TeaChat

I'm not worried about the fluoride content of green tea (which I've read is either very low, or very high) but I know some people who have bad teeth, and would drinking green tea help them?

Consumed fluoride's effects on dental health are questionable. You'd have to hold it in your mouth for a considerable length of time (which is why at the dentist they make you chomp down on that foamy mouth-guard thing a while).

Systemic fluoride (which is what it becomes when you drink it) certainly has some effect on the body, but because it diffuses throughout it's impact on teeth will be minimal. Typically it doesn't do much, if anything, until you consume enough to begin suffering from skeletal fluoridosis - a very negative thing.

So, no, not really will the fluoride help.

M.

For the teeth, there is lots of flouride toothpase, flouride mouthwash and everything... still, tea drinking is a good thing

And if I'm correct, the older the leaves, the more fluoride... so Green tea shouldn't be too high in flouride since its usually made out of young leaves, but the brick teas (Fu Cha) and similar stuff should be quite high in fluoride.

It would be helpful to drink green tea ... compared to 99% of the alternatives out there.

It certainly could not hurt.

The one person drinks soda, not daily but every other day. I introduced Assam black tea to them and they enjoy that in the morning and evening but tea is better for your teeth than soda is.

Green tea has some antimicrobial properties and usually people drink it without sugar. This at least could help keep your teeth more healthy.

edit:
Here is an article on this matter http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763290/

miig wrote:And if I'm correct, the older the leaves, the more fluoride... so Green tea shouldn't be too high in flouride since its usually made out of young leaves, but the brick teas (Fu Cha) and similar stuff should be quite high in fluoride.

Now, I have no idea if this is right or not so don't take what I'm saying as I do know the answer! But, I am in chemistry and fluoride isn't the sort of thing that would just develop with time... C-F bonds are very strong and wouldn't break down with simple ageing of green tea so, I'd imagine it's more to do with mineral content in the soil/water where the tea was grown.

If it's an organic molecule of some sort, then yes ageing may contribute to it's development because the original molecules are prone to oxidation and hydrolysis by the air (or some sort of reduction perhaps).

Anyways, that's an answer drawing on my chemistry knowledge, not specific knowledge so don't take it to heart XD

EDIT: To mention the fluoride for your friends teeth, fluoride ingested in the diet is incorporated into the crystal of your developing teeth to form a stronger fluorine based crystal. Topical fluoride, that is just passing through the mouth, this repairs cavities by remineralisation, but whether that is quantitatively negligible is a matter of debate. I'd suggest seeing a dentist and brushing their teeth twice a day

mcrdotcom wrote:ageing

Not sure if I misunderstood (both of) you, but I don't think he meant aging of leaves that have already been picked.
I think what he meant was that for green tea, the leaves get picked when they are still very young, while some other teas use leaves that get picked later in the year, when they have grown bigger and have had more time to mature. Therefore, these older, more mature leaves were connected to the rest of the plant for a longer period of time and were likely supplied with more minerals and other nutrients.

Stentor wrote:

mcrdotcom wrote:ageing

Not sure if I misunderstood (both of) you, but I don't think he meant aging of leaves that have already been picked.
I think what he meant was that for green tea, the leaves get picked when they are still very young, while some other teas use leaves that get picked later in the year, when they have grown bigger and have had more time to mature. Therefore, these older, more mature leaves were connected to the rest of the plant for a longer period of time and were likely supplied with more minerals and other nutrients.

That would make much more sense, my bad! Haha