We all know how important our diet is to our bodily health, but our diet can greatly affect our oral health as well.

Sometimes we hear people state that they eat healthy and stay away from soda in order to protect their teeth. However, juice can be just as harmful to your teeth and gums as soda when it is consumed daily.

Juice is particularly harmful to developing teeth found in children, because these teeth don’t have the same strength as adult teeth. Not to mention many children struggle with good oral hygiene and may leave areas of their mouth un-brushed or un-flossed leaving bacteria to grow. We always recommend drinking plenty of water in-between drinking juice.

HOW JUICE CAUSES GUM DISEASE

Juice can potentially cause gum disease because of several factors. One of these factors is the amount of sugar in the juice. You may think that fruit is healthy, but juice often contains a lot of added sugar, which feeds the bacteria in your mouth and can potentially cause tooth decay and gum disease. What makes juice worse than fruits is that juice can sit on the teeth for many hours before it gets removed while hard fruits can actually help to clean your teeth. Another factor of juice that can contribute to gum disease is its acidity.

Since juice is high in acid, it wears away at the tooth’s enamel very quickly. Enamel can’t be restored, and once it’s gone, the teeth have no protection against the bacteria residing in your mouth opening you up to get gum disease.

We’re not here to say never to drink juice. We just want to mention that juice is often seen as healthy when it can actually be quite harmful. We suggest drinking juice in moderation as a treat rather than a daily ritual. If you have any more questions about how to protect yourself from gum disease, contact us through our office number and we’ll be glad to help you in any way we can.