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VERIFY: Is chewing on ice bad for your teeth?

Trending online videos show people chewing on ice for entertainment. But could this have an effect on your teeth? KREM 2 set out to verify.

SPOKANE, Wash.— Trending online are videos of people chewing ice for viewers’ entertainment, yes, entertainment.

However, the question about if it was bad for your chompers also came up with this trend.

Two local dentists gave KREM 2 the low-down on how chewing on ice could affect your teeth.

Grand Corner Dental dentists, Dr. Stephen Griffith said chewing on ice is something he has seen before. Not the videos, but the effects.

"We have patients that chew on ice daily, my dad chews on ice all the time and I've done implants and crowns on him and I try to get him to quit smoking, try to get him to quit chewing ice and he hasn't, and he hasn't broken all of his teeth, but it just puts your risk higher. We actually had a patient earlier this week that had a broken part of the tooth and had to do a crown and I always like to kind of ask, you know? What were you doing when the tooth broke? And she was chewing ice," Dr. Griffith said.

Another local dentist at 8 days a week Dental said she has seen the effects of chewing ice before, too.

Dr. Shancie Wagner explained that chewing on ice can put as much as 250 pounds of pressure on people’s teeth.

"It causes microfractures in the enamel and it's not only due to the force but also the temperature change, so the temperature change causes the crystals in the enamel to expand which causes microfractures, which then propagate and then your teeth can break overtime,” said Wagner.

Wagner said that chewing on ice can split teeth right down to the root.

So does chewing ice cause actual harm to your teeth? Both dentists say yes, so this claim is going to verify this as true.

Both Dr. Griffith and Dr. Wagner did say that if people find themselves craving the sensation of chewing ice it could mean they have a low iron deficiency and could be anemic.

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