Friday, December 14, 2007

Best Soda For Your Teeth

I initially shared this information in January 2005, but it's a topic that can help a lot of people with some encouragement for those who may want to make "Stop Drinking Soda" one of their new year resolutions. Or at least you can learn a few tricks to have less dental decay. All those cavities sure do make sodas an expensive item in your budget. The study appeared in the January/February 2005 issue of General Dentistry.

Which Drinks Damage Your Teeth The Most?

Love an icy cold soft drink? Then choose a root beer. Of all types of soft drinks and canned teas, this one does the least damage to your teeth.

Researchers from the dental school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore determined that non-cola soft drinks, including ginger ale, Mountain Dew, and Sprite, as well as canned iced tea are much harder on teeth enamel than any other kind of canned drink, due in large part to acidic flavor additives, such as such as malic acid or tartaric acid, reports Medical News Today. Root beer has the least additives, making it the best soft drink for your teeth.

If you drink soda, you should never brush your teeth till one hour later. Give your saliva a chance to set up its own defenses. If you brush with the acid on your teeth, it strips layers of the protective enamel.

The study:
For 14 days the researchers exposed healthy dental enamel to a variety of popular soft drinks, including Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Canada Dry ginger ale, and canned Arizona Iced Tea.

The results:
- All of them weakened and permanently destroyed the tooth enamel.

- Diet sodas had the same bad effect as the sugared versions since the main culprit is the acidic additives.

- The most harmful were non-cola drinks, which caused two to five times the damage as darker cola drinks.

- Root beer, which contains the least amount of flavor additives, was found to be the "safest soft drink to safeguard dental enamel."

- Canned iced tea caused 30 times the damage to tooth enamel as brewed tea or coffee.

- Brewed black tea, root beer, coffee, and water had a minimal effect.

Drink too much soda and you could face a higher risk of a certain kind of cancer that is usually fatal.

Adding to the problem is our own mouth acidity. If that increases, the chemical reaction with the soft drink hurts our teeth even more, according to lead study author J. Anthony von Fraunhofer.

The end result: tooth decay

One thing you can do to protect your teeth is to rinse your mouth with water after drinking a soda. We love soft drinks in this country. A whopping 95% of Americans drink soda. Soft drinks account for about 27% of the beverages consumed in the United States. The average 12- to 19-year-old drinks about 28 ounces of soft drinks every day. The study results were published in the General Dentistry, the newsletter of the Academy of General Dentistry.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this. I showed this to my mother and she thought it was so good that she saved this page to her favorites so yeah. Haha. umh. I agree soda is bad for you and your teeth but this changed my douts a little bit on drinking soda. but this only helps the cavatie wise part. Is there any way that you can find interesting and sord of Healthy facts on some sodas.... Maybe likee Root Beer? Mmmhh... root beer is my favorite soda But i know that it is bad for me (just like any other sodas) I definetly do not drink it often because i never have it around the house. Can you add try to add some facts to a website or article to have some kind of plus side on drinking soda(: Thank you.

sharingsunshine said...

I've never seen any benefits of sodas to make it a healthy choice.

Anonymous said...

With 46.5g of sugar (budaberg brand) there is no way I am drinking it - but thanks for the info anyhow.

sharingsunshine said...

We don't drink sodas period, so that's the better choice. When there's nothing good about something, why put it into the body? We got sodas out of our diet in the late 70's. Back then we mixed 100% fruit juice with seltzer or tonic water, but we just decided to go with watered down juice if we want something special, which is Friday nights when we do popcorn .... a 25 year tradition. Other times it's 80% water and 20% herbal tea. We need to treat our bodies with love so they last well and serve us well into old age. We don't have to wear them out young. :-)

Anonymous said...

i agree with you so much there is no point in drinking soda, it is a pure harm to the body

Anonymous said...

i agree with you i also learned my lesson of drinking soda when i saw what it did to my teeth

Anonymous said...

My family HATES soda,PERIOD! I agree that soda is very bad for you. Not only is it bad for your teeth but also bad for you weight too. Instead of drinking soda, we drink juice mixed with water. Half of the cup is juice the other half is water. Juices are much heathier, also tea is too. Even though juices are much heathier than soda, they are also a little bit bad for weight. So if you read this please make a heath alert for juice and show which one is better for you. ;-D Thx!

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