Sports & Energy Drinks May Damage Teeth

Sports and energy drinks are popular beverages.  Poonam Jain, from the Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine (Illinois, USA), and colleagues examined the acidity levels in 13 sports drinks and nine energy drinks. They found that the acidity levels varied between brands of beverages and flavors of the same brand. To simulate the exposure of teeth to the beverages, the researchers immersed samples of human tooth enamel in each beverage for 15 minutes, followed by immersion in artificial saliva for two hours. This cycle was repeated four times a day for five days, and the samples were stored in fresh artificial saliva at all other times. The researchers found that damage to tooth enamel was evident after only five days of exposure to sports or energy drinks, although energy drinks showed a significantly greater potential to damage teeth than sports drinks. In fact, the study authors found that energy drinks caused twice as much damage to teeth as sports drinks.  They warn that: "Most [people] are shocked to learn that these drinks are essentially bathing their teeth with acid.”