Everyone knows the recommendation for healthy teeth – brush twice day by day and do not eat an excessive amount of sugar. So why do those of us following these instructions find we sometimes need a filling after we visit the dentist?

The reality is, there’s a bit more to stopping tooth decay than these guidelines suggest. Here’s what you’ll want to know.

Brush up in your skills

The way you brush makes a giant difference.

The mechanical act of brushing removes the very sticky dental plaque – a combination of bacteria, their acids and sticky byproducts and food remnants.

It forms naturally on teeth immediately after you’ve got eaten but doesn’t get nasty and begin to cause damage to the teeth until it reaches a certain stage of maturity.

The precise period of time this takes is not known but is not less than greater than 12 hours.

Bacteria eat sugar and, as a byproduct, produce acids which dissolve mineral out of the teeth, leaving microscopic holes we won’t see. If the method is not stopped and they don’t seem to be repaired, these can grow to be big, visible cavities.

Taking two minutes to brush your teeth is a very good goal for removing plaque and it’s best to brush at night and one other time day by day. Brushing incessantly stops the bacteria developing to a stage where the species which produce probably the most acid can grow to be established.

Electric toothbrushes might be simpler than manual brushing and a small toothbrush head helps to succeed in awkward areas within the mouth, while medium-textured bristles make it easier to clean effectively without causing harm to gums and teeth. The foremost thing, nevertheless, is to get brushing!

Use fluoride toothpaste and disclosing tablets

Many of the profit from brushing comes from toothpaste. The important thing ingredient is fluoride, which evidence shows prevents tooth decay. Fluoride replaces lost minerals in teeth and likewise makes them stronger.

For optimum profit, use toothpaste with 1350-1500 ppmF – that is concentration of fluoride in parts per million – to stop tooth decay.

Check your toothpaste’s concentration by reading the ingredients on the back of the tube. Not all kid’s toothpastes are strong enough for them to realize maximum profit. Your dentist may prescribe higher strength fluoride toothpaste based on their assessment of your or your child’s risk of tooth decay.

Plaque is difficult to see since it is whitish, like your teeth. Disclosing tablets can be found in supermarkets and chemists and so they make plaque more visible, showing areas you might have missed when brushing.

Spit, don’t rinse

At night, you produce less saliva than throughout the day. For this reason, your teeth have less protection from saliva and are more vulnerable to acid attacks.

That is why it is vital to remove food out of your teeth before bed so plaque bacteria cannot feast overnight. Don’t eat or drink anything except water after brushing at night. This also gives fluoride the longest opportunity to work.

Once you’ve got brushed, don’t rinse your mouth with water or mouthwash – you are washing away the fluoride! This is usually a difficult habit to interrupt, but can reduce tooth decay by as much as 25%.

Not more than 4 ‘sugar hits’

Intrinsic sugars are found naturally in foods like fruit and so they are far less prone to cause tooth decay than added or free sugars. Free sugars are generally those added to foods by manufacturers but in addition include honey, syrup and fruit juices.

These are all easy for bacteria to eat, metabolise and produce acids from. Nonetheless, it might be difficult to inform that are the worst sugars for teeth. For instance, although normal amounts of fruit are tremendous, fruit juices have sugar liberated from the plant cells and heavy consumption may cause decay.

The World Health Organization and NHS recommend free sugars should ideally make up lower than 5% of your day by day calorie intake. So what does this seem like? For adults and youngsters over about 11 years old, that is around 30g – about eight teaspoons – of sugar day by day.

A 330ml can of Coke has 35g of sugar. The change4life app is useful to trace how much sugar you eat in your weight-reduction plan.

Although not as essential as how much, how often you eat sugar also matters. Easy carbohydrates like sugar are easier for bacteria to digest than proteins or complex carbohydrates. Bacteria produce acids after they metabolise sugar which causes demineralisation.

Fortunately, through the actions of fluoride toothpaste and the remineralising effects of saliva, your teeth can get well from the early stages of those attacks. It’s like having a set of scales – attempting to keep the balance between sugars on one side, fluoride toothpaste and cleansing on the opposite.

Typically, your teeth might be exposed to 4 “sugar hits” – episodes of sugar intake – day by day without irreversible damage to the teeth. Why not try counting what number of sugary hits you’ve gotten a day?

This includes biscuits, cups of sugary tea or coffee and other snacks with refined carbohydrates like crisps. An easy way of cutting down can be to stop putting sugar in hot drinks and limiting snacking.

Brush twice day by day with fluoride toothpaste, spit don’t rinse, eat and drink nothing after brushing, and haven’t got sugar greater than 4 times day by day. Easy!

Clement Seeballuck, Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Dentistry, University of Dundee and Nicola Innes, Professor of Paediatric Dentistry, University of Dundee.

This text is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the unique article.