Eliminating gum disease, regenerating broken teeth, regrowing receding gums and eradicating tooth pain are among the countless claims that one over-enthusiastic mouthwash company is wildly claiming can be achieved through the simple act of swilling their liquid gold. You are more likely to be able to lick your own elbow than these claims becoming true.
Sure, many parts of the body have built-in repair mechanisms that activate when conditions are favourable; our fingertips can regenerate if we damage them; the cornea of your eye takes just a day to repair itself; and skin almost magically repairs when its layers are breached. However, there are limits to these amazing healing abilities.
Our tooth enamel has microscopic holes all over it, which allow minerals to enter and exit. The enamel surface is continually seesawing from hard to soft depending on what we eat and drink. These processes are termed remineralisation and demineralisation.
So, if we eat sugary things too frequently, tooth enamel softens and when you look at the tooth it will appear whitish or brown and on X-rays you can see the damage to the enamel. It is indeed true that enamel can repair itself - or to be more exact the spread of the decay into the tooth’s centre can be halted - only if the mouth stays at a neutral acidity for long enough and mouthwashes can help with this. But the body has its limits and once the decay spreads into the inner dentine part this cannot be reversed by diet, supplements or mouthwash alone.
Nowadays, dentists have amazing regenerative materials that they place inside teeth which stimulate the growth of new dentine and in many cases keep teeth alive, preventing the need for root fillings. We can grow very, very, very thin layers of dentine currently. Moreover, dentists can regenerate receding gums by surgically grafting new gum onto teeth.
Regenerating the different tissues in the mouth is not supernatural. Unfortunately, regrowing a tooth with a visible hole or reversing receding gums doesn’t happen by swilling a mouthwash - no matter what the ingredients are. Beware of grifters selling fool’s gold dental products that have a 100 per cent success rate at lightening wallets and much less success at giving you oral health.
