What Is Enamel Made Of?
We all know the importance of taking care of our dental health. It’s been drilled into our brains since we were kids. Brush, floss, go to the dentist twice a year, we know how to do our own teeth cleaning. But how many non-experts actually know more than a surface level of knowledge about teeth? Take enamel, for instance. You’re no doubt familiar with the word. You’ve probably heard it thousands of times in toothpaste commercials, and you probably know that it’s important to preserve your tooth enamel. But you may not understand what tooth enamel actually is, or what it does.
In today’s important post about dental health, we explore what tooth enamel is made of, what it does, and why it’s important to get professional teeth cleaning.
What Does Tooth Enamel Do?
Simply put, tooth enamel acts as a shield that protects the more vulnerable part of your teeth. Teeth are composed of three different layers, enamel, dentin, and pulp. When you crack a joke, and your friend cracks a smile, exposing their pearly whites, the only layer visible to you is the enamel. The dentin and pulp are much more fragile than enamel, which is why enamel is located on the exposed parts of the tooth, acting as the first line of defence against bacteria and acid and anything else that causes tooth decay.
When enamel is damaged, that’s when you get vulnerable to cavities, infections, and temperature sensitivities. That’s why it’s so important to understand what enamel is and maintain good teeth cleaning routines.
What Is Enamel Made Of?
The majority of tooth enamel, around 96 percent, is made up of a calcium phosphate compound called hydroxyapatite. This compound is what gives tooth enamel its rock hard structure. Interestingly enough, the closer you look, the more complex the enamel becomes. While the enamel is made almost entirely of hydroxyapatite, it’s not distributed evenly throughout. There are different layers of enamel. It’s speculated that there are different layers of enamel to reduce the risk of a crack affecting the entire enamel structure instead of a more isolated area.
Aprismatic Enamel
The outer layer of enamel, the very tip of the iceberg, is called aprismatic enamel. This outer layer is only a few micrometers (Yes, micro, not milli.) thick, almost imperceptibly thin. Its physical make-up is interesting, sometimes referred to as something like an amorphous solidified liquid crystal.
Outer and Inner Enamel
Below the aprismatic enamel lies the outer and inner enamel. In these layers, the enamel is formed into rods that are around five micrometers wide and several micrometers long. These rods are placed in such a way that the whole structure becomes extremely hard.
In the outer layer, the rods run parallel to each other, and in the inner layer, the rods are structured into decussated layers. Decussated layers mean that the rods at any point will run at a different angle than the rods directly above and below. This gives the enamel even more strength.
How Does Teeth Cleaning Help Enamel?
When you go to the dentist for a routine teeth cleaning, the dentist will scrape plaque off the surface of your teeth. Why is this so important? About 60 to 70 percent of plaque is made up of bacteria like Streptococcus sanguinis and Streptococcus mutans. These bacteria are what’s responsible for converting sugar into harmful acids that cause tooth decay.
Interesting isn’t it? It’s commonly thought that sugar is what damages your teeth, but in actuality, the sugars are harmless. Sugars are only harmful after they’ve been turned into acid by the bacteria in our plaque.
Deepa Mahar is an independent blogger and admin of DeepAdvices who is exploring the beauty of the blog writing from a variety of subjects and books to health, science and others. She believes the blog would be helpful to the reader in the context of knowledge. She is post-graduated with a degree of Biotechnology.
