What causes tooth decay? It is mainly caused by these 4 causes
"Tooth decay" is medically known as "tooth decay", and the occurrence of tooth decay is caused by a variety of factors, including bacteria, diet, saliva, and tooth structure, these factors are interrelated, let's take a look at them below.
What causes tooth decay?
1. Bacteria
The main bacteria responsible for tooth decay is Streptococcus mutans. These bacteria mix with mucin in food scraps and attach firmly to the tooth surface and hollows, known as plaque. Plaque is very close to the surface of the teeth. It will fall off only by brushing your teeth carefully, but it will reattach to your teeth within 6 hours. The bacteria in plaque ferment food debris to produce acid, which dissolves the enamel under the plaque and forms tooth decay.
2. Diet
Diet plays an important role in the formation of dental caries. Food contains a lot of carbohydrates in the human body, which are mainly converted into glucose for the body to absorb. It is a great source of energy for the body, but carbohydrates also provide active energy for the bacteria in the plaque. Glycolysis produces acids under the effect of bacteria, leaving the teeth in an acidic environment and the teeth forming caries.
3. The time of the tooth structure
During tooth development, nutrition determines the biochemical structure of tooth tissue. If the mother is therepregnantDuring the period of enhanced nutrition, well-mineralized teeth have a high resistance to caries. On the contrary, the diet is not rich in mineral salts, trace elements and vitamins, which leads to low resistance to caries in the teeth and susceptibility to caries. In addition, the morphology, structure, and position of teeth are significantly correlated with the occurrence of caries. If the baby has systemic and local health disorders, it will affect the development of teeth, tooth development defects, especially insufficient calcification of teeth, low density of tooth enamel and dentin, low caries resistance, and easy tooth decay.In addition, despite normal tooth development, the physiological gap between baby teeth increases with age, making food debris easy to retain and difficult to clean.
4. Saliva
This substance is the external environment of the tooth and plays the role of buffering, washing, and inhibiting bacteria. The thinner the saliva, the better it is for cleaning the teeth, reducing the accumulation of bacteria and food debris, and also helping to dilute acidic products. The less and thicker the saliva, the easier it is to retain and promote plaque formation and attachment. At the same time, the nature and composition of saliva also affect the buffering capacity and living conditions of bacteria.
The above is the relevant knowledge about what causes tooth decay, I believe that after reading the above content, you have a general understanding of this problem, therefore, when the baby is born, it is necessary to start oral cleaning care. At the latest, after the baby's first tooth erupts, it is necessary to brush your child's teeth.