How’s your oral hygiene routine? If it includes using mouthwash, a dentist is warning that you might want to rethink that step in your process. “Our oral health hasn’t gotten any better in the last 30 years,” says Dr. Kami Hoss. “The majority of our population has oral diseases, so that means that what we’re currently doing is not working.”
He explains that similar to our gut, the mouth contains millions of microbes that can help to regulate your health. Our “oral microbiome” contains both good and bad bacteria, but products like mouthwash that contains alcohol can kill both the good and bad bacteria, leaving behind only the “baddest, toughest, roughest little microbes around,” Hoss explains. And those left behind are ready “to recolonize the entire mouth” because the good bacteria that hold them off aren’t there to stop it.
Hoss says the mouth should be treated like a garden and he compares helpful microbes to flowers and bad bacteria to weeds. “If there was a weed growing in your garden, you wouldn’t just throw acid and weed killer all over and kill everything, the way we do it in our mouth,” he explains. “What we do in the mouth is a disaster right now.” So what should we be doing to protect our oral health without killing all the “flowers” in the garden? Hoss recommends:
- Brushing your teeth before breakfast because you can damage your enamel if you brush right after eating.
- Use an alkaline mouthwash to restore the pH of the mouth. It can clean areas your brush can’t reach.
- Floss to remove plaque between your teeth.
- Brush with a “safe and effective toothpaste with a soft-bristle brush.
- And do it all again in the evening before bed.
Source: The Sun