Do I have it right that the primary cause of tooth decay is that some bacteria in my mouth A) can only eat sugar B) excrete acid which is what damages the teeth?
If I went without eating sugar for a while, would all such bacteria die?
If so, about how long would it take?
Would it be possible for them to go extinct if sugar consumption was quite low and only present in non-refined form like vegetables and meat?
If they could go extinct, how would it be possible for them to come back and how could that be prevented?
No. They eat carbohydrates, protein and fat too. They won’t die that way.
Suppose you did clean yourself of them … They are present in the biosphere. We just reduce the level of bacteria by keeping our homes somewhat clean… in fact they live in the carpet and in the dust…there’s bacteria on everyone’s skin and in their hair… its everywhere.
If you get rid of your native bacteria, you leave a niche open for some other bacteria to live.
That is bad, because you will be colonized by bacteria that you will give you alergies or make you sick.
It is certainily the case that some people are populated with highly decay-causing bacteria, and some other people are populated with bacteria that don’t cause much tooth decay. I’ve read that you inherit most of your mouth flora from your mother.
There have been experiements done with sterilizing the mouth, but I’ve seen nothing recently.
People sometimes swish-&-gargle wth diluted hydrogen peroxide. Done fastidiously – say three times daily – just how much of a foothold can the bacteria get?
I understand that each swish-&-gargle won’t kill 100% of what’s in your mouth, but it should have a high enough hit rate to make a difference, no?
Acidic food also causes tooth decay. Virtually all beverages except water and milk are acidic. Plus various foods.
There has been talk for over a decade about adding a strain of bacteria to outcompete the acid producing ones. I don’t know what ever happened with it.
There are attempts to create something akin to probiotics for oral hygiene. You add a bacteria that do not produce acid that outcompete the bacteria that do. So it drastically reduces their number.
One of my greyhounds has had severe chronic gingivitis with resultant foul breath. While brushing his teeth every day did nothing to help I have had some success with brushing with the alcohol based gel cleanser and following it up later with a brushing of a probiotic opened up and mixed in a little water. I do it once to twice a week and his breath is much improved.
Meanwhile I could find this that might be of interest (pdf):
It was a review (not meta-analysis) of papers since flouridation
asking NOT if there is a relationship, in fact stating that the evidence of a relationship between sugar and caries is “overwhelming”, but asking if the relationship in an era of flouridation is linear. Their conclusion is that the relationship beween sugar and caries is of “no question” but that it is not as strong as it was in a pre-flouride era … not that it is weak.