Whether you’ve just gotten a professional teeth whitening or want to maintain the current shade of your smile, here are our top tips to keep your teeth white and bright!

Watch Out for Certain Foods and Drinks

Foods and drinks are the main cause of tooth staining. While teeth can be stained by other things—such as exposure to the antibiotic tetracycline in utero or before age 8, or the need for a root canal—foods and drinks are most common culprits when it comes to staining teeth.

Wine and coffee are the biggest offenders of teeth staining, especially if you’ve just gotten a professional teeth whitening [1]. However, tea, pasta sauce, turmeric, and even berries all have the potential to stain teeth, especially when consumed frequently or over a period of time!

Keep Up with Your Oral Care

While it would be difficult to avoid every single food that has the potential to stain your teeth, fortunately, regular brushing can help remove stains on a daily basis.

Some stains will be too set in to remove with at-home brushing, and may require a professional teeth whitening with your dentist to remove. However, most other stains, especially those accumulated daily, can be removed with regular brushing.

Be sure to brush your teeth at least twice a day and wait a minimum of 30 minutes after eating to brush—this will help protect your tooth enamel from damage. In fact, the American Dental Association recommends waiting 60 minutes after eating to brush your teeth [2].

Other Helpful Tips

There a few other tips that can help keep your smile looking as white as possible for as long as possible:

• See your dentist. Those regular professional cleanings can help remove deeper stains
  and keep your smile looking bright even without a professional whitening!
• Consider using a straw. A straw can help liquids such as coffee bypass the teeth and
  limit the staining impact they can have on your smile.
• Drink water. Water can help neutralize the acids that can attack tooth enamel and
  potentially lead to tooth decay and tooth discoloration [3].

Are you worried that your teeth aren’t as white as they used to be? You can help keep your smile bright and white with these tips, but don’t overlook the importance of visiting your dentist as well. He or she can conduct a professional cleaning to keep your smile stain-free and healthy!

Sources:
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23421870
2. https://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/brushing-mistakes-slideshow
3. https://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/nutrition/food-tips/water-best-beverage

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1. Tea – More than coffee, more than wine, tea has serious staining potential. Black tea contains a high amount of tannins, food compounds that increase the ability of chromogens to attach to dental enamel.White or green teas don’t stain as much as black tea, but they still have staining potential.

2. Wine – Red wine is acidic and contains tannins and chromogens, but even white wine can stain teeth. In studies, white wine drinking has been shown to increase the staining potential of other things, like tea, on teeth.

3. Coffee- Coffee could be chosen as the number one teeth stainer, but that’s based on the fact that people overall drink more coffee than tea or wine. Coffee actually is not quite as threatening to white teeth as tea because, while it has plenty of tannins, it has less chromogens. Still, the several-cups-a-day habit that many people have can build up stains.

4. Cola – Diet or not, cola contains chromogens, and it is highly acidic. All carbonated beverages have an acid content that can promote staining by other foods and beverages, so even light-colored sodas that may not actually cause stains promote staining in general.

5. Berries – Natural, unsweetened foods are good for you in many ways, but unfortunately, many highly colored berries and fruits are big teeth stainers. These include blueberries, cranberries, cherries, red grapes and pomegranates. Likewise, juices, jams or pies made with these fruits carry the staining potential.

You can combat staining by beverages by drinking through a straw when possible or convenient, and by rinsing your mouth with water after eating or drinking stain-causing foods. Chewing sugar-free gum can also help to wash away food particles by promoting saliva production. Here’s to a white, happy smile!

The post Mouth Beware: Top 5 Teeth Stainers appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.