Soft Drinks Have Bad Effect On Your Teeth
Although, soft drinks can be a glass full of refreshment on a hot summer day or, perfect pair up with meals. However, they add unnecessary calories to your diet and the large amounts of sugar can lead to diabetes.
Soda drinks have many potential health problems, including dental caries and enamel erosion. The white spot lesions confirms the diagnosis of dental erosion. Sugar-free soft drinks often have as high erosive potential as sugar-containing drinks.
Some studies even show that consuming as little as one can of soda per day can give you a 48 percent higher chance of getting a heart attack. Research suggests soft drinks may be just as corrosive to teeth as drinking battery fluid. This can occur as soon as within the first three minutes of consumption. It is caused by a combination of mostly three factors, one is the sugar, phosphoric acid present in some sodas and finally the staining effect that they can have on your teeth.
Compared with caries, dental erosion seems to have much stronger relationship with soft drinks. More studies showed that dental erosion was associated with the drinking methods. Holding the drink longer in the mouth leads to a more pronounced pH drop.
Tooth brushing is a way to keep a good oral hygiene. Hard tissue loss after erosion and tooth brushing is significantly greater than erosion alone. Moreover, even some kinds of toothpastes accelerate tooth wear due to the removal of superficial enamel layer. Non-fluoride toothpaste could increase dentin loss compared with drinks alone. On the contrary, fluoride and re-mineralizing toothpastes (containing sodium fluoride, calcium, phosphate, and fluoride ions) are effective in inhibiting enamel erosion.
In conclusion, excessive intake of soft drinks could cause complex dental problems, including dental erosion and caries.
Prevention of dental caries and erosion;
- Limiting soft drinks intake,
- choosing the low erosive soft drinks,
- improving the drinking habit,
- tooth brushing at least twice a day,
- avoiding brushing tooth within 1 h after consuming acidic food and,
- using fluoride or re-mineralizing toothpaste.
Treatment;
Firstly, to limit or stop the intake of soft drinks. Secondly, to choose fluoride containing tooth paste over non fluoridated tooth paste.
Finally, all the affected teeth to be addressed with appropriate filling to restore its original functionality.
