8 July 2020
The Western Advocate
Reporter: Rachel Chamberlain
They claim to keep you energised and hydrated, but energy and sports drinks fail to publicise that they are full of sugar.
With many community sports resuming, dentists are concerned people will turn to these drinks and do damage to their teeth that might, in worst-case scenarios, require extractions.
The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows there are almost 200 bed days lost every year in Bathurst due to potentially preventable dental-related conditions.
One 600-millilitre can or bottle of energy drink contains up to 36 grams of sugar and regular consumption can lead to the kind of preventable conditions related to those statistics.
President of the NSW branch of the Australian Dental Association, Dr Kathleen Matthews, said people don’t realise the amount of sugar in these drinks.
“Some of those drinks can contain up to 36 grams of sugar, which is like nine teaspoons of sugar. You probably wouldn’t put that in your cup of tea, so it seems a little silly to put it in a sports drink that young children or younger people are consuming,” she said.
“… When you go to see your dentist, they talk about brushing your teeth and eating right and this is one of the big areas where sometimes there’s an unrecognised amount of sugar in a child’s or adolescent’s diet via these sugar-sweetened drinks.
“Have a look at what’s in your trolley, let’s have a look at what the added sugar level is to some of those drinks.”
She said regular consumption of these drinks leaves people vulnerable to tooth decay and, as a dentist, she has had to have difficult conversations with parents about extracting teeth in young children as a result.
Bathurst dentist Dr Emma Travis, of Dental on Keppel, has seen similar things during her career and said decay is often a silent problem.
“I do find that unfortunately decay in its early stages can be completely pain free, so you don’t know that it’s a problem,” she said
“I often get people when a tooth either breaks or they start to get some kind of pain, that they come in and I might go ‘This tooth that’s hurting you has decayed and become painful, but you’ve got other areas’; they might need six other fillings on teeth that don’t have any symptoms yet and they’re often quite surprised.”
Both Dr Travis and Dr Matthews recommend people drink water as an alternative, but said people don’t need to cut sugary drinks from their diets altogether, especially if they are smart in how they consume them.
“The worst thing you can do is sip it slowly over a period of hours,” Dr Travis said. “The best thing to do is consume it in a short period of time and then have a drink of water or chew some [sugar free] chewing gum afterwards, so you’re taking away the sugar and the acid that’s just sitting in your mouth.”
For good oral health, people need to brush their teeth twice a day, floss and visit their dentist regularly.
Read the full Western Advocate article here
