We know it is starting to seem like everything is bad for your teeth. While smoking wasn’t a big surprise, it seems like a lot of people were shocked to learn the effects of soda. Well, it turns out that soda isn’t the only commonly consumed liquid that can compromise your oral health. In fact, alcohol has been proven to have many negative effects on your teeth as well, and is capable of compromising your teeth to the point where they will need to be removed and replaced with dental implants. Today, Dr. Donian Shen is blogging from Mountain View, CA to talk about some of the ways that alcohol attacks your smile.
Don’t Let Alcohol Compromise Your Smile
Alcohol actually attacks our teeth in a large variety of different ways. Some of these ways include:
The Carbonation
Some alcoholic beverages, such as champagne and certain flavored spritzers, are carbonated. What makes this dangerous is the fact that carbonic acid is what is used to carbonate these drinks. When you drink these beverages, this acid will attack the enamel of your teeth, weakening it and leaving your teeth open to other oral conditions.
High Sugar Content
There are some alcoholic beverages that are full of sugar. When you drink these beverages, this sugar is plastered to your teeth where it will begin to attract bacteria. This bacteria creates acids that will eat away at your teeth in a process that we call “tooth decay”.
Mixing Alcohol with Soda
The most common beverage that alcohol is mixed with is actually soda. Due to the amount of sugar in it, as well as the carbonation, soda is actually very bad for our teeth. When combined with alcohol, your teeth are receiving both the negative aspects of soda and alcohol, allowing your teeth to be attacked on two fronts.
Dry Mouth
Alcohol is actually a diuretic, which causes it to increase the rate at which you urinate. As a result of this increased urination, your mouth will dry. What many people don’t realize about saliva is that it works to keep dangerous bacteria off of our teeth. When your mouth is dry, you are losing this protection.
Failing to Brush
It is not uncommon for people to get home after a long night of drinking and go straight to bed, forgetting to brush their teeth. It is very important that you don’t let this happen, as failing to brush leaves all of the sugar and acid from your drinks on your teeth, where they will have the whole night to eat away at your teeth.
Schedule a Dental Implant Consultation in Mountain View
If you consume too much alcohol and develop tooth decay as a result, you may end up losing a tooth. Fortunately, we can restore any number of missing teeth using dental implants. Dental implants are artificial tooth roots that are fully capable of replicating your natural teeth. If you would like to learn how you might benefit from treatment with dental implants, we encourage you to contact us and schedule a no-obligation consultation with dental implant provider, Dr. Donian Shen, today.
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