Polishing may be bad for your teeth

Tag : tooth material
The dentists offer professional cleaning services, removing plaqueand discoloration with abrasive prophylactic pastes. This rendersthe tooth surface beautifully smooth, making it difficult forbacteria to get the footing, however this might also grind awayprecious tooth enamel

So far, scientists lacked measuring techniques to assess toothabrasion caused by chewing, and effect of toothpastes.

The effectiveness of a prophylactic paste has been measured by howwell the granules that it contains are able to smoothen a roughsurface.

The test is performed by first roughening tooth enamel or denturematerials such as ceramics and titanium to a precisely definedvalue with an aggressive grinding material but this may not giveexact results, as chewing wears out different materials atdifferent rates.

A new measuring method developed by the IWM researchers, a kind ofchewing simulation, takes care of this problem.

A team of experts led by Dr. Raimund Jaeger, head of the BiomedicalMaterials and Implants department, discovered when comparing pastesand subsequently analysing the surfaces, some pastes polish thesurface but also unnecessarily ablate the tooth material, producingslight grooves on the tooth surface.

The ideal paste, on the other hand, polishes so lightly that onlythe roughness is eliminated while the tooth enamel is hardly groundat all.

"Obviously, every case is different," said Jaeger. "Teeth withparticularly heavy plaque or discoloration will need a moreabrasive paste." Normally, however, a gentler prophylactic pastewill do the job.
--- ANI