preview

Teeth Whitening Controversy

Decent Essays

Having a whiter smile has been a dream for many individuals, but there has been some controversy on whether bleaching teeth is harmful to the tooth’s structure. Researchers have been trying to prove whether bleaching agents can change the hardness of the enamel surface. The following articles have shown their conclusions on this controversy.
Researchers Dutra et al. (2017) tested whether bleaching agents change the enamel surface of bovine teeth. The authors want to test this theory due to the popularity of teeth whitening. They explained that teeth discoloration is normal due to tobacco use and the different pigments in foods. They also addressed the types of bleaching (at home, and in office) and how they are typically used. The authors introduced the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which is the device they used to measure the enamel surface before and after bleaching in their study. Dutra et al used 10% and 16% carbamide peroxide, which is common in at home bleaching solutions, and …show more content…

(2016) believes that teeth whitening is causing an uproar. They think the lower the concentration of the bleaching agent the less it will affect the tooth’s surface, but also if LED is used the less sensitivity will occur to the patient. These researchers took their study into a different rout than the other researchers, they took the surface of bovine teeth and polished them all to be equal surface microhardness, they then attached them to devices to put into human volunteer’s mouths. These eleven volunteers only removed the devices to eat. The teeth were bleached with either 15% or 35% hydrogen peroxide, some with LED some without. They were bleached two separate times with seven days in between then left in for seven more days till permanently removed from volunteer. They concluded that the bleach with either concentration had little affect on the tooth’s surface and believe it is due to the human saliva that may have repaired any damages caused by

Get Access