Can Green Tea Cure Gum Disease?

Series Summary

Many people today want a whiter, brighter smile. Some of us can achieve it with proper oral hygiene—regular brushing, flossing and using mouthwash. Some of us need a little extra help to get our yellowing teeth to return to the land of sparkling white, especially smokers and coffee drinkers. There are a number of products out there that will help turn our teeth a few shades whiter, including bleaching agents and toothpastes that contain whiteners. For some, these do the trick; for others, over-the-counter solutions are often hit and miss, with temporary results. In this free video series, a dentist provides dental health tips on preventing gum disease and keeping teeth clean and white. Learn how to prevent gingivitis, how to brush teeth and how to floss teeth. Discover how to use green tea to prevent gum disease, how to make a whiter smile and find out why people should use fluoride. Take care of the teeth and gums with this advice on dental health and oral hygiene.

Video Transcript

"Green tea is is a drink that's, oftentimes, used for a lot of different medical reasons. There's a lot of new studies that are suggesting that there are many benefits for drinking green tea. Certainly, from a medical standpoint, tea has a lot of antioxidants which can help re reduce or, you know, decrease the incidence of the chances of getting cancer, things like that, by removing free radicals. It can also help with strength and energy, and we've found that it can also serve as an appetite suppressant. We're going to focus more on the oral benefits of green tea, as there's new studies that are coming out suggesting that green tea can actually improve your oral health. Some of it suggested that it can cure gum disease. While it's not recommended that it's a cure for gum disease, it has been shown to actually effectively help treat some of the problems that we find in the mouth. One of the examples is bad breath. Bad breath, also known as halitosis is typically caused from a collection of buildup found across the tongue. We know that with proper hygiene and using instruments such as tongue scrapers can help reduce the incidence of that. We also find that there are studies out there that suggest that when you drink green tea that there are certain chemicals within the tea that can help reduce bad breath. There's also the point that there are properties in green tea that actually have antibacterial properties, so one that drinks a lot of green tea may have more defense against the bacteria that are found in the mouth that would normally cause things such as cavities and gum disease. One of the other important things that we find in green tea is there's other chemicals within that one that actually helps minimize bleeding. We know that with certain people that have a lot of gingivitis that when they drink green tea the chemicals within the green tea can actually help cause things to to clot or coagulate; minimizing some of the bleeding that you would normally encounter when you're when you're brushing and when you're flossing. These are multiple reasons that green tea can be used for treating things with people that have gingivitis and gum disease. While it is not a direct cure there are some studies that suggest there are some great benefits to having green tea in your nor normal regimen."