Rotten truth about what prosecco does to your teeth
AS WELL as sleigh bells and the ubiquitous sound of Slade’s festive hit, one of the noises of Christmas 2017 will be the popping of prosecco corks.
In just a few years, the light, fizzy Italian wine has trounced all rivals to become the nation’s favourite celebratory drink.
women in particular can’t get enough of its bubbly luxuriousness — just like champagne, only far cheaper and sweeter.
we are now the world’s second biggest prosecco consumers, just behind Italy, and sales in the UK are growing by around 10 per cent every year.
To meet demand, the supermarket chain aldi is selling three- litre bottles for Christmas (alongside non-alcoholic pets’ prosecco, called Pawsecco, so cats and dogs don’t miss out).
Experts predict that by 2022, Brits will glug 750 million litres of prosecco a year — twice as much as americans, and equal to the entire australian wine industry’s total annual export.
But there is a price to be paid for this exuberant quaffing. The British Dental association (BDa) warned recently about a ghastly new affliction called the ‘prosecco smile’, seen in women whose front teeth have been rotted by ‘a triple whammy’ of acidic carbonated bubbles, alcohol and sugar (one heaped teaspoon present in every flute.)
So is the BDa just being a seasonal spoilsport — or are our teeth really in peril? To discover the truth, the mail asked the UK’s leading dental scientists at the oral Health Foundation to investigate the effect of prosecco on tooth enamel.
we also tested other popular drinks which have a reputation for rotting teeth, including a sports drink, an energy drink, cider and cola (examining the oft-repeated claim that a tooth dissolves if it’s left in a glass of cola overnight).
To provide a scientific control, we included water and milk.
of course, in reality, our teeth aren’t soaked in sugary liquids for a period of two weeks — as in our tests — but the effects are still shocking . . .
THE TEST
SCIENTISTS at the oral Health Foundation took seven healthy human teeth — a mixture of molars (used for grinding food) and incisors ( used for cutting) — photographed them and placed each of them in a sterile test-tube.
The test- tubes were then filled with a different drink and monitored over 14 days. at the end of this period, experts analysed the impact on the enamel, which is the protective barrier covering each tooth.
Enamel is the hardest substance in the human body and made up of 96 per cent minerals, including calcium, phosphorous and magnesium. The principal mineral is called hydroxyapatite, which is calcium phosphate in crystalline form.
Dr Ben atkins, a dentist and trustee of the oral Health Foundation, explains that — with the exception of milk and water — the drinks being tested harbour known risks for decay. However, no one has ever examined how they rate against each other, and how badly they can rot human teeth under clinical conditions.