Summary
A study by the University of Maryland Dental School has found that sports drinks contain acids that stimulate the breakdown of tooth enamel, leading to cavities. The enamel damage caused by sports drinks was from 3 to 11 times as great as that caused by cola-based drinks. The acid in the drinks causes the pH level in the mouth to drop, which stimulates the life cycle of mouth bacteria that cause cavities.
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Details
Sports and energy drinks such as Gatorade and Red Bull are popular with the health conscious.
But dental researchers are warning that they can be extremely bad for your teeth, much worse than soft drinks, which are often described as cavity-causing.
Dr. Anthony von Fraunhofer, professor of biomaterials science at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore, said the acids in sports drinks cause tooth enamel to break down, making it more likely that cavities will develop.
"The enamel damage caused by non-cola and sports beverages was three to 11 times greater than cola-based drinks, with energy drinks and bottled lemonades causing the most harm to dental enamel," he said.
Dr. von Fraunhofer said that, contrary to popular belief, carbonation per se does not cause cavities.
Dr. von Frauhofer said most soft drinks, from Snapple through to Coca-Cola, contain food additives such as phosphoric acid, citric acid, malic acid and tartaric acid.
To conduct the study, which is published in the current edition of the medical journal General Dentistry, researchers soaked teeth in various popular drinks for a period of 14 hours -- an exposure period equivalent to about 13 years' worth of normal beverage consumption.
Dr. von Frauhofer and his team found that the drinks that caused the most enamel to dissolve included KMX sports drink, Snapple lemonade, Red Bull, Gatorade lemon-lime, Powerade Arctic Shatter, Arizona Iced Tea, Fanta Orange, and finally Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
All the soft drinks caused substantially more erosion than black tea.
But the difference between KMX and Coke, for example, was striking.
KMX caused tooth-enamel dissolution that measured as 30 milligrams per centimetres squared, compared with 3 mg/cm{+2} for Coke.
"The major problem with any of these drinks is not chugging it down, it's sipping continuously over a long period," he said.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005
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