The Causes of Acid Erosion
Having an acid-rich diet that can put your teeth at risk is much easier than you’d expect. As few as four acidic “exposures” throughout the day can put enamel at risk from acid erosion.
What are these daily acidic exposures? Surprisingly, some of our healthier choices like fruit, fruit juices, sparkling water with lemon and even salad dressings. Which means we could very easily be putting our enamel at risk at least four times a day.
But let’s not change our healthy diets. Instead, let’s make sure we’re protecting our precious enamel. In addition to using a toothpaste like Pronamel there are plenty of things you can do to prevent acid erosion. Click here to learn how to prevent acid erosion.
What Is pH and How Is It Measured?
pH is a measure of how acidic (pH < 7) or alkaline (pH > 7 but less than 14) something is. For people concerned about an acidic diet and acid erosion, the most important thing to know is this: the lower the pH number, the more acidic a food or a drink is and the more harmful it is to your tooth enamel.
For example, distilled water has a neutral pH of 7, while tomato juice might have a pH of 4 and lemon juice might have a pH of 2—making lemon juice the most acidic of the three.
Knowing the pH value of the foods we eat and the beverages we drink helps us have a clearer picture of how acidic our diet really is. And knowing the acidity of our diet is an important step in making sure we protect our tooth enamel from acid erosion.
