Dehydration and Your Teeth: Will Vaping Indirectly Affect Our Teeth?
When it comes to nicotine, the evidence we have so far suggests that there’s little to worry about, and the cell studies directly addressing vaping are hard to draw firm conclusions from without further evidence. But these aren’t the only ways that vaping could impact your teeth and oral health.
One thing most vapers know is that vaping can dehydrate you. Both PG and VG are hygroscopic, which means they suck moisture out of their immediate environment. This is why getting a dry mouth after vaping is really common. Your mouth is in near-constant contact with PG and VG and most vapers quickly get accustomed to drinking more than usual to compensate. The question is: does this constant dehydration pose a risk for your teeth?
There is an interesting paper on the potential link between mild dehydration and dental issues, and overall it stresses that there is no direct evidence of a link. However, there are many indirect pieces of evidence and suggestive findings that hint at potential problems.
This largely comes down to your saliva. By literally “washing” your teeth as it moves around the mouth, containing ions that neutralise acids from your diet, containing calcium and phosphate that can reverse the effects of acids on your teeth and containing proteins that also impact how molecules interact with your teeth, saliva appears to be an essential factor in maintaining oral health. If dehydration – from vaping or anything else – leads to reduced saliva production, this could have a knock-on effect on your teeth and make tooth decay and other issues more likely.
The paper points out that there a lot of variables to consider and this makes drawing firm conclusions difficult, but the authors write:
“The link between dehydration and dental disease is not directly proved, although there is considerable circumstantial evidence to indicate that such a link exists.”
And this is the closest we can really get to an answer to this question. However, there are some interesting anecdotes in the comments to this post on vaping and your teeth (though the article itself just speculates on the risk for gum disease).
One commenter, “Skwurl,” after a year of exclusive vaping, points out that dry mouth and cotton mouth are common, and this can lead to bad breath and seems to cause issues with tooth decay. The commenter claims to practice good oral hygiene, but of course there’s no way of knowing this, nor what his or her teeth were like before switching to vaping.
However, this isn’t the only story in the comments, and while it’s all speculative, with the evidence discussed above, it’s certainly plausible that vaping can lead to dehydration-related issues with your teeth.
