Probiotics and Your Mouth

Probiotics have grown in popularity over the last few years. First, as a helpful ingredient for digestive health, now they are showing promising attributes to your oral health. From new mouthwashes and gums, probiotics are being focused and improved to help prevent cavities and bad breath, along with keeping gingivitis at bay.
Probiotics are natural bacteria that help defend the body against more harmful bacteria. It helps by balancing any bad bacteria with the good bacteria found in probiotics. This will help stop bacteria that can cause cavities of gingivitis from thriving. It holds them back, allowing your teeth and gum to stay healthy.

Probiotics neutralize bad bacteria and their toxic substances that cause decay or help aid periodontal disease. The probiotics are able to prevent bad bacteria by, in a way, taking up residence in the place that the bad bacteria would. If the bad bacteria cannot find a home for itself, it is flushed out the body. While bad bacteria can weaken your body, probiotics help aid in good health while in your body. Basically, probiotics should get two thumbs up from everybody. Of course, probiotics don’t last forever; they age, weaken, and eventually are replaced. Whether bad or good bacteria take their spot is up to you.
We’ve reported a few times on this blog on how yogurt is a great solution for helping fight bad breath. That is because it’s basically one big probiotic. However, while yogurt can help, it doesn’t have the ability to fight bad bacteria in your mouth like it does for your stomach. So instead, companies are now coming out with oral care probiotics that contain bacteria proven to help oral health and stave off bad bacteria.
Many probiotics for oral care come in supplements or mouthwash. One specifically is a solution that you gargle. It contains S. salivarius K12 and M18, which are able to create BLIS proteins that are available to help prevent many oral problems including bad breath, cavities, and plaque.
Bad breath is created entirely by bad bacteria harboring in the back of your throat. The S. salivarius K12 strain is a great probiotic that can help stop the growth of these bacteria and keep your mouth from drying out.
S. salivarius M18 is able to help in preventing the S. mutans bacteria that is the main culprit of plaque build up and cavities. The probiotic actually helps convert the bacteria into ammonia with can then also neutralize the lactic acid in your mouth, which further reduce the risk of cavities.
What’s most important to understand about probiotics is that it shouldn’t be seen as a last effort on bad oral care. By adding probiotics to your normal routine for hygiene, you’re helping prevent future problems from occurring. Just like daily brushing and flossing, a small amount of effort everyday can help keep major medical issues from occurring.
If you have any more questions about probiotics, or would like to talk to our staff about your oral care, don’t hesitate to contact Water Tower Dental; we’d be happy to assist you.