A few years ago, the toothpaste we used was basically white, but now, there are red, green, blue and yellow, as well as color stripes, sandwiches, color films and other effects. The colors are dazzling. Not long ago, the blue paste of the Chinese “magic Lixun white” toothpaste was exposed as “suspected of exaggerating the efficacy of the product”. Are all kinds of brightly colored toothpaste on the market really that magical?
Ms. Chen, who lives in Harbin, told the reporter that every time she used this blue quick white toothpaste, she always felt like she had not rinsed her mouth clean. Sometimes there would still be some blue left on her teeth. Whether she could whiten or not was unknown, but she was always worried about the harm to her body. In this regard, Professor Bi Liangjia, member of the periodontology group of the Chinese Stomatological Association, told the reporter that there are only two ways to whiten teeth, namely, to remove color spots on the tooth surface and to improve the brightness of the teeth themselves. The former needs to be treated in the hospital, while the latter needs to use whitening agent to oxidize and decompose the color spots on the tooth surface to achieve the purpose of whitening teeth. The ingredients of toothpaste mainly include friction agents, foaming agents, moisturizers, thickeners, preservatives, aromatics, sweeteners and water. Only friction agents and foaming agents can play an indirect role in tooth whitening. Moreover, due to the limitation of the action time of toothpaste in the mouth and the dilution of the effective ingredients when brushing, the effect is very limited. Even for extrinsic color spots, it is impossible to achieve whitening after brushing several times. Chinese “magic quick white” only uses the blue substance in the toothpaste to adsorb on the tooth surface and cover the yellow of the teeth, which will give people a visual feeling of whiteness under light. Adding more food coloring to colored toothpaste is harmless to human body, but it is not helpful to efficacy. Some toothpastes contain dye, which will pollute the tooth surface, tarnish the teeth and affect the beauty of the teeth after long-term use.
Professor Bi Liangjia said that the basic function of toothpaste is cleaning, and other functions are only additional functions, which are not important. When choosing toothpaste, we mainly look at the quality of the friction agent. Ding Xiaoyi, Deputy Secretary General of the Chinese Stomatological Association, said that aluminum hydroxide and calcium hydrogen phosphate are better, followed by silicon dioxide, and calcium carbonate is the lowest grade. In addition, the particles of various friction agents have different sizes, and the finer particles will cause less damage to the tooth surface. For ordinary people, a tube of ordinary white toothpaste is the best. Most ordinary toothpastes contain borneol, clove oil, menthol, spearmint, thyme, coumarin and other good medicines for preventing and treating oral diseases. They have a strong fragrance, are cool and refreshing, and have no adverse reactions. In addition, some “functional toothpastes” may have side effects if they are not properly selected. For example, long-term use of the drug ingredients in the medicated toothpaste will cause dysbacteriosis in the oral cavity, and some drugs may enter the intestinal tract; Long term use of calcium toothpaste may increase the concentration of calcium ions in the mouth and promote the formation of dental calculus; Salt toothpaste should be used with caution for patients with hypertension.
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