Gat-o-Rot, Part II

Sports and energy drinks may be promoted and advertised as boons for your athletic performance, but I hope my past postings have proven to you that they’re nothing of the sort.  They bill themselves to be energizing, but they’re positively enervating.  And according to a recent study, they lead to the deteriorating of your pearly whites.

All of us know of the corrosive nature of soda pop on teeth.  Soda is highly acidic, so when soda sippers constantly slurp up their barrens of nutrition, they’re slowly but surely booking first-class seats to the dentist chair, even if they’re brushing and flossing regularly (in fact, studies show that brushing soon after you drink a soda can actually increase the wearing away of tooth enamel).

But a new study from New York University says that sports drinks – like Gatorade, Powerade and All-Sport –are right up there with soda as drinks that make for terrible teeth.

The dental researchers discovered this after putting cow teeth – yes, cow teeth – into two different cups: one containing water, the other containing a popular sports beverage (they chose cow teeth because, apparently, they’re very similar in structure to human teeth.  Who knew?). 

After about 90 minutes, the teeth in the sports drink were much softer than the teeth placed in the water.  It’s this softening effect that leads to enamel erosion, a condition that approximately one in 15 Americans are affected by (I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure goes much higher, given the fact that soda is the most popular item purchased in grocery stores).

The good researchers say that in order to prevent tooth erosion, athletes should either drink them sparingly or if they do drink them, to wait 30 minutes before brushing to prevent further erosion.

I have a better idea, though:  How about not drinking them at all?  As my previous postings on the dangerous side effects of energy and sports drinks have shown, there’s really no need to be drinking these drinks.  All they do is hold dental hygiene hostage.

Now, some promoters of sports drinks will say that there’s a nutritional aspect to them, as they’re more thirst quenching than water; that they provide the body with the electrolytes the body loses through sweat. 

This is plain false!  There are much better ways to get electrolytes replaced, some of which include natural sports drinks, which I’ll discuss in a future article.  The only way that sports drinks may hydrate better is because of their taste.  More taste, the more likely one is to drink more of it.  But at what cost to overall health? 

In the meantime, keep those lips off the sports bottle and around the water bottle.  Water is pure, clean, and replenishes your body just as well as a sports drink will – minus the destruction of those pearly whites.

Source
sciencedaily.com