PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS; CONSUMERS NEED TO BRUSH UP ON LATEST TOOTHPASTE INNOVATIONS.

Byline: Heesun Wee Daily News Staff Writer

Walk down a drugstore aisle and you'd think Americans' teeth were about to fall out.

In the past two years alone, manufacturers have launched a mind-boggling 130 or so varieties of toothpaste that boast tartar-control properties, baking soda, peroxide and whitening ingredients. There's sparkling neon-bright gels for kids, too.

The latest addition to the toothpaste lineup is Colgate's Total, featuring the antibiotic triclosan. Total won U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval to be marketed as helping to prevent gum disease.

And plenty more teeth-cleaning concoctions are in the works. Gone are the days when our biggest oral-care decision was choosing between original or mint-flavored plain white paste.

Ironically, toothpaste options are multiplying when Americans' teeth generally are healthier than ever.

The number of school-age children without cavities in their permanent teeth, for example, has doubled in the past two decades, according to the Chicago-based American Dental Association. Older adults also are keeping more of their teeth. Toothlessness among working adults ages 55 to 64 has declined from 30 percent in the early 1970s to 15 percent in the mid-1980s.

But healthy chops aren't enough for most of us. Vanity has us on a Holy Grail-like quest for a perfect smile - if not at least a better one.

We're willing to shell out anywhere from a few bucks for an over-the-counter product to hundreds for an outpatient procedure.

Americans spend about $1.5 billion annually on toothpaste, said Diane Melrose, interim chair of the dental hygiene department at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry.

Whitening products are one of the biggest and most profitable areas of the oral-care industry. We pay about $250 million a year to bleach, cap or otherwise whiten our teeth, according to the Santa Maria-based Den-Mat Corp., which markets the Rembrandt line of over-the-counter toothpastes and mouthwashes.

And that figure is expected to grow steadily in the coming years.

Toothpaste manufacturers are onto us, busy brewing newer formulas for a piece of the lucrative oral-care pie. And it's no small investment. Colgate committed some $35 million, 10 years and a team of 200 employees to develop its new Total toothpaste.

The man in charge of putting the ADA's coveted seal of acceptance on dental products says it's a competitive business with no shortage of new contenders. The ADA receives hundreds of requests annually from toothpaste manufacturers looking for that stamp of approval, said Ken Burrell, senior director of ADA's council on scientific affairs.

``In an effort for companies to find a niche, they looked at other ways of how they could market their products,'' said Burrell, who has been with the ADA for nearly 20 years.

But sorting through the avalanche of toothpaste choices in supermarket aisles can be overwhelming if not downright intimidating. So the Daily News sought the advice of three experts on selecting toothpastes wisely: the ADA's Burrell, USC's Melrose and Agoura Hills-based dentist Craig Shore.

Whatever you choose, they said, always read a package's fine print. Manufacturers can't lie about what their products can achieve because the ADA will scrutinize those claims before handing out any seal of approval, Melrose said.

A tube of whitening toothpaste, for example, will advertise its ability to prevent and reduce stains, resulting in whiter teeth. That's a legitimate claim. Most contain abrasive ingredients to scrub off stains on the tooth's outer layer; a few include bleaching agents.

But a whitening toothpaste never will promise results so white that a supermodel would be jealous.

Only a dentist can safely penetrate a tooth's exterior and bleach the underlying surface to give you a dramatically whiter smile, Melrose said.

Popular toothpaste options

If you still think choosing a toothpaste is an annoying chore, just be glad you didn't live in ancient Rome. Romans used urine to clean their teeth.

Later, 14th-century Europeans didn't have it much better. They slathered their teeth with nitric acid to brighten them.

Tooth powder and toothpaste containing some kind of mildly abrasive substance, such as finely powdered chalk, and a detergent didn't become commonly available until the early 1900s.

Five decades later, fluoride invaded the oral-care market with its ``Look Mom, no cavities!'' pitch.

Toothpastes today come in all stripes. And they all boast benefits - to a certain degree.

Tartar-control formulas, introduced in the mid-1980s, help prevent the formation of soft plaque that can turn into hard tartar, Shore said. And it's tartar that leads to gum disease and rotting teeth.

But be careful, Melrose warns. Anti-tartar formulas can help reduce buildup on exposed teeth, but not portions of your teeth covered by gums.

Anti-tartar varieties also reduce tartar buildup, but they won't remove existing tartar. For that, again, you've got to visit your dentist, Melrose said.

The next generation of toothpastes arrived in the late '80s and early '90s, this time touting baking soda. ``A lot of people like the crunch quality that baking soda can give,'' Burrell said.

Toothpastes with peroxide and baking soda soon followed. Peroxide not only cleans but oxygenates, creating tiny bubbles. ``Some people like the bubbly feel that peroxide can give. It's a motivating ingredient (to brush),'' Burrell said.

Baking soda and peroxide do clean teeth and freshen breath, said Melrose, but that's all. ``They're not adding any benefit to your oral health,'' she said.

War on germs

Colgate's new Total plays into consumer anxieties about germs and disease.

The toothpaste includes triclosan, an anti-bacterial agent that has been around for years in products such as soaps and deodorants. Although the agent prevents plaque and tartar buildup, triclosan alone isn't stable and dissolves in the mouth after brushing.

What Colgate did was couple the agent with another ingredient, allowing triclosan to linger in the mouth eight to 12 hours after brushing, Shore explained. ``It doesn't break down as fast,'' he said. And an anti-bacterial agent that sticks around can help reduce gum disease and tooth decay.

Colgate's Total and rival product Crest MultiCare, which also promises to clean better than regular toothpaste, are just the tip of the toothpaste iceberg, experts said. The future probably will bring even fancier combinations.

But there's no need to despair. There's a simple solution to the toothpaste dilemma.

Whatever you choose, just make sure it contains fluoride, the experts said. The standard anti-cavity chemical has been proven to prevent tooth decay. If you need extra incentives to brush, like bubbling peroxide or crunchy baking soda, go for it.

``Use whatever you feel works the best for you,'' Shore said.

Nifty products and fancy toothpastes aside, Shore said the toothbrush you use actually is more important than the toothpaste you squeeze onto it.

``The toothbrush does most of the work. The bristles are important,'' he said. And remember, Shore added, replace worn-out toothbrushes every two to three months.

As to the effectiveness of the vast variety of toothbrushes and other oral hygiene tools, well, that's another story.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

PHOTO (1--Color--Cover) Grin and buy it: with so many oral-care products, how do you choose?

(2) No caption (Toothbrush with toothpaste)

Gus Ruelas/Daily News

BOX: Oral history