May 13, 2024 12:00:00

How to drink coffee to minimize yellowing of teeth?

Coffee, the world's most popular beverage, has health benefits, including lowering

the risk of type 2 diabetes and cancer , but it's also the enemy of white teeth. Experts explain the best way to drink coffee to avoid staining your teeth as much as possible while still enjoying a delicious cup of coffee.

This Type of Coffee Is the Least Likely to Stain Your Teeth, According to Science
https://www.inverse.com/health/dark-roast-coffee-teeth-staining-science-dentist

There are four main factors that affect tooth staining caused by coffee: the acidity of the coffee, its pigment components, whether or not milk is added, and the time it is drunk.

According to Monica Bibawi, a dentist at the New York University College of Dentistry, when you eat food or drink with a pH level below 5.5, it starts to break down the enamel on your teeth, making them more susceptible to staining. Coffee has a pH level between 4.9 and 6.2, so the quickest way to get whiter teeth is to make coffee with as high a pH as possible and with as little acidity as possible.

In addition, the polyphenols

tannins and chlorogenic acid contained in coffee are also responsible for tooth staining. These ingredients are sometimes said to have health benefits, and they have a major impact on the flavor of coffee, with tannins giving it a bitter taste and chlorogenic acid giving it an acidic taste, but both will stain your teeth if they adhere to them.

The degree to which the coffee beans are roasted determines the pH of the coffee and the amount of natural colorings it contains. If you roast coffee for a long time, the tannins and chlorogenic acid in the coffee beans will break down, increasing the pH.

In other words, lightly roasted coffee is more acidic and contains more pigments, so when it comes to tooth staining, dark roasted coffee, which is coffee beans that are roasted until they are jet black, is better.

But roasting isn't the only thing that affects coffee acidity. Milk has a pH of 6.7 to 6.9, so adding milk to coffee not only mellows the taste, but also raises the pH and reduces the acidity. Milk also doesn't destroy tannins or chlorogenic acid, but it does reduce the effects of coloring. A 2022 study published in the Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Science, a peer-reviewed medical journal, also confirmed that adding sugar to coffee worsens coloring, while adding milk or water reduces it.

The study, which involved soaking extracted teeth in coffee, also found that the hotter the coffee, the more likely it was to stain the teeth. And a 2018 study found that coffee brewed at a higher temperature had a higher concentration of acid than cold-brewed coffee brewed at a lower temperature for several hours.

The time you spend drinking your coffee is also important. The average pH of saliva is 6.7, so even if you drink your coffee over 30 minutes, the pH in your mouth doesn't change that much. However, the longer you drink it, the stronger the effect becomes.

'If you drink your coffee over two hours, for example, your teeth are constantly being attacked by acid, as there is no time for saliva to act as a buffer and restore the pH level,' said Bibawi. 'So to protect your teeth, it's better to drink your coffee in a short period of time.'

From this point of view, scientifically speaking, the best way to prevent staining of teeth is to drink cold brew coffee made from dark roasted coffee beans, with plenty of ice and milk, and then quickly drink it. Bibawi, however, prefers light roast coffee.

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