This is not a question that I ever thought I would be asking. Exercise is supposed to be good for you. However after reading an article in the New York Times, I found out that exercise can in fact, be bad for your teeth.
After olympians mouths were examined in 2012, many of them were found to have “poor oral health” but there was no link as to why. Some thought it was do to the amount of sugar in the drinks that athletes drink, gatorade, powerade, etc. But after a study was done in Germany, there was little to no correlation between the sugary sports drinks and bad teeth.
After more testing, the researchers discovered that when the athletes were working out, less saliva was being produced. This caused the athletes mouths to become very dry. The dryness of the mouth along with the lack of salvia caused more tarter to build up on the teeth, thus causing the bad oral hygiene.
What I like about this study was that at the end, the researchers came out and announced that this study was based off of a small group of athletes vs a control group, and that it was not conducted for a long amount of time. Right from the beginning of the researchers publishing their findings, they were looking for someone to come along and criticizes them.
I think that in order for this to be a really good study, researchers should observe athletes and non athletes, for a long period of time and they should observe those who have access to regular dental care. I think that if they could also have a group of non athletes, start doing more athletic things, then they could monitor their teeth and see if their is a change from the beginning to the end.
Resources:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/is-exercise-bad-for-your-teeth/?ref=nutrition
In my personal opinion, I think this is more of a myth than fact. I agree with what you said that the experiments conducted in support of this hypothesis had too many flaws to even be considered legitimate. One, the study was not done for a long enough period of time for it to be a well-thought experiment that showed any sort of significant results. Also, for there to be any sort of strong correlation or causation that people would believe to be true would be to have a large sample of people (a control group and a randomized group of people). Maybe researchers could have one group of people perform a certain amount of physical activity for a specific time and another group perform exercise for a longer amount of time and compare the results. There should be different groups performing different types of exercise for various times because then scientists could compare the differences in saliva (if any). In my opinion, there are too many flaws to even consider this an experiment until more research is conducted.
After many years of experiments, everybody assumes exercise is fantastic for our health. Indeed, exercise has its benefits but evidence shows that exercise actually creates not only poor dental hygiene BUT hair loss, as well. I read an article that discussed the negative externalities of exercise. While working out, we do not think of the other externalities that are damaging to our bodies. For one, lots of sweat has been proven to stimulate balding. According to Dr Harris-Wells of Miyohara International Trichology Clinic, bodily sweat contains lactic acid which breaks down the outter layer of hair. This causes our hair follicles to shrink. Eventually, our hair becomes so dry and brittle that it rips easily. The article from http://www.nicehair.org states that lactic acid also creates an inflammation that is damaging to our scalp. The inflammation slows hair growth, as well. Therefore, sweat from exercise breaks hair AND stops the growth of new hairs.
After many years of experiments, everybody assumes exercise is fantastic for our health. Indeed, exercise has its benefits but evidence shows that exercise actually creates not only poor dental hygiene BUT hair loss, as well. I read an article that discussed the negative externalities of exercise. While working out, we do not think of the other externalities that are damaging to our bodies. For one, lots of sweat has been proven to stimulate balding. According to Dr Harris-Wells of Miyohara International Trichology Clinic, bodily sweat contains lactic acid which breaks down the outter layer of hair. This causes our hair follicles to shrink. Eventually, our hair becomes so dry and brittle that it rips easily. The lactic acid also creates an inflammation that is damaging to our scalp. The inflammation slows hair growth, as well. Therefore, sweat from exercise breaks hair AND stops the growth of new hairs.