What is a Dental Cavity (Dental Caries or Tooth Decay)?

How do you stop getting cavities? Is there a cure for dental caries? The answer to these questions is: "YES, but it isn't easy!" In order to figure out how to prevent caries, we have to see what it actually is. 

A Little Background

Dental decay or caries as they call it is the most prevalent disease on the planet. Tooth decay is actually an INFECTION of hard tooth structure, and we are only beginning to understand it. To comprehend what caries is and how to avoid it, we have to look at how it starts and why.

There are many things that make up a tooth. The parts most relevant for understanding caries are: ENAMEL- outer most layer of the visible part of teeth- it is an inorganic crystal. The layer under it is a hard organic connective tissue called DENTIN. The inside of the tooth contains blood vessels and nerve fibers and is called the PULP.

The saliva is a very complex liquid. It is deceiving because it has no color (most of the time) and looks a lot like water, but water is only one of the components that make up saliva. Other parts include a incomprehensible number of proteins and minerals.

The proteins are a type of a very specific glue that sticks the bacteria to the tooth.

Yourmouth houses billions and billions of bacteria at all times. Teeth are covered in bacteria that produce more and more offspring by the second. The mesh of all the protein, bacteria and other particles from our diet is called a biofilm- or dental plaque.  The biofilm is not the disease, it is present in everyone, even in people that never had a cavity.

The bacteria that are responsible for cavities eat the sugars from our diet and release a acid, as the by-product of digestion. The acid dissolves the enamel, while the minerals from the saliva re-crystallize it. This is a BALANCE that happens in every person with teeth. Once the BALANCE is disrupted it moves toward either side- RE-CRYSTALIZATION or CARIES.

The disease process is reversible until the bacteria have reached the underlying DENTIN layer. Once this happens the dentist has to drill out the soft, demineralized tooth structure and fill the space.

The Caries/Health Seesaw

There are many factors that influence the balance between HEALTH and DECAY. We have recognized factors that we can CONTROL with every day routine care: 

1.      the number of overall bacteria on teeth

2.      the pH value of the mouth

3.      The minerals that are present in the mouth

4.      The amount of saliva in the mouth

5.      Mechanical debridement of teeth

We now have better methods to prevent dental caries. We have to identify the contributing factors in each patient and to eliminate them, and coach patients back to health. There are many techniques that one can use to prevent dental decay from occurring, and re-occurring. Here is the link to some that you can use every day.