New Study Says Your Favorite Diet Sodas May Be Doing Something Gross To Your Teeth

By now, I think we all know just how bad soda can be for you.

As this horrifying graphic shows, in just 20 minutes, a can of Coke will cause your blood sugar to spike, causing a burst of insulin.

In 40 minutes,  your blood pressure rises and your liver “dumps more sugar into your bloodstream.”

In 60 minutes, the soda’s phosphoric acid steals zinc, calcium and magnesium from your intestines, then makes you pee it out.

Yeah, soda is pretty bad for your body, but what about before it even hits your stomach? New research suggests, soda, even the sugar-free kind, may be really bad for your teeth.

To find out just what sugar-free soda does to your teeth, researchers from the University of Melbourne's Oral Health Cooperative Research Centre took extracted human molars and drenched them in 15 different beverages including regular sodas, sports drinks, milk, and three sugar-free sodas.

After soaking the teeth, the researchers checked the molars for any changes including change in calcium levels, weight, and surface damage.

The team found that there was little to no difference in the damage done by sugar-free and regular soda. The team concluded,

Therefore, banning sugar-containing beverages from schools may have positive health effects for reducing obesity, diabetes and dental caries but it may not reduce the risk of dental erosion.

The researchers may be right in calling for a ban on sugary beverages in schools. As the team noted,

More than 60,000 Australians are hospitalised each year for preventable oral health conditions. The cost to the Australian economy of oral diseases is $8.7 billion a year. A growing body of evidence links oral disease to other health conditions including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, kidney disease, respiratory diseases, inflammatory diseases and some cancers.

Next time, maybe just drink water.