Dentist warns even sugar-free drinks can wreck your teeth

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

Transcript

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.