We all know that soda is bad for our teeth, but why? Here are some of the reasons why drinking soda is one of the worst things you can do for your oral health.
1. The amount of sugar
Soda has one of the highest counts of sugar out of all drinks. As we learned in an earlier post, sugar is bad for your teeth because it allows the already existing bacteria to eat, grow, and produce acid that erodes your teeth (check out the post here). Soda has such a high sugar content that it provides a plethora of sugar for the bacteria to feed on.
2. Diet Soda
Diet soda may seem like the perfect alternative to the high sugar content in soda, but it is actually just as bad, maybe even worse. Diet soda may not have sugar, but it has a high amount of acid. This skips the step of bacteria producing acid from sugar, and just places the acid directly on the teeth.
3. Continual sugar attack
Another big issue with soda is that it continually bathes the teeth in sugar and acid. The "sugar attack" that soda causes lasts 20 minutes, and starts over as soon as you take another drink of soda. This continual soda bath makes it so the saliva cannot wash off the sugar, and raise the pH of the mouth.
If you cannot give up soda, here are some ways to minimize the destruction.
- Drink through a straw to minimize how much soda touches your teeth.
- Drink it all with a meal instead of sipping throughout the day. This allows your saliva time to raise the pH in your mouth.
- Swish with water after drinking soda.
Source: https://www.wda.org/your-oral-health/sip-all-day
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