Facts on Whitening Toothpaste

Video Transcript

"On a daily basis I often encounter patients asking me, "What is the best whitening toothpaste there is, and how do they work?" It's very important to understand that most whitening toothpastes are typically misrepresented in what they do. What I mean by that is, most of them claim to whiten teeth, and if you actually look at the ingredients on the toothpaste, most of the toothpastes that say that they whiten do not have anything that chemically whiten the teeth. What whitening toothpaste's claim to fame is, that is basically helps remove surface stain on the teeth, which, just about any toothpaste is able to do that. So, from an advertising standpoint, most toothpastes that say that they whiten, it does it from the standpoint that, if you're brushing with toothpaste, and the toothpaste has something abrasive in it, it will help remove plaque and tartar as well as surface stain. By removing the surface stain, the plaque and the build-up, your teeth are going to look lighter than they did before. That's one of the important things to understand, because there are some toothpastes that truly do whiten teeth. But what you need to do is look at the ingredients on the back of the toothpaste to ensure that they truly have the ingredients that are necessary. For example, we know that one popular whitening agent that we see all the time has a peroxide. Peroxide is the active ingredient that we see in Crest Whitening Strips, over the counter bleaching materials, as well as the in-office bleaching treatments that one would see at a dentist. It's this ingredient we know that does cause whitening of the teeth, not from the premise of removing plaque or stain, but that it actually, chemically lightens the tooth up. That would be an ingredient that, when you're evaluating for toothpaste, you'd want to see one that has peroxide in it. That will truly help whiten the teeth. Most of the other ones, again, whiten from the standpoint that they're mechanically keeping the teeth clean, not that they are chemically lightening the teeth. So when you're evaluating for a whitening toothpaste, first of all you need to check to make sure that they have been certified by the ADA, which is the American Dental Association. Secondly, you want to look at the ingredients on the toothpaste to find out what makes up the..the toothpaste. If you find that you don't see anything with peroxide, it's probably more of a whitening from the standpoint that it's mechanically keeping your teeth clean. However, if you find a toothpaste that actually has peroxide in as an ingredient, that one would be much more efficient and much more effective at causing teeth whitening."