Is Vaping Bad For Your Teeth?

Does vaping have the same negative impact on your teeth as smoking does? We investigated to find out.

From the first glance, it would appear that vaping is not great for your oral health. Any excessive, repetitive action that you perform with your mouth is likely to cause eventual damage. There are few permanent pieces of evidence that link bad oral health with vaping, but there are feasible concepts which dentists are theorising as a result of the current popularity of vape devices.

We wanted to fully explore the vaping facts and myths around your oral health. Is vaping bad for your teeth and if so, how? Let’s discuss.

Vaping Gives You Bad Breath

One of the first rumours we heard about vaping and your oral health is that it gives you bad breath. This is not technically true. Vaping different flavours will make your breath smell of those flavours. Things are more complex than that, of course. If you vape frequently, your mouth becomes dry. A dry mouth isn’t fighting plaque in the same way as a moist mouth is. This dryness can cause cracks in the teeth that cause bad breath.

Vaping does not come with the horrendous smoky breath of a smoker. If you vape menthol e-liquids, your breath will be minty fresh. Be sensible when vaping, since it dehydrates you and the dehydration causes tooth damage. Drink water every few puffs to make sure you are staying healthy. Remember to brush twice a day and use a mouthwash around lunchtime, too.

Myth: E-Cigarettes Make Your Teeth Yellow

Learning the difference between mouth to lung vaping and direct to lung vaping can help understand why e-cigarettes are less likely to yellow your teeth. However, it’s not just that bypass of holding vapour in your mouth that DTL vaping styles have that makes vaping better for your teeth than smoking. The chemicals in smoking turn your teeth yellow. Many of these chemicals are noticeably absent from e-liquids.

Dentists agree that vaping will not make your teeth yellower. Vaping does not contain the sticky yellow tar substance that we produce by burning tobacco. We can safely say that any chance of your teeth yellowing due to vaping is minimal. However, it is possible. There may be a yellow coloured e-liquid in the future that gives you yellow teeth, but it won’t be in the same way that smoking does. You could equally have blue, purple, or green teeth. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Does Vaping Cause Gum disease?

Unlocking the mysteries of what vaping may or may not do to our health is a new challenge in clinical medicine and public health. What we know about smoking is that it does cause us gum disease. When we smoke over an extended period, our gums receive less oxygenated blood. They recede away from the base of the teeth. The more your gums recede, the more painful they will be. This receding means more bone becomes exposed, leading to greater sensitivity and increased tooth loss.

This process is a lot slower when you vape instead of smoking. You do have a loss of blood flow to the gums which can negatively affect your gums over time. However, this process will take far longer than it would if you were smoking. Smoking causes a lack of oxygen in the bloodstream overall, which leads to tooth decay, cum disease, and eventually tooth loss.

You can stave off the symptoms of gum disease by brushing twice a day, flossing every evening, and using mouthwash in the afternoons. You can chew sugar free gum to help produce saliva, or drink water throughout the day to keep your mouth hydrated.

Does Vaping Cause Mouth Cancer?

According to Cancer Research UK, there is no good evidence that vaping causes cancer. They do cite concern because some flavourings found in e-cigarettes are not proven healthy ingredients. Nevertheless, they are far less harmful than the cancer-causing ingredients in cigarettes. It is this factor which makes them less harmful and that has seen the UK government promote their use in place of cigarettes and even in place of Nicotine Replacement Therapies.

Early on in the beginning stages of vaping devices, the media reported that vaping came with certain risks. One of these risks was a condition nicknamed ‘popcorn lung.’ The real name of the disease is bronchiolitis obliterans. This disease creates small pockets of damage in your airways that give you a persistent cough and breathing difficulties. The condition was linked early on to Diacetyl, which as been banned for use in vape juices in the UK for quite some time now.

Popcorn lung is not a cancer, although it is a painful disease. It was first recognised in factory workers who created popcorn, hence the nickname. The workers were breathing in the diacetyl and it made them unwell. The UK government banned diacetyl in 2016 as part of the EU Tobacco Products Directive. Not only has e-liquid containing diacetyl been illegal in Britain ever since, but Cancer Research UK cite no known cases of popcorn lung resulting from e-cigarette use. Put simply, popcorn lung from e-cigarettes was a scare tactic to keep people smoking.

Is Vaping Bad for Your Oral Health?

Overall, then, vaping is not as bad for your teeth as our initial investigations made out. However, there are ways we haven’t yet touched on that your vaping can have an impact on your oral health.

Since vaping is a stimulant, some dentists speculate that it can cause you to grind your teeth. Grinding your teeth, even in your sleep, is bad for the surface layers of the teeth. Some dentists have also speculated that vaping dries out your mouth. Someone who routinely suffers from a dry mouth has enamel that is at risk of splitting or breaking. When small cracks get into our enamel, we can experience sensitivity, which can be uncomfortable.

A third way that vaping might damage your oral health is through vasoconstriction. This is a long word for saying that the oxygen supply and blood flow to the gums experience restriction. This can lead to gum disease and contributes to poor dental health.

Where can I find out more about Vape Products?

You can both find out more about vape products, and check out our new vape kits products, here. Each of our products is fully compliant with trading standards and are free of illegal chemicals sometimes used in the production of e-liquids in other countries. You can read more about your vape liquids on our blog and you can shop for them in our online store.

I Want to Quit Smoking Using a Vape, What Do I Do?

If you want to make the switch from cigarette smoking to something better for your teeth, then switching to a vape device is a clever idea. You will retain your nicotine level while keeping that feeling of taking a drag on a cigarette. You feel like you are puffing, but you are eliminating many of the cancerous chemicals, most of the bad breath, and some of the dehydration that is bad for your teeth.

If you want to quit smoking through a vape device, you can read more about this on our blog. You can also visit the NHS website to learn more about the benefits of vape devices for ex-smokers. If you are still at a loss for information, visit us at our Stacey Bushes or Milton Keynes stores.

Conclusion: Vaping Doesn’t Harm your Teeth Like Smoking Does

Our conclusion can only be that vaping is worse for your teeth than not vaping, but far better for your teeth than smoking might be. Although vaping dries out the mouth and lowers the blood oxygen levels of your gums, it doesn’t directly cause your teeth to stain or decay. In fact, you could argue that vaping is better for your teeth than giving in to your sweet tooth and eating the desserts, fruits, snacks, and sweets, that vape juice flavours give you access to.

If you are vaping regularly, maintain good oral health and drink plenty of water. The combination of these things should keep your mouth as fresh as possible throughout the day. Good oral hygiene will stave off gum disease even if you are a smoker, so practice cleaning your teeth and gums regularly for the best results.