Throughout the ages, a wide variety of ingredients were used to return teeth to their former luster. The laundry list of products ranges from the dangerous --chloride of lime, oxalic acid (an ingredient in household bleach), and green lead -- to the disgusting -- mice, lizard livers, deer antlers and urine (containing ammonia, it is considered an intense cleaning agent) -- to the ridiculous -- powdered fruit, dried flowers and incense. Fortunately, since the search for whiter teeth has remained in vogue, progress has been made in the tooth whitening field over the last 700 years or so.

In the 20th century, dentists discovered that people did not have to put their long-term dental health at risk for a brighter smile. The discovery that hydrogen peroxide was an effective stain fighter set the tooth whitening revolution in motion. Since the chemical composition of peroxide allows it to remove stubborn stains by passing easily through the enamel and outer layers of teeth, cosmetic dentistry finally had a safe tooth whitening method. Despite the invention of this bleaching method there was still very limited public interest in tooth whitening and only sporadic growth in this area of dentistry until the late 1950s to early 1960s. Additionally, the process of bleaching teeth for lighter enamel was still very much an in-office-only procedure.

Bringing Bleaching Home

Although the field of cosmetic dentistry had been a thriving business for quite some time, the “shot heard ‘round the world” for cosmetic dentistry came in 1989 when Haywood and Heymann, two researchers at the University of North Carolina, published the first clinical study on tooth whitening. Their study not only sparked a growth spurt for cosmetic dentistry, but it also inspired the first home-bleaching product -- White and Brite.

White and Brite did not remain the only at-home bleaching game in town for very long; soon a plethora of at-home tooth whitening products flooded the market. Some of these products had a very high acid content and were potentially harmful; others were not potent enough to be effective. To protect consumers from products like these, the Food and Drug Association (FDA) and the American Dental Association (ADA) developed guidelines that required manufacturers to use scientific documentation to prove the safety and efficacy of their products.

*The Popularity of Tooth Whitening Grows to Amazing Proportions

The media spotlight on tooth whitening paired with extensive advertising campaigns has fueled the growth of the typically static dental industry. The at-home tooth whitening business has flourished into a $400 million industry and awareness and demand for this aesthetic procedure continues to soar to an all-time high. Dr. Michael Kaplan, DDS, agrees: “Ten years ago it was up to dentists to suggest teeth whitening to their patients. Now, about 50 percent ask me about it without any prompting -- it is very much in the public eye.” Today 97 percent of dentists say that their patients ask them about bleaching their teeth.

Unlike their medieval counterparts, consumers now have a diverse array of tooth whitening and maintenance choices available to them. Everything from lasers, heated lights, custom-made trays, gels, whitening strips, dab-on liquids and now easy-to-use tablets can all put consumers on the trail to a whiter smile. However, since in-office procedures can take over an hour to complete and range in price from $200 to $700, the ease, lower cost and comparable results of the at-home whitening products have bolstered the sales of these products exponentially over the past several years.

“We have found that one to two hours of concentrated bleaching gives exactly the same results as the personally designed trays,” explains Dr. Kaplan. “Additionally, one potential downside of the in-office bleaching is that it is so concentrated that some patients experience increased hot/cold sensitivity. We don’t use it because we do not want to run the risk that participating in an aesthetic procedure would have detrimental effects on our patients’ oral health and comfort.”

*Keeping Teeth White

“Lack of compliance is the number one problem compromising the effectiveness of many at-home bleaching products,” explains Dr. Richard Austin, DDS, a registered cosmetic dentist, chemist and co-inventor of Dr. Du-More’s Flavored Whitening Tablets. “Ask any dentist or healthcare professional what the number one hurdle is for any product out there, and the answer is compliance.”

Despite the rousing success and high-demand for whiter teeth, if at-home products are used improperly or irregularly they will not be 100 percent effective. “The easier a product is to use, the more likely the users are to use it regularly and effectively,” says Dr. Austin. “With Dr. Du-More Flavored Whitening Tablets it is all about ease of use and a high-return for minimal time commitment on the user’s part.”

Unlike any other tooth whitening system on the market, users place a whitening tablet flat against the surface of their teeth and move the tablet to different areas between their lips and gums until it dissolves. The FDA-approved tablets are priced under $10 for a three-week supply.

Dr. Du-More’s Flavored Whitening Tablets are available at Wal-Mart, and other drug and mass merchant retailers nationwide. For more information, call Du-More, Inc. at (479) 631-3913.