Many people have a daily routine of a trip through the drive thru for a Double Double or Grande Vanilla latte, an afternoon Red Bull or a Gatorade at the gym. Although caffeine is the ultimate way of enhancing our attention span, productivity and agility, most people are not familiar with the damaging effects of these drinks on our teeth. While both coffee and energy drinks may be highly useful in boosting your energy levels during busy work hours, research has shown that they are extremely dangerous for our physical and dental health!

Why your Teeth are First to Get Damage Because of Coffee and Energy Drink Consumption? Your teeth are a target for all types of acidic and sugary drinks. This is because anything you eat or drink first comes in contact with your teeth and then moves towards other organs of the digestive system. Unless you brush and floss your teeth immediately after their intake, the sugar in these drinks tends to adhere to your teeth and cause cavities.

What Ingredients of Coffee and Energy Drinks are Responsible for Damaging your Teeth? To understand how caffeine and sugar containing drinks damage your teeth, you will need to understand what their ingredients. Some ingredients that are common to coffee and energy drinks are given below:
Sugar – this is invariably the most common, and perhaps the most important cavity causing component of every type of drink, whether it is tea, coffee, energy drinks or soft drinks. Research has shown that excessively high levels of sugar are present in most commonly available drive through coffee drinks, energy and carbonated drinks. And do not be fooled by so called “healthy” alternatives like honey, agave and maple syrup. These are As bad as sugar for your teeth.

Acidic Components – did you know that increased caffeine consumption increases the amount of acid produced inside the oral cavity and the digestive system? Similarly, energy drinks, pop and sport drinks also contain highly acidic components which weakens the enamel and makes it easier for you to get cavities.

How to Prevent all These Problems? No matter how much we love our Timmies, Starbucks or Red Bull, the fact remains that they are quite harmful for our physical and dental health. Here are a few tips for you to prevent your teeth from getting damaged, while still enjoying your favorite drinks:

Limit your Intake – probably the best way to protect your teeth and gums, is to minimize your intake of caffeine containing drinks. Obviously, it’s easier said than done. But hey, look at the bright side! No coffee, no teeth stains and “coffee smile”, and less cavities. And less time hanging out at the dentist ????

Oral Hygiene – even if you cannot stop yourself from the addiction of sugary caffeine drinks, you can still help reduce the damage to your teeth. Simply make sure to brush your teeth, or at least rinse your mouth with water immediately after enjoying a drink. In this way, harmful and acidic components of these drinks will be washed away, and the chances of demineralization and development of cavities will be greatly reduced. The most effective way to help reduce the impact of these drinks is to FLOSS, FLOSS, FLOSS. And there are so many ways to floss these day. My favorite is to keep the floss swords in my car so I’m flossing every time I’m in my car. Plus there are many water flossers, electric flossers and other options to make flossing easy.

Use a Straw! – using a straw while enjoying a coffee or Gatorade will greatly minimize the time duration for which a drink remains in contact with your teeth. As a result, the drink flows directly towards the back of your mouth and prevents the staining and demineralization of your front teeth.
Drink Lots of Water – by drinking healthy amounts of water each day will help in countering the effects of the sugary beverages you are drinking.

The whole point of this discussion was certainly not to convince you to stop hitting up the drive through in the morning or grabbing that energy drink or pop (although that would not be a bad idea – lol) , it was meant to provide you various tips and suggestions that will help you in minimizing the damaging effects of these drinks on your teeth. So, the next time you feel like enjoying a coffee or a Red Bull, Simply remember to follow the preventive measures that have been discussed here, and it will help reduce some of the problems you may have with your teeth in the future!

Posted in Dental News