Yes, smoking does affect teeth and gums in every possible way. If you smoke, be prepared for all sorts of damages to your oral health. Study after study has established a link between the use of tobacco products and problems to teeth and gums. More importantly, smokers are more at risk for gum diseases than non-smokers. They are also more likely to develop tartar on their teeth than those who don’t smoke.

Whether it’s plaque or tartar or stains or periodontal disease, smoking can harm your oral health in various ways and thus, it’s always prudence to chuck the habit and return back to sanity. And if you want healthy and strong teeth and disease-free gum, make sure you’re away from tobacco in any form. After all, smoking can easily take away the natural shine and vigour from your teeth and gums.

Here are some of the ways in which smoking can affect your teeth and gums –

1. Smoking leads to more plaque and tartar

When you smoke, you will have more plaque and tartar on, in or around your teeth and gums. This happens due to the presence of harmful chemicals in tobacco products that not only affect the flow of saliva in the mouth but also create a helpful environment for oral bacteria to stick to teeth and gums.

When plaque is not removed on a daily basis, it can become a hard substance known as tartar which only a dentist can remove. This is why smokers are more prone to developing gum disease where their tooth roots get weakened and the teeth fall out prematurely. This is why smoking is bad for your oral health.

2. Smoking can lead to tooth decay

Smoking can easily destroy your tooth roots and lead to dental decay more easily than you could ever imagine. The chemicals present in tobacco products can irritate the gum tissue and cause your gums to loosen around the teeth. And when the gums are loose, this gives bacteria a suitable environment to settle in and cause havoc in true sense.

If bacteria are stuck in or around the teeth and gums, there will always be dental decay with great risk of premature tooth loss. What’s more, the harmful substances of tobacco can also cause stains and discolouration which not only dilutes the charms of teeth but may also weaken the teeth structure. This is why smoking is bad in every sense of the way.

3. Smoking can interfere with your blood circulation

The harms of smoking go deeper than you can actually imagine. The habit can also interfere with your blood circulation leading to restricted blood flow. This may happen due to the infections caused by bacteria responsible for affecting the normal functioning of the gum tissue. And when the blood flow is affected, it will always delay healing post oral surgery of any nature.

That’s why those who smoke are never considered a good candidate for oral surgeries and if they are, their recovery process is always more time consuming and more difficult compared to a non-smoker. Worse still, the gums of a smoker are more likely to bleed easily when they brush or floss.

4. Smoking causes bad breath and stains

Smoking can make your teeth stained with shades of yellow all over the pearly whites that once added beauty to your smile. The harmful chemicals and additives in tobacco can easily stain or discolour the teeth which can weaken the tooth structure from the roots. Worse still, smoking is a habit that not only changes the colour of teeth but also leads to bad breath.

Since smoking affects the flow of saliva in the mouth, there will always a possibility of bacteria growth and rotten food debris and plaque between the teeth leading to bad smell from the mouth. The bad breath caused by smoking is avoidable only if one is concerned with their regular oral health.

5. Smoking leads to oral cancer

Smoking is responsible for an overwhelming majority of cancer of the mouth, lips and throat. Worse still, smokers are some six times more at risk to develop oral cancers than non-smokers. This fact is something you can corroborate with best dentist forest AVE queens anywhere in the world. All oral experts say the same that smoking leads to oral cancer.

So, if you smoke, make sure you get oral screening regularly so that any early signs of risks could be spotted by the dentist and the treatment started. And since prevention is always better than cure, you should rather focus on quitting smoking to lead to a healthy life. After all, your oral health has a big say in your overall health and physical wellbeing.

Clearly, smoking is bad for your oral health and you must say goodbye to the habit sooner rather than later.