Can putting milk in your tea help whiten teeth?

A recent study certainly thinks so!

All of those cups of tea you consume throughout your working day could prove to be a more effective teeth whitener compared to actual whitening products.

However, this is only true if you take milk with your brew, the dairy product has been found to have benefits for our dental hygiene. Sourced from a study published in the International Journal of Dental Hygiene has discovered that the milk that we add to our tea can prevent staining on the teeth.

Leader of the study, Dr. Ava Chow, said, “Tea is the econd most consumed drink in the world, and the way it’s processed affects how teeth are stained. The more tea is processed or oxidised, the higher its staining properties are. But we’ve found that the addition of milk reduces the tea’s ability to stain teeth.”

For the study, Dr. Chow used extracted human teeth, placing them into a controlled solution of black tea, and a solution of tea with milk. Following leaving the teeth in both solutions for 24 hours, her team took colour readings – this then indicated that caseinm a protein that is found in milks, and binds with the tannins in tea to prevent staining.

Chow commented on the results of the study: “The results we found showed that casein is the componenet of milk that is responsible for the reduction of tea-induced staining. The magnitude of the colour change observed in our experiments is comparable to the colour change seen by vital bleaching products and more effective than whitening toothpastes.”

Have you any bizarre teeth whitening facts you’d like to share?