Benefits of Tea For Dental Health

Today, tea has become one of the existing form habits in the community. By drinking tea body will feel more refreshed. In addition, tea can also reduce stress. However, the benefits of tea are not only limited to that alone, tea is also beneficial for protecting the teeth because it has anti-cariogenic effects that can suppress the formation of caries. Caries or better known as tooth decay is a dental health problem in a very often encountered in the community. Caries is the localized demineralization process that starts from the tooth surface (enamel) and can reach into the roots of teeth.

Caries formation is influenced by many factors, such as oral hygiene, tooth itself, the food consumed, as well as heredity (genetics). The main factor of caries is Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus. These bacteria to ferment sucrose to obtain energy for their survival and to form acids that can damage the surface of teeth.

Tea, especially green tea and black tea contain various components of compounds that can inhibit the formation of caries. Catechins which is a compound in poliphenol group is the main compounds that are active in protecting the teeth from caries risk. Catechins contained in tea have anti-streptococcal activity that can inhibit growth and kill S. mutans and S. sobrinus. Catechins also inhibited transferase activity in S. glukosil mutans and S. sobrinus is an important enzyme in the fermentation of sucrose.

Poliphenol overall in green tea inhibits the enzyme amylase from S. mutans, whereas black tea contains more poliphenol can inhibit the enzyme amylase from S. mutans and S. sobrinus. Amylase is also an important enzyme in the fermentation of sucrose by the bacteria.

In addition, poliphenol can also inhibit bacterial adhesion to the tooth. Poliphenol binding proteins and bacterial surface hydrophobicity resulting in lower aggregation / bacterial adhesions.

Tea also contains high fluoride. Fluoride makes teeth more resistant to demineralization (tooth mineral decomposition) by the acid and activate remineralisasi (formation of tooth mineral) on the surface of dental caries that are not readily occur.

Problem of bad breath can also be overcome with diligent tea. This is due to the better oral hygiene and inhibition of activity of the bacteria occurred.

The benefits of this tea can be felt more by drinking freshly brewed tea from tea leaves rather than from tea bags or tea that has been in the packaging. At tea bags, containing compounds which are less useful and only contain a lot of caffeine alone. This is because tea bags contain tea leaves filings which largely consisted of the base and stem, whereas there are useful compounds in the leaves. While the contents of bottled tea has many beneficial compounds that are damaged and lost.

However it should be noted also that a good tea to drink to prevent caries is tea without sugar because sugar is one of the trigger factors of caries.

To get the maximum result we must drink tea every day after meals. But the effort to maintain healthy teeth, of course not stop here. Oral and dental hygiene remains the single most important thing we must guard.

Source

    * Www.books.nap.edu
    * Www.greenfacts.org
    * Www.jmm.sgmjournals.org