Wine and Dental Health

In the 1140s, the world’s leading medical school was in Salerno, in what today is Italy. One of its most famous professor-doctors was a woman known through history as Trotula. There are doubts as to whether she really existed, but someone had to write those medieval manuscripts dealing with women’s health. One of those manuscripts advised how to cure bad breath and care for the teeth, the part that gets our attention.

Trotula recommended washing the teeth with white wine, then drying them with a white cloth. After all that, chew on some green herbs, to include mint and fennel. Modern dentists seem to agree that that process does loosen some particles caught in the teeth.

About the same time in England, Dr. Gilbertus Anglicus advocated cleansing the mouth and teeth using wine seasoned with birch and mint before chewing on green herbs. It appears that for a thousand years or more, the use of wine in dental hygiene has been a staple.

That seems borne out by late 20th-century research at the University of Laval in Quebec where it was found that polyphenols in red grape seeds help stave off periodontal disease. Because the tannins in red grape seeds transfer to wine, the case is made that red wine will put a smile on your face.

We know that moderate wine consumption helps fend off some heart disease and other internal disorders, but not much has appeared in the media about the effect of wine on dental hygiene. Please watch our video to hear what dentist Jerry Cartmel can tell us about that.