What You Need to Know About Vape Pens and Teeth
3rd Jun 2021
There's been a lot of speculation over vape pens and what they mean for health and safety. While it’s generally accepted that vaping can be a healthier alternative to smoking, we don’t often hear about what it means for our dental health.
Vape Pens and Teeth
The research on vaping and oral health is inconclusive and often contradictory. However, there are definite differences between vapor and smoking that we can observe. We can see that while vaping might not have any health, or be perfectly safe, it’s certainly not as dangerous as one might assume.
Is Vaping Healthier for Your Teeth than Smoking?
As you can imagine, vaping is more favorable than smoking tobacco. Aside from the staining and irritation caused by nicotine and smoke, you’re also removing carcinogens from the equation. However, this is when comparing vaping liquid to smoking tobacco, whether it contains nicotine or not.
There are different types of vaping devices, including wax and dab vapes. These present the potential for carcinogens, although significantly less than smoking wax or dabs. This is because while the vapor is produced from the heat in the chamber, it gets hot enough to cause it to burn and produce smoke.
When you’re looking at vape juice that contains nicotine, there are similar effects to smoking. However, much of the damage caused by vaping or smoking is due to inflammation of the gums. Considering that vapor is much less hot and often contains fewer chemicals, it can be seen as less of a potential risk.
Does Vaping Cause Tooth Decay?
When talking about the effects of vaping on teeth, we usually assume a high nicotine content. In fact, you can get vape juices with no nicotine content, while there are also varieties with a lot more nicotine than regular cigarettes.
For this and many other reasons, the research is inconclusive at this point. It’s hard to keep data from being convoluted or misinterpreted, just based on the variety of vape pens and materials that are available.
With that said, we know that heat in the mouth causes bacteria to grow. You’re causing the mouth to dry up and increase bacteria growth, which in turn causes tooth decay. As you can imagine, practicing regular dental hygiene practices is one way to counteract this. However, we can’t conclusively say that it doesn’t cause tooth decay, while being fairly confident that it’s not worse than smoking.
What’s the Best Vape for Dental Health?
Generally speaking, using vape juice can be healthier than wax or dabs. You’ll notice that most pens that use vape juice are sleeker and more compact than other varieties. The reason for that is because it requires less heat to produce vapor from juice, and therefore less power and a smaller heating unit.
You still have to consider nicotine content. No matter which method you choose, whether it be cigarettes, vaping and even chew, nicotine will discolor your teeth and cause damage. However, if there was one major recommendation it would be to use a more efficient vape that has less nicotine content.
The quality of the vape liquid itself is another major consideration. Vapes being relatively new is not the only reason why so much of the research we have at this point is inconclusive. You’re going to get very different results with a more pure, high-quality vape juice than you will with a chemical-laden knockoff.
Conclusion
It would be irresponsible to suggest that vaping is perfectly safe for dental health. However, there are some considerations that will reduce the risks, especially when compared to smoking tobacco or herbs.