Much of the beverage will bypass the teeth when a straw is used.
Lifestyle choices can also affect your diet. While the occasional cocktail is no problem, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to poor food choices as well as weaken our resolve to avoid tobacco or other harmful drugs.
Dental decay and gum disease are two of the primary causes that contribute to tooth loss. Imagine what your diet would be like without the ability to chew? Those healthy fruits and vegetables would still be available through the magic of a smoothie; however, eating is one of life’s joys so having to restrict one’s diet due to tooth loss would be tragic.
Finally, we can eat all the right foods and take care of our teeth by daily flossing and brushing, but one more important function to maintain great dental health is those twice yearly visits to the dentist. A thorough cleaning to remove plaque build-up and a dental exam to monitor potential problems makes the marriage of the patient’s care and quality dentistry the ideal way to have healthy teeth for life.
For more information on healthy eating habits and your dental health, contact the office of Drs. Bonner and Huriega by calling 210-616-0858 today.
