While sugar-free drinks are certainly healthier (and pose a lower risk of decay) than regular drinks, they can still weaken your teeth’s enamel.

It’s common knowledge that drinking soda and other sugary drinks can cause tooth decay. It’s also logical to assume that sugar-free beverages won’t cause decay because they don’t contain any sugar.

Unfortunately, the truth is that although sugar-free beverages are healthier than regular beverages, they can still cause enamel erosion and tooth decay due to their high acidity. Let’s explore how sugar-free drinks can still hurt your teeth and some alternative options to sugar-free drinks to protect your teeth.

How Sugar-Free Drinks Hurt Your Teeth

Foods and drinks with low pH levels, such as sugar-free drinks, energy drinks, and juices, are acidic and carry a high risk of dental erosion. In fact, diet sodas can erode just as much enamel as regular sodas, even though they contain little to no bacteria-feeding sugar. This is because sugar-free beverages contain phosphoric acid, a highly corrosive acid that weakens and erodes enamel, making your teeth more susceptible to decay. Plus, many sugar-free drinks also contain artificial sweeteners, citric acid, or tartaric acid, all of which can soften your enamel.

Over time, sipping sugar-free drinks will start to expose your dentin. As a result, your teeth may become more sensitive to hot and cold food and beverages and more susceptible to cavities.

Teeth-Friendly Alternative Drinks

If you can’t bring yourself to completely cut out sugary drinks or sugar-free sodas from your diet, try drinking fewer of them throughout the day. Conversely, next time you’re craving a can of soda, try consuming a beverage with low acid content. Black tea, black coffee, water, sparkling water, milk, and even diluted juice are less erosive than sugary and sugar-free beverages.

If you want to drink a soda, consider drinking root beer, as it’s less acidic compared to other sodas. Just remember to brush your teeth after to ensure your teeth stay strong!

Protecting Your Teeth

To protect your teeth from enamel erosion, try:

• Consuming any sugary, sugar-free, or acidic drinks during meals: Continuously sipping on a sugary, sugar-free, or acidic drink throughout the day is one of the most harmful things you can do to your enamel, so try to finish your drink in one sitting. Sipping on sugary drinks throughout the day exacerbates enamel erosion, as it continually exposes your enamel to sugar or acid and your saliva doesn’t have enough time to neutralize your mouth’s pH. On the other hand, finishing your sugary or sugar-free drink quickly will minimize your teeth’s exposure to any harmful acids or sugars.
• Drinking through a straw: To further minimize contact between your teeth and any erosive acids, use a straw.
• Waiting to brush your teeth: While it can be tempting to brush your teeth immediately after drinking a can of soda, you should wait at least 30 minutes to brush your teeth. Ideally, you should wait an hour, as brushing too soon after drinking an acidic drink will just spread harmful acids around your mouth before your mouth’s pH is neutralized by your saliva. When it’s time to brush, use fluoride toothpaste, and make sure to floss.
• Rinsing with water: Though you shouldn’t brush immediately after consuming an acidic beverage, you can rinse with water while you’re waiting for your mouth to return to a neutral pH level.
• Drinking milk or eating cheese: Follow your sugary or sugar-free beverage with a glass of milk or a few slices of cheese, as dairy and other calcium-rich foods are known for neutralizing decay-causing acids.

Whether you opt for sugar-free beverages or not, practicing excellent oral hygiene should be one of your top priorities. In addition to diligently brushing and flossing your teeth, make sure to visit your dentist twice a year for a checkup and thorough cleaning.

Schedule an appointment at Espire’s La Mesa location today! Our highly trained dentists can check your teeth and repair damage caused by drinking sugary or sugar-free beverages.