Summertime Hydration.

Summer is finally here!!!

And with the onset of summer will come the onset of higher temperatures 

and thus higher rates of thirst.

So what are you going to drink when you get thirsty?

Some folks have decided that they will hydrate with something healthier then soda.

The stuff they decide to drink instead is sports drinks (gatorade, poweraid, vitamin water, etc.)

They see the commercials and see professional athletes drinking this stuff 

and think that it must be good for them.

Well, Not so fast my friend!!

 The following is a study from the university of Iowa. and the results may shock you.

“The University of Iowa researchers covered extracted teeth with nail polish. They left bare two patches on each tooth, one on the enamel and one on the root. Then they dunked the teeth in test tubes filled with regular Coke, Diet Coke, Gatorade, Red Bull, or 100% apple juice. Every five hours, the researchers refreshed the beverages. After 25 hours, they examined the teeth with a microscope. All of the beverages eroded the bare spots on the teeth. But different beverages had significantly different effects. On the enamel, Gatorade was significantly more corrosive than Red Bull and Coke. Red Bull and Coke, in turn, were significantly more corrosive than Diet Coke and apple juice. On the roots of the teeth, Gatorade was more corrosive than Red Bull. Coke, apple juice, and Diet Coke followed in that order.”

So there you have it. People switching from soda pop to sports drinks thinking that they are helping their teeth are actually doing the same damage to their teeth as before. Be careful what you drink. The claims of things being "healthier" for you may be a little misleading.

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Stop Sipping!!

We see it all the time.

People coming into the office with with their teeth hurting.

I tell them that they have a ton of cavities and they tell me that that is impossible.

Since nothing is impossible I ask them why they think that.

They tell me its because they only drink 1 can of soda pop a day.

I tell them that that's not so bad and that lots of people have a soda at some point during the day.

I then ask them how long it takes them to drink it.

They tell me that they sip on it throughout the day and that it

 takes them about 4 hours to finish off a can.

Here in lies our problem.

Cavities caused by soda happen due to the time that the teeth

 are exposed to the sugar and not the amount of sugar ingested.

If I drank an entire 2 liter of Mountain Dew for breakfast and

 my patient only had 1 can on Mountain Dew but it took him 

4 hours to drink his can, who do you think would be worse off?

If you said the guy drinking the can then you are starting to catch on.

Although my sugar content is higher and I may experience 

more symptoms throughout my body my teeth are much

 better off. I get the sugar in my mouth and then get it out 

and I am done. The person who sips on that one can for hours

 at a time has sugar covering their teeth the whole time they

 are sipping. So less sugar but more tooth exposure.

Moral of the story is DO NOT SIP!

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Soda Pop

Everyone on planet earth knows that drinking soda pop is bad for your teeth

Both the sugar and the acids lead to tooth decay.

Even though we all know this fact however, does not translate into

anyone of us no longer drinking it.

I myself throughly enjoy a Dr. Pepper when I am out to eat.

So what to do?

Do we all just end up looking like this guy?

Hopefully the answer to that is, no.

Simply do as the beer commercials say and, "Drink Responsibly".

Simply limit your soda drinking to meal times.

Then after your meal is done take one last drink of water to help rinse the sugars out.

Sipping on soda throughout the day is the worst thing you can do.

If you can't stop drinking soda pop then simply do it in a way that would

minimize the chance that you would get cavities.

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