770-475-0603
oldalabamadds@bellsouth.net
The better your understanding of the decay process, the better equipped you'll be to maintain good dental health. Here's a basic rundown of the tooth decay process, start to finish.
Colonies of bacteria
First of all, thousands of bacteria exist in your mouth. This is completely normal. In fact, most of these bacteria are beneficial. But there are a few bacteria that play a role in the decay process. One bacteria in particular, streptococcus mutans, is a primary culprit, reproducing quickly and setting up large colonies wherever they're given the opportunity to feast on starchy foods. These starches, also known as carbohydrates and consisting of foods such as pasta, bread, crackers, and sweets, can build up on teeth if they aren't brushed away regularly; this buildup is called plaque. Plaque is a sticky film that's a mixture of saliva, food debris and bacteria, and it's constantly forming on your teeth.
Streptococcus mutans will eat any carbohydrate, but the starch it will eat most quickly is sugar. And the more refined the sugar is, the quicker the bacteria will eat through it. What this means is that the natural sugars that exist in fruit, called fructose, won't be consumed by the bacteria as quickly as would granulated white sugar.
When the bacteria eat the sugars in plaque, a chemical reaction occurs. The sugars are broken down into simpler elements, and one of these elements is an acid (called lactic acid). And as you learned in high school science, acid breaks down many things, including tooth enamel.
Consequently, the bacteria in your mouth feast on the sugar that resides in the plaque on your teeth. Then, acids are produced that go to work breaking down your tooth's enamel. Eventually, there will be a hole on the surface of the tooth, where the acids dissolved the enamel. You now have a cavity (also called caries), the visible evidence of tooth decay. Once this occurs, the only way to stop the decay process in its tracks is for us to remove the decayed portion of your tooth and put in a filling material.
There is a bright side to this story! When you brush and floss properly, there's very little plaque on your teeth, so bacteria don't have an all-you-can-eat carbohydrate buffet. This means they can't colonize on your teeth, and they won't be producing the acids that lead to tooth decay.