What You Should Know About Charcoal Toothpaste

Let’s begin with an aide-memoire regarding exactly what natural charcoal is: a type of carbon, typically derived from wood and then heated until there is no water or additional compounds remaining. Quality charcoal is nearly 100 percent carbon, and it is most often seen in the form of a rock-like product used for grilling.  

Activated charcoal is created in a comparable fashion, but there are a few important distinctions. This process also requires the heating of many different carbon-rich elements, that might include wood, but also additional elements like sugar, peat, coal, coconut shells, or sawdust. 

Activated charcoal is heated to an even greater temperature than conventional charcoal, causing it to be more absorbent, enabling it to adhere very easily to other materials. It is also normally presented as a very fine powder, instead of the hard chunks you toss on your grill. 

Basically, activated charcoal is a type of carbon that has been subjected to further processing to ensure that it is very porous. The extra porousness results in activated charcoal being a cleaning marvel, one so powerful that it is used to remove poisons from the human body. This is not a new phenomenon either. Evidently, doctors have been using activated charcoal to save lives for a very, very long time. It is also on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. 

What Does Activated Charcoal Do for Your Teeth?

Due to its ultra-absorbent qualities, activated charcoal is believed to detoxify your gums and mouth and super-clean your teeth by locking onto tartar, bacteria, food debris, and stains, and ultimately removing them. 

The assumed effect? A cleaner mouth and whiter teeth. 

Bear in mind that the scientific data on charcoal toothpaste as an oral healthcare product is in extremely short supply, even declared inadequate by some researchers, so nobody is really able to definitively assert that charcoal toothpaste cleans or whitens your teeth more completely than your standard drugstore toothpaste brands. As a matter of fact, one experiment examined traditional toothpaste to activated charcoal toothpaste and determined that the charcoal brand did not accomplish anything more than the other brands. 

There are more than a few anecdotal cases that charcoal toothpaste inhibits cavities or somehow supports improved oral health among its users, but there is absolutely no reliable scientific data to back-up any of these affirmations. 

Is it Really Safe to Put Charcoal in Your Mouth? 

When you consider the fact that scientists and physicians alike have used activated charcoal for healing purposes for centuries, it is reasonably safe to assume that you may use activated charcoal toothpaste without concerning yourself that there will be any detrimental side effects. 

Your teeth have to be properly maintained if you want to keep your smile both beautiful and functional. The preventative dentistry treatments offered by Curtis L. Chan, DDS in his Del Mar office will help you establish the optimal oral health care routine you need to make sure your teeth remain healthy and strong. For more information on preventative dentistry and your oral health, contact our San Diego office at (858) 481-9090 to schedule an appointment.