“Rotting, blackened, crumbling or falling apart.” This is how methamphetamine users describe the condition of their teeth. Oftentimes, their teeth cannot be saved and must be extracted.
A new study shows that heavy consumption of diet soda can damage teeth as badly as methamphetamine or crack cocaine. What does this mean?
A sugar-free soda is just as damaging to teeth as regular soda if they are consumed in the same quantity because of their acidic content.
“You look at it side-to-side with ‘meth mouth’ or ‘coke mouth,’ it is startling to see the intensity and extent of damage more or less the same,” said Dr. Mohamed Bassiouny, a professor of restorative dentistry at the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia.
“You look at it side-to-side with ‘meth mouth’ or ‘coke mouth,’ it is startling to see the intensity and extent of damage more or less the same,” said Dr. Mohamed Bassiouny, a professor of restorative dentistry at the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia.
A woman in her 30s who drank two liters of soda a day for nearly five years had the same amount of dental damage as a 29-year-old meth user and a 51-year-old crack addict.
“None of the teeth affected by erosion were salvageable,” Bassiouny said. She had to have all of her teeth removed and replaced with dentures.
The study also reports that sugar-free soda is just as damaging to teeth as regular soda if they are consumed in the same quantity because of their acidic content – a high acidity level also is what makes crack and meth so bad for teeth.
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