How Slimming Diets Can Jeopardize Your Oral Health

The best way to ensure lasting oral health is to have routine visits to your dentist in Owensboro, KY at least once every six months. You should also practice good oral hygiene at home, brushing and flossing after each meal. However, there’s another way that your oral health can be jeopardized, even when you do all these things. Your diet plays a large and important part in your oral health. And, unfortunately, the popularity of slimming diets is a poor companion to healthy teeth and gums.

Diets That Omit Entire Food Groups

Some of the most popular diets today omit entire food groups. One common diet, the Atkins diet, leaves out fruits and vegetables for the most part, for an entire two weeks. The so-called induction period calls for just one cup of vegetables per day. This makes it impossible for a person to get sufficient vitamins and nutrients in their diet. Of course, as the diet continues, more vegetables are supposed to be introduced. Still, diets like this severely limit access to healthy food groups.

Nutrition and Oral Health

Teeth, gums and bones need a well-rounded diet in order to maintain strength, function and health. It’s not so much the actual protein and carbohydrates, but the macro and micro nutrients in whole foods that enable the body to convert foods into what it needs to be healthy. Those who are malnourished for long periods of time will experience loose teeth, degenerating jaw bone, or even mouth diseases. In this day and age it’s hard to think of a person being malnourished. However, being on a slimming diet for a long time or being on a series of diets can indeed lead to malnutrition.

Your dentist in Owensboro can only do so much. It’s up to you to give your body the nutrients it needs for oral health.