We asked Dr Brendan Gin to provide us with the Top Tips to avoid dental decay!
- Choose water and avoid sugary drinks.
- Eat plenty of unprocessed foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, wholegrains, fish and lean meat.
- Check food labels on packaged foods and look at both the amount of sugar per serving and the total amount, as there is sometimes more than one serving in the package. Try to keep total added sugars to less than 6 teaspoons per day.
- Look at the ingredient list on packaged food to see where the sugars are coming from – naturally occurring sugars in dried or whole fruit are better than added sugars.
- Limit consumption of cakes, biscuits and sugary desserts. Fruit, cheese and nuts are a great alternative dessert.
- Avoid acidic food or drink as much as possible but if you do have them only do so at meal times when your saliva levels are high.
- When having something acidic swallow it as quickly as possible so that the acids have less contact time with the teeth.
- Eat whole, low acidic fruit rather than drinking fruit juice.
- Chill acidic drinks as warm acidic drinks are more erosive.
- After having anything acidic or after vomiting/reflux rinse your mouth with water, plain milk or a fluoride mouth rinse as soon as possible.
- Consider using a toothpaste containing stannous fluoride (SnF2) as it can be more protective against erosion.
