Do DIY Teeth Whitening Methods Really Work?
Media Sources, celebrities and some medical professionals have claimed that brushing your teeth with a do-it-yourself strawberry and baking soda mixture is a natural, cheap and easy way to brighten your teeth. However new research shows that it does not actually whiten teeth, and it may even weaken them.
To test the effectiveness of this process, dental researcher So Ran Kwan compared a homemade strawberry-baking soda recipe to conventional tooth whitening products including over-the-counter, dentist dispensed for home use and in-office whitening products. 120 extracted molars were randomly divided into groups and the different whitening methods were performed according to manufacturer’s directions.
While the strawberry and baking soda formula did remove superficial debris, it produced no whitening effect. The other methods not only removed debris, but also provided a deeper, longer-lasting effect. Whitening success was based on two well know tests, and an examination with a scientific instrument that detects colors known as a spectrophotometer. According to Kwon, the strawberry and baking-soda formula had another major downside: it reduced the surface hardness of teeth by up to 10 percent, due to the erosive effect of the citric acid in the fruit.
“You really want something that penetrates into your teeth and breaks down the stain molecules. If you don’t have that, you get just the superficial, and not the whitening from the inside, which was what you really wanted.”
For more information, see the study in the journal of Operative Dentistry, published October 3, 2014
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