London worst UK city for discoloured teeth, study says

A study of 17 UK cities said that London was the most likely to have people with discoloured teeth.

Conducted by Dentaly.org, the study used five metrics to determine how likely tooth discolouration was in each city. These were tea consumption, coffee consumption, alcohol consumption, percentage of smokers and number of tea/coffee houses per 10,000 people.

London scored 10 out of 10 for these metrics, standing out as the most likely to have people with discoloured teeth. Birmingham was second most likely, with a score of 9.38 out of 10. The top 10 cities were:

1. London (10.0)
2. Birmingham (9.38)
3. Liverpool (8.75)
4. Nottingham (8.13)
5. Sheffield (7.5)
6. Bristol (6.88)
7. Glasgow (6.25)
8. Leicester (5.63)
9. Edinburgh (5.0)
10. Leeds (4.38).

Dentaly said: ‘Each city displays unique patterns in lifestyle choices that play a role in tooth staining.’

Of these cities, Sheffield had the greatest ratio of tea or coffee houses at 9.18 per 10,000 people. This was significantly higher than London at 1.18 per 10,000 people. The highest smoker percentage was found in Glasgow (21%), with the lowest in London (11.5%).

London’s high position in the ranking is due to the high amount of coffee and tea consumed there. Dentaly said that almost 77 million units of coffee and 128 million units of tea were consumed weekly in the capital on average. This is compared to figures such as 4.7 million units of coffee and 7.9 million units of tea in Edinburgh.

Which cities are ‘proactive’ in remedying discoloured teeth?

The study also explored how ‘obsessed’ people in each city were with tooth whitening by scoring them out of 100.

In addition to having the highest likelihood of tooth discolouration, London also had the highest search volume for tooth whitening. Dentaly said: ‘The capital’s residents are not just battling high rates of tooth discolouration but are also the most proactive in seeking remedies.’

London, Birmingham and Liverpool were the top three cities for both rankings. The 10 cities with the highest search volume for tooth whitening were:

1. London (100)
2. Birmingham (98)
3. Liverpool (95)
4. Nottingham (94)
5. Sunderland (86)
6. Sheffield (86)
7. Leeds (82)
8. Leicester (82)
9. Edinburgh (82)
10. Glasgow (82).

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