Local dentists and an athletic trainer agree with a recent article in a dental office newsletter that says water is a better choice, particularly if you want to preserve your pearly whites.
Sports drinks are not good for teeth, due to their high sugar and acidic content, one study shows. The article, in “Word of Mouth,” urges patients to avoid or limit their consumption of sports drinks.
“They erode the teeth, take away the enamel and expose the softer underpart,” said Dr. Peter Ross, a pediatric dentist with a Manheim Township practice. “Then here we go with tooth decay.”
Sports drinks such as Gatorade are promoted because they replace electrolytes and carbohydrates lost during strenuous exercise.
Kids often buy into that message.
Hank Fijalkowski sees a lot of athletes show up with a sports drink in their hand for team practices at Millersville University.
“You have to wonder if they weren’t drinking Gatorade, what would they have in their hand,” he said. “Water is a better choice.”
Millersville supplies sports drinks to athletes only on occasion, such as when it is very hot or during a game when athletes are really exerting themselves.
“Our main fluid replenishment is water,” Fijalkowski said.
Younger athletes, such as those in peewee football, midget baseball or youth soccer leagues, need the drinks even less, he said.
“If you’re talking about that level of athletes, the kids probably aren’t working all that hard, compared to high school or college,” he said. “That sugar probably is not helping the calorie loss they get through exercise.”
Kids get drawn in by ads that promise quick energy from the drinks, Ross said.
“You can do with an orange,” he said.
Even eating a piece of chocolate might offer a more healthy energy boost than drinking a Gatorade, he said. Chocolate has milk in it, and also is cleared out of the mouth faster than a drink, which bathes the teeth longer.
Ross has seen first-hand how sports drinks can damage teeth.
Ross serves in the Army Reserves as a commander with the Pacific Regional Dental Command out of Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has examined the teeth of soldiers returning from the war in Iraq.
“It’s the desert, it’s hot, they are exercising and dehydrated and these sports drinks are widely available to them,” he said. “They’re coming back full of tooth decay.”
Dr. Stephen Miller, a pediatric dentist who has a Manheim Township office, said kids also can choose other drinks with a lower sugar content, such as Propel and Fruit20.
“All are low in sugar,” said Erika Miller, Miller’s office manager.
Sports drinks are OK in moderation if you follow up with the proper care, one dentist said.
If you consume a sports drink, make sure you thoroughly brush and floss your teeth in a reasonable time afterward, said Dr. John Backof, a dentist in New Holland who also is vice president of the Lancaster County Dental Society.
“Oftentimes those who get in a bad habit of intake of sugar content will get in a problem with tooth decay for not doing a good job of brushing,” he said. “It’s 10 seconds in the mouth with the toothbrush.”
The effect of sports drinks on teeth was studied by J. Anthony von Fraunhofer, professor of biomaterials science at the University of Maryland Dental School.
During the study, cavity-free teeth were immersed in various drinks for 14 days, which the study says is comparable to approximately 13 years of normal beverage consumption.
Actually, sports drinks weren’t the biggest offender.
There was significant enamel damage with all the beverages tested. Results, listed from greatest to least damage to dental enamel, were: lemonade, energy drinks, sports drinks, fitness water, iced tea and cola.
The sports-drink debate “comes up every year or two,” said Robert Murray, director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, who has a doctorate in exercise science.
Murray quotes a 2002 study of more than 300 athletes at Ohio State University. The level of dental erosion in athletes regularly using sports drinks was 36 percent versus 40 percent erosion in people who did not use sports drinks. That study was published in the journal Caries Research.
(Scripps-Howard News Service contributed to this report.)
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