Will Bananas get me a great beautiful smile?

Something caught my attention these days as I saw a post from one of my friends on Facebook. She said: “Banana peels can help you to get a great smile whitening your teeth!” huh! I thought… that explains a lot about monkey’s denture. But I wanted to know more about this, and about the scientific basis of this myth. So I went on doing a little research, hoping to find scientific papers, or any scientific basis behind this post. After spending a few hours trying to find some scientific journal talk about the relationship between bananas and a beautiful smile, I gave up and decided to go into some blogs and webpages discussing this issue. To my surprise I found the phrase: “minerals like the potassium, magnesium and manganese present in this peel (banana’s) get absorbed into your teeth and works from the interior to brighten them”  copy and pasted in the exact same way in more than 20 blogs and websites with no reference whatsoever. I was thinking then, why would people repeat this phrase so many times if there is not a basis? There must be something somewhere! So I started looking for the effects of potassium, magnesium and manganese on teeth. I found an article from the Japanese Journal of Conservative Dentistry. In this article’s results they suggest that potassium nitrate dentifrice containing silica as a polishing agent on the dentine surface may be effective for the treatment of dentine hypersensitivity. However, I found nothing related to teeth whitening. I went on searching and found an article on Nexus magazine a taking about a study in New Zealand. They found that caries-resistant teeth had on average twice the amount of magnesium as caries-prone teeth.  They said: “In regard to the strength of bones and teeth, think of calcium as chalk and magnesium as superglue”. However, I had no luck in finding something about teeth whitening and magnesium. I had no luck with manganese either, but, I did find some articles that pointed that manganese is a component of teeth and bones. So, what do we say then? Are bananas yummy? Yes! Are they good for your health because they contain potassium which maintain the resting potential in cell membranes? Yes! Are they good to whiten your teeth? I don’t know, some people in the blogs I visited commented on having good results with banana peel, others didn’t. I will still be using my old clinically proved toothpaste until we have available some scientific evidence. In the meantime, keep eating your fruit and vegetables and make momma happy!