Dentist warns even sugar-free drinks can wreck your teeth

  • 3 months ago
Reacting to Labour’s energy drink ban announcement, and telling us more about what's in our favourite drinks, is dentist Doctor Deepak Aulak.

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00:00So anything around sugar drinks, fizzy drinks, that is kind of causing that, increasing the
00:05prevalence of children visiting hospital for tooth extraction. So the second aspect that
00:09we really worry about is the cost of energy drinks, incredibly affordable for children,
00:14sometimes pennies under a pound. And again, that entices children to consume that en masse.
00:20We've seen children go into schools or in our waiting rooms with such drinks. So we
00:24welcome anything that sort of decreases the risk of cavities, extractions.
00:28It's been reported that some energy drinks contain as much caffeine as three espressos
00:33or five cans of Coca-Cola, prompting the proposed ban. But the high sugar contents, as well
00:38as acidity levels of these and other soft drinks, raise health concerns too.
00:42For us, we think sugar is one aspect, and now they've been marketed to be sugar-free,
00:46but it's still that risk of acidic nature wearing away, and now that can never really
00:50grow back.
00:51Most of us know high sugar drinks are bad for our health and our teeth, so we may turn
00:55to sugar-free alternatives. They often include artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which
01:00experts say having too much of can affect the gut's natural processes.
01:05Anything in large consumption is going to be very high risk. A recent study not too
01:08long ago talked about the fact that it's linked to some aspects of cancer, and I think that's
01:12a worrying aspect now. There's an arm-wrestling occurring between those who are trying to
01:16ban the particular ingredient and those that use it as part of their products. But we welcome
01:20more research, we welcome anything that helps look at each individual component of sugar
01:24drinks or even fizzy drinks and say, well, what is that overall risk to us?
01:27In an ideal world, we'd avoid fizzy drinks altogether, but health experts say reducing
01:31your consumption to once or twice a week is enough to make a difference, as well as introducing
01:36other good habits.
01:37The actual component of fizzy drinks, the way that we consume it, is very high risk.
01:41So sipping it slowly throughout the day is actually causing more damage than having it
01:45all in one go. And then also using things like a straw, so using a straw that hopefully
01:50the actual acidic nature of the fluid doesn't touch, the liquid doesn't touch the actual
01:54teeth, goes straight within the body and bypasses that enamel wear that we're talking
01:58about, the risk there.

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