Das Experten

Two shoppers wrote that our toothpaste tastes of soda. There is no baking soda in either tube.

The answer is in the tongue: sodium saccharin, the sweetener in many pastes, also switches on 2 bitter taste receptors, and in a study of 60 people, 4 mutations in one of them changed how bitter it tasted.

Read why the same paste tastes like mint to one person and like soda to another.

Sodium Saccharin in Toothpaste: Why a Paste Without Baking Soda Can Taste Like Soda. Das Experten Sodium saccharin in toothpaste switches on 2 bitter taste receptors, and in some people it tastes salty, metallic or like soda. Here is what you are tasting.

In Singapore you cannot buy gum at the checkout. Since 2004 you can buy dental gum at a pharmacy, and the pharmacist writes down your name.

The evidence agrees with that line: sugar free gum multiplies saliva and cut new cavities by 28 % across 12 trials. But across 12 randomised trials it added no robust plaque control on top of brushing.

Read why a piece after lunch helps your teeth and still cannot replace the brush.

Is Chewing Gum Good for Your Teeth? Yes, but It Cannot Replace Brushing. Das Experten Is chewing gum good for your teeth? Sugar free gum multiplies saliva and cut new cavities by 28 % in 12 trials. Why it still cannot replace brushing.

Squeeze toothpaste onto your brush: it stands like a solid, then flows the second you brush. That trick has a name on the back of the tube — xanthan gum — and it comes from the bacterium behind black rot of cabbage.

In small trials as an artificial saliva for dry mouth, xanthan barely beat placebo; dialysis patients preferred sugar-free gum, 60 % against 15 %.

Read why the ingredient you never notice is doing exactly one job.

What Is Xanthan Gum? The Cabbage-Rot Microbe Inside Your Toothpaste — Das Experten What is xanthan gum? A slime made by the bacterium behind cabbage black rot, found in a US lab in the 1950s. In toothpaste it holds the shape. What it can’t do.

Pepper heat in the nose, honey on the tongue, salt grit between the molars. An ancient Indian book of surgery wrote this tooth powder down: dry ginger, black and long pepper, honey, sesame oil, rock salt — and rub each tooth softly, without hurting the gums.

Nineteenth-century Britain scrubbed with chalk and brick dust instead.

In 2018, 89 young adults tried powder and paste in turn: plaque 2.11 against 2.12 — no difference. The form was never the point.

Read why the recipe asked for dry ginger, not fresh.

Tooth Powder: The Ancient Indian Recipe That Put Ginger First — Das Experten Tooth powder is older than toothpaste. Sushruta’s Indian recipe used dry ginger, honey and rock salt, rubbed softly on each tooth. Science now explains why.

Turn your toothpaste around and read the second word.

On many tubes it is sorbitol — a sweet sugar alcohol first pulled from rowan-berry juice in 1872. Plaque bacteria ferment it slowly, so it does not crash your enamel's pH the way sugar does.

But slow is not never. In chewing-gum trials sorbitol gum prevented 20.01% of new decay; xylitol gum 58.66%. And in dry mouths, bacteria can learn to eat it.

Read what the second word on the label is really doing.

Sorbitol in Toothpaste: The Sweetener Your Bacteria Eat Slowly — Das Experten Sorbitol sits near the top of many toothpaste labels. Bacteria ferment it slowly — unless your mouth is dry. What the studies since 1872 really show.

You wake with a tongue like paper and reach for water.

Around 652, the Tang physician Sun Simiao wrote a plain rule: after eating, rinse your mouth several times, and the teeth will not decay. He also told readers to keep their saliva — he called it the jade liquid.

Two centuries later, five Tang emperors died after elixirs of immortality. Today about 22% of adults report a dry mouth, and a 2026 study found ginger juice raised saliva more than water.

The cheap rule was the right one. Read how it got lost.

Dry Mouth: A Chinese Rule From 652 That Science Proved Right — Das Experten Dry mouth affects about 22% of adults. In 652 a Tang physician wrote the fix: rinse after eating, keep the saliva. In 2026, ginger joined the evidence.

You notice it in the mirror, never in the café: a thin brown line along the edges of your front teeth.

Three lab studies this year tested what really drives coffee stains on teeth. In Seoul, enamel kept a week in coffee with cream shifted ΔE 7.26; with a sucralose sweetener, 14.48.

The pigment did not stay on the surface. It went into enamel and dentine.

Brushing helped — but a peroxide paste and an abrasive paste did not differ significantly.

The cup decides more than the tube. Read what three lab benches can and cannot tell you.

Coffee Stains on Teeth: Your Cup Matters More Than Your Paste — Das Experten Brushing did lift coffee stains in three 2026 lab studies — yet two whitening pastes worked alike, while cream halved the stain next to a sucralose sweetener.

The foam in your mouth is not what cleans your teeth.

That job belongs to the abrasive and the bristle. The detergent — sodium lauryl sulfate on most tubes — lowers surface tension and makes lather. Whether it also triggers mouth ulcers has been studied since 1993, and the trials still disagree: five found a difference, three found none, and the 2019 meta-analysis could pool only two of the four.

The useful part is that you do not need the answer to decide. Read why.

What Is SLS in Toothpaste? It Is Not There to Clean Your Teeth — Das Experten SLS is the detergent that makes toothpaste foam, not the part that cleans. Thirty years of trials still disagree on whether it causes mouth ulcers.

A research headline can change meaning when you look at what was measured.

The 4 September Oral-Care Research Brief explains four studies in plain language:

• Blood xylitol and later cardiovascular events: an association, not a test of toothpaste use.
• Sulfur measured below the gums: a local measurement, not a home breath diagnosis.
• Five children's toothpastes tested in a laboratory: extracted-tooth specimens, not a trial treating children.
• Infant saliva and plaque: small chemical changes in ten mother–child pairs, not a prediction of a child's future health.

Each article pairs an evidence graph with the original source and the limits of the result. Read the brief before treating a headline as personal advice.

Oral-Care Research Brief — 4 September 2026 Four oral-care research findings explained with evidence graphs: xylitol, sulfur gases, postbiotic toothpaste and the infant microbiome. September 4 issue.

Melaka's Court Chewed a Leaf for Gum Health in 1511. Colonial Records Filed It as a Vice — and Never Asked Why.

In the 1440s Melaka court, betel leaf folded around clove was chewed daily as care for the gums. European colonial-era records filed the habit as a vice and never asked what the leaf was doing chemically. A compound in that clove, eugenol, has since been studied against the bacteria behind gum disease.

Read the history today.

How to Reduce Gum Inflammation: Melaka's Answer Became a Vice — Das Experten How Melaka handled gum inflammation in 1511: a leaf folded with clove, chewed daily. The West filed the habit as a vice and lost the chemistry.