Could Your Fillings Be Rotting Your Teeth?
Will fillings for cavities wreak havoc on this gorgeous smile? Say it isn’t so! (Stocksy)
Now here’s some news that could make your teeth chatter—according to researchers from Norway, fillings for cavities may actually do more harm than good.
Over 700 people who needed fillings participated in the study, which was published in the Journal of Dentistry. For about the next five years, dentists monitored the condition of their other teeth. And what they found was that more than half—60 percent—of these study volunteers experienced tooth decay in their neighboring teeth, either on the enamel (the hard surface of a tooth) or dentine (the tissue found inside a tooth).
This information has been making headlines around the UK. (An alarming one from Express reads, “Fillings could ROT your Teeth!”) And while no one looks forward to a dentist drilling away in their mouth, should we now be fearful of the possible effects from fillings?
“These findings kind of makes sense because if you’ve got a cavity on your first molar and it’s kissing the premolar—the tooth in front of it—the thing that made you susceptible to getting the decay is already present,” Mark S. Wolff, DDS, PhD, Professor and Chair in the Department of Cariology and Comprehensive Care at New York University College of Dentistry, tells Yahoo Health. “It’s proven that by already making a hole in the side of one tooth.”
But don’t brush off your dentist just yet. “What I take away from this study is that the dentist only treated the hole—the cavity—and failed to treat the risk that the patient was in,” states Wolff. “Because what this study says is people who received fillings are at very high risk of getting decay in the tooth right next to it. But it’s not because they got the filling—it’s because the diseased state that got the decay there in the first place hasn’t been interfered with.”
“The researchers observed that the risk of developing subsequent caries was higher in patients with poor or medium oral hygiene,” the American Dental Association (ADA) tells Yahoo Health. “The reason a tooth is filled in the first place is because it is decaying (rotting). Had the decayed tooth not been filled, it would have continued to decay, may have led to oral and other health issues and ultimately could have been lost.”
In order to prevent tooth decay and subsequent cavity development, the ADA recommends the following:
Brushing your teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste
Using a good technique to clean between your teeth once a day
Eating a balanced diet while limiting consumption of sugary snacks and beverages
Seeing your dentist regularly
And when it comes to taking care of your pearly whites, you may need to brush up on your cleaning skills, adds Wolff. “The most common error in tooth brushing is not brushing long enough,” he states. “Brushing for a full two-minutes with a fluoride containing toothpaste makes the tooth harder and more resistant to decay.” Other fluoride-based products include fluoride mouthwashes and a concentrated fluoride prescribed by your dentist.
“So as a takeaway, every time somebody gets a filling for cavity, they should be talking to their dentist about how do they prevent the next cavity and what are the best methods for doing that,” concludes Wolff. “Tooth decay is a very preventable disease and that’s the very weird part. Very few people—and there are some—but very few people have to get cavities.”
Now that’s something to smile about!
