What causes decay?
Decay of a tooth occurs when acids and plaque remain on the tooth’s surface. Everyone’s mouth contains bacteria and when we eat, those bacteria in our mouth get a meal as well. The longer food sits on our teeth, the more time the bacteria have to feed on the waste generated by our food. This causes demineralization. Brushing frequently greatly helps in stopping this demineralization from taking place. Plaque that is only a few hours old will not be able to produce as much tooth demineralization as plaque which is several days old. So brush, brush, brush!
A. During stress states, minerals from bones and teeth are returned to the circulation. The resultant dry, “lifeless” surface of the tooth attracts scavenging bacteria. Immune markers of scavengers stimulate the inflammatory process within the tooth. Tooth decay is immune-mediated inflammatory destruction of teeth infected with bacteria. Tooth decay is inflammation “out of control, a pimple of a tooth”. The rate of decay is determined primarily by how stress or sugar-disabled our immune gobbler cells are and how high the heightened compensatory chemical inflammatory response.
