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Impact of Drinks on Tooth Decay

The document summarizes an experiment conducted to determine which common drinks cause the most tooth decay. Eggshells were submerged in mineral water, milk, lemonade, cola, and vinegar to simulate the effects on tooth enamel. Vinegar caused the most erosion to the eggshell, followed by cola, lemonade, milk, and no change with mineral water. This suggests that the more acidic the drink, the more damage it causes to tooth enamel. While sugary drinks feed bacteria that produce acid leading to decay, the results showed that acidity, not sugar, was the primary cause of erosion in this experiment.

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Demi Castrellon
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17 views3 pages

Impact of Drinks on Tooth Decay

The document summarizes an experiment conducted to determine which common drinks cause the most tooth decay. Eggshells were submerged in mineral water, milk, lemonade, cola, and vinegar to simulate the effects on tooth enamel. Vinegar caused the most erosion to the eggshell, followed by cola, lemonade, milk, and no change with mineral water. This suggests that the more acidic the drink, the more damage it causes to tooth enamel. While sugary drinks feed bacteria that produce acid leading to decay, the results showed that acidity, not sugar, was the primary cause of erosion in this experiment.

Uploaded by

Demi Castrellon
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

What a Way to Decay!

By Samuel Castrellon

Have you ever wondered what causes tooth decay? Do you ever wonder what drinks

are bad for your teeth? What is tooth enamel made up of anyway? Well, you will find out in

this experiment that I have conducted.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 92%

of adults have tooth decay in their permanent teeth. With such an alarming rate of tooth

decay, I decided to find out what common drinks are causing tooth decay.

I decided to narrow it down to five different drinks. These included mineral water, milk,

lemonade, cola and vinegar. In my research, I learned that eggshells and tooth enamel are

made of similar calcium compounds. Because of this similarity, I decided to submerge eggshells

in each liquid to simulate the effects of these drinks on tooth enamel.

The question that I hoped to answer was whether or not sugar was responsible for

causing tooth decay. My hypothesis was that, yes, sugar was the cause of tooth decay.

First I filled 5 clear plastic cups with each of the chosen drinks. Next, I placed one

eggshell in each of the liquids. Then I placed them in the fridge and checked on them daily for a

week.

The results were as follows. Vinegar did the most damage as evidence by an eroded

shell, followed by cola-discoloration and softened shell, lemonade-discolored the shell, milk-
cracked the shell, and then mineral water-no change in the shell. I had expected that the cola

or lemonade would have caused the most damage since they were the sugary drinks.

My hypothesis was incorrect. It seems that the more acidic the drink, the more damage

is caused to tooth enamel. According to the American Dental Association (ADA), sugary drinks

feed the bacteria in our mouths which produce acid that causes tooth decay.
Resources

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promote-smaller-sizes-less-sugar

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