Tooth Decay: Ouch! My Tooth Hurts!
Written by admin on September 08, 2009
Tags: tooth decay, tooth hurts
Every time one eats foods that contain sugars and starches like candies, cakes, cola, milk, and other carbohydrate rich foods, some traces are left on the teeth.
Credit: flickr
Certain bacteria, such as mutans streptococci and lactobacilli, thrive in dental plaque (or bacterial colonies) and utilize the sugars in the food traces as their own source of food. Digesting the sugars create acids as waste product. And these acids, especially lactic acid, eat up the mineral content of the tooth.
The acids produced in the digestion of sugar are either diluted, washed away in the mouth, or seep in the tooth’s surface. When dental plaque is present on the tooth’s surface, the acids penetrate it.
