How Fluoride Keeps You Healthy: The 5 Benefits of Regular Use

Most people recognize the importance of taking care of their teeth. From brushing and flossing to visiting the dentist regularly, good dental hygiene is essential for overall health and wellbeing. But there’s one key factor in ensuring a healthy and beautiful smile: fluoride. By adding this mineral to your system through a regular oral hygiene routine, you can reap the many benefits it has for your teeth and gums. Read on to explore why this mineral is essential for good oral health, and what 5 benefits you can get from regular use.

Get to Know Fluoride: Why It’s So Essential for Good Oral Health

Fluoride is a naturally-occurring mineral that helps strengthen and protect teeth. It is often added to toothpastes and mouthwashes, as well as some municipal water supplies, in order to help prevent the development of cavities and decay. It works by inhibiting or reversing the initiation and progression of dental caries, and can stimulate new bone formation. Not only that, but it protects your teeth’s enamel from acid attacks, and helps to restore minerals to the teeth, allowing your teeth to repair weakened areas.

Fluoride can be found in the Earth’s soil, water, plants, and there are some food items that have higher concentrations of it. However, most of the fluoride that you consume comes from fluoridated water, and dental products containing it. Adequate amounts of fluoride are critical for preventing cavities, so it’s important that you’re getting the recommended daily intake, which can be found here.

5 Powerful Benefits You Get From Fluoride

Incorporating fluoride into your diet or drinking water can provide you with powerful protection for your teeth and help you maintain a healthy smile. Here are five powerful benefits that come from fluoride:

1. It Remineralizes Your Tooth Enamel. When bacteria, plaque, and sugar is left to sit on your teeth, the acid from these causes the enamel to break down and lose important minerals. When this happens, it’s called demineralization, and is what allows tooth decay to develop and white spots to form on your teeth. Working fluoride into your oral hygiene routine ensures that minerals are re-deposited back onto your teeth, allowing your enamel to remineralize, which strengthens and protects your teeth.

2. It Acts As a Protective Antibacterial Barrier. You can think of fluoride as a protective, antibacterial barrier or shield that prevents bacteria and plaque from building up and attacking your teeth’s enamel.

3. Fluoride Creates An Inhospitable Environment for Bacteria. Fluoride works to create an unfavorable environment for bacteria growth. This is done by interfering with the chemical processes that enable bacteria to survive and reproduce. The fluoride also interferes with some of the enzymes and other proteins found in the mouth, which makes it difficult for bacteria to latch onto and eat away at tooth enamel. Ultimately, fluoride helps create an inhospitable environment in your mouth, so that harmful bacteria can’t grow as easily.

4. Fluoride Works to Inhibit Further Tooth Decay. Fluoride can help prevent further decalcification and demineralization of your teeth, giving it a stronger outer surface to prevent early decay from penetrating deep into your teeth. With continual and regular use of fluoride products, you can even reverse the very early stages of tooth decay.

5. It Leads to Fewer Dental Visits & Less Intensive Treatments. Regular use of fluoride helps to prevent tooth decay, which can often require more intensive treatments in the absence of fluoride. By adequately remineralizing teeth and creating a hostile environment for bacteria, brushing and flossing with fluoride helps to protect teeth from damage and reduces the need for more intensive treatments like fillings or root canals. This makes regular dental check-ups simpler, making it less likely to require any expensive interventions leading to fewer visits, and therefore fewer costs associated with those visits.

How Can I Work Fluoride Into My Oral Hygiene Routine?

There are a variety of ways in which you can work fluoride into your oral hygiene routine, including:

• Having our dentists apply it as a topical varnish or foam. This is a high concentration of fluoride that can be applied every 3, 6, or 12-months for extra protection.
• Having one of our dentists prescribe a fluoride-based product, such as a mouthwash, toothpaste, antibacterial rinse, or gel. These are at-home products that are meant to be used in-between professional teeth cleaning sessions.
• Using over-the-counter products with the American Dental Association’s (ADA) seal of approval. These could be specific types of toothpaste, or mouthwash rinses that have fluoride added to them.
• Give Your Oral Health A Boost With Fluoride
• Fluoride is a powerful natural mineral that helps protect your teeth against tooth decay and keeps your gums healthy. At Tampa Palms Dentistry, we recommend working fluoride into your oral hygiene routine to get the most out of its benefits. If you’re unsure of which fluoride form would be best for your dental needs, we can guide you through during an appointment with us. If you have any questions about fluoride or would like more information on the benefits it provides, don’t hesitate to contact our office. Our dental team is here to help restore, renew, and revitalize your mouth, so that you can achieve a beautiful smile that you’re proud of.
• In some cases, fluoride supplements may be prescribed either by one of our dentists or your primary care physician.
• Make sure that you’re eating food items high in fluoride (black tea, blue crab, red wines), or drinking tap water if you know that fluoride is added to the municipal water supply.

Give Your Oral Health A Boost With Fluoride

Fluoride is a powerful natural mineral that helps protect your teeth against tooth decay and keeps your gums healthy. At Tampa Palms Dentistry, we recommend working fluoride into your oral hygiene routine to get the most out of its benefits. If you’re unsure of which fluoride form would be best for your dental needs, we can guide you through during an appointment with us. If you have any questions about fluoride or would like more information on the benefits it provides, don’t hesitate to contact our office. Our dental team is here to help restore, renew, and revitalize your mouth, so that you can achieve a beautiful smile that you’re proud of.