Does turmeric stain teeth and dental work?

Turmeric stain teeth and dental work and that’s the bottom line.

Spices stain teeth and dental appliances – turmeric stain teeth, curry stains teeth, anything with turmeric in it stains teeth!

I have personal experience with this from trying to eat curry, which has turmeric in it. My Invisalign trays would always permanently stain whenever I ate curry chicken if I wore that aligner while eating, which breaks the rule of no eating with your aligner in. It only took me two or three times to stop doing that, I’m a slow learner :)! The stain would not come out and I had to jump to the next tray in my series.

Turmeric also stains temporary dental crowns as one of my young patients found out after having a single turmeric drink while wearing her temporary crown. As you can see one turmeric drink really does stain! This is a plastic temporary dental crown so it does take color more than other products we use but it shows the staining strength of turmeric.

One turmeric drink stained this temporary crown this darkly!

Turmeric will stain composite white fillings and researchers like Bindal 2015 use turmeric as a staining agent in studies. I can only speculate that turmeric will also heavily stain other plastic acrylic dental products we use, which would include dentures, some dental implant components, and almost anything temporary.

Can turmeric whiten your teeth?

No but since it is abrasive, it will clean your teeth. It also has antiseptic properties and according to Anuradha 2016 may possibly help to fight periodontal disease. However, as far as whitening your teeth it will do just the opposite. There are probably a thousand other pseudo whitening products out there that would do a better job than this.  The abrasiveness of turmeric might remove some external stain but so does anything that is even slightly abrasive.  Don’t forget abrasive things aren’t just removing stain but some tooth as well. It’s not a good idea to use abrasive products on your teeth on a regular basis. In fact the RDA (Relative Dentin Abrasivity) is a factor one should consider when choosing a toothpaste.

The claim is that if you mix turmeric powder with some other products that it will help whiten your teeth. Perhaps the other products will whiten your teeth but turmeric isn’t helping in that regard. You are better of using hydrogen peroxide product or perhaps a baking soda product to get whiter teeth. All spices stain teeth and the yellow spices are the worst. Turmeric might be the worst staining food on the planet, so please stain away from it when looking for a whitening product.