When it comes to your dental health, one of your very worst enemies, believe it or not, is not candy. While candy is not the best for your teeth, you can always prevent candy from causing serious problems by flossing and brushing after consuming candy. As a matter of fact, smoking is the actual worst enemy. Here are the five major ways smoking can affect your dental health:

Causes Tooth Discoloration: While this doesn't actually affect your dental health, it does affect your happiness with your smile. This usually leads to the desire to whiten your teeth, which sometimes leads to excessive teeth whitening. Excessive teeth whitening could become a problem since it can damage the enamel and you may want to excessively whiten since smoking discolors your teeth quickly. 

Causes Bad Breath: Not only is bad breath unattractive and can prevent you from engaging in conversations with people, but it's also an indicator that you have excessive bacteria build up in the mouth, which is common for smokers. This bacteria harbors in the mouth, especially since smoking prevents the right amount of saliva build up to wash away all the bacteria over time. This not only then causes bad breath, but can also cause other problems, such as decay, cavities, and more. 

Causes Gum Disease: Gum disease is a common affliction for smokers and could eventually lead to teeth falling out completely since the gums will start to recede. Although gum disease is treatable, the treatment does not always hold if you continue to smoke. Smoking just combats the treatment, which still allows the gum disease to continue. 

Causes Poor Healing: Any problems you may have with your dental health is only going to be delayed when it comes to trying to heal. This is because saliva production is diminished, which keeps teeth healthy and leaves bacteria in the mouth that prevents healing from taking place at all. Receiving any kind of dental treatment is then basically not worth it until you actually give up smoking. 

Causes Oral Cancer: Smoking is probably the number one reason lung cancer is developed. However, this isn't the only cancer to worry about since oral cancer is also fairly common for smokers. Oral cancer is especially dangerous because it's not always noticed until it's in the later stages when it becomes much more difficult to treat. 

When you know these five ways smoking affects your health, you can see why getting help to quit is so important. This way, you can take better care of your smile and ensure that all dental treatments from this point will be worth it in the end. Learn more about taking care f your dental health by contacting a local family dentist.