Lots of people enjoy coke drinks, like colas and carbonated lemon-lime blends, and in order to avoid the negative effects of their high sugar content, many folks choose diet coke over their full-sugar counterparts. But is diet coke better for your teeth? Or can it still cause harm?
Well, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that even if you have no-added-sugar coke or diet coke, your teeth can still suffer a wide range of consequences. In this guide, we’ll look at how diet coke hurts your teeth and what you can do about it.
The Effects of Diet Coke on Teeth
Before we look at how diet coke is bad for teeth, it’s first important to understand the basics of why coke is such a bad drink for oral health. There are two main problems with most coke drinks: their high sugar content and their acidic nature.
The sugar in many cokes can cause tooth decay, wearing away at the enamel of the teeth and penetrating through to the deeper and more sensitive layers underneath, potentially creating cavities that can grow over time.
Meanwhile, the acids in many cokes have a similar effect. They can break down the protective enamel coating of your teeth, eroding the tooth’s structure, making little pores even bigger and allowing other substances to get inside, which can lead to stains and decay.
How Diet Cokes Affect Your Teeth
Even though diet cokes contain less sugar than regular cokes, and some of them have no sugar at all, they're still dangerous for teeth, due to their very acidic nature. These drinks often have multiple acid ingredients and low pH numbers.
And the truth of the matter is that those acids are the most damaging parts of any coke, so even if you switch from standard coke to a sugar-free option, your teeth will still be at risk; the acids can eat away at your teeth over time, which may lead to weakness, sensitivity, decay, and stains.
It’s particularly bad if you tend to sip on your cokes or drink them slowly, as this gives the acids even more time in contact with your teeth and more opportunity to wear them down.
So, if you still want to drink cokes, it’s best to drink them quickly and rinse your mouth to wash away the acid. Better yet, it is recommended to use an oral rinse to eliminate the negative effects of sodas on your teeth.
Does Diet Cokes Stain Teeth?
Clearly, diet cokes can damage your teeth, but can they stain them in the same way as coffee, tea, red wine, and other drinks? Unfortunately, the answer is, once again, yes. Diet and sugar-free cokes are 100% capable of staining teeth when consumed in large quantities.
Again, this is all due to the acids. The acids enter the little pores or holes of your enamel and erode the tooth. This makes the holes bigger, allowing more coke and other substances to get inside and gradually change the color of your teeth.
For this reason, many people who drink coke regularly - including diet coke - find that they develop yellowish teeth over the years. And even with regular brushing and dental care, those stains can be hard to get rid of.
How to Remove Coke Stains from Teeth
If you drink a lot of diet coke, you might start to notice that your teeth aren’t quite as white as they once were. When this happens, you have a couple of options: you can either continue as you are and watch your teeth potentially get progressively worse, or you can take steps to whiten your teeth and make those stains fade away. Here a few whitening methods to use:
- Gels and Pens - A lot of people are opting for teeth whitening gels and pens nowadays. These products are affordable and accessible, as you can find them quite easily in any drugstore or online. You can apply teeth whitening pens or gels to your teeth and then simply wait and watch as stains and marks fade away with regular use.
- Clinical Procedures - For a more powerful but much more expensive option, you could also consider a clinical teeth whitening treatment. Many dental clinics offer teeth whitening services that typically make use of hydrogen peroxide and other chemicals to get rid of stains and marks on teeth.
- At-Home Whitening - You can also make your own teeth whitening solutions using household ingredients, like baking coke. A lot of people like to mix baking coke with water to make a simple toothpaste that can rub surface-level stains away. Unfortunately, this won’t work as well on stains that are deeply-set within the tooth. For those tpes of stains, its best to use a teeth whitening toothpaste.
Tips to Reduce the Risk of Teeth Stains and Other Damages from Diet Coke
Whitening solutions are really helpful for undoing some of the damages that diet cokes cause to your teeth, but it’s even better if you can prevent those damages from occurring to begin with. Here are some useful tips and tricks which should help you protect your teeth from stains and erosion.
- Drink Less - Obviously, one of the best ways you can avoid teeth stains and problems due to diet coke is to simply drink less of it. Even if you really enjoy diet coke and don’t think you can quit it entirely, you may be able to reduce the amount that you consume.
- Opt for Safer Alternatives - You could also try swapping out diet coke for some alternative drinks that are much kinder to your mouth. Sparkling water is a great alternative, along with some fruit juices.
- Drink with Food - If you must drink coke, try to have it with food. The food helps to protect your teeth and boosts saliva production to wash away all of the acids, so the coke shouldn’t do as much damage.
- Drink Quickly - It’s also recommended to drink quickly. The more time the coke has on your teeth, the more damage it will do. If you take lots of little sips, the acids will have a long time to erode your enamel, but if you drink quickly, there should be less damage.
- Use a Straw - Following on from the previous point, using a straw is another great way to minimize the amount of time that your teeth spend in contact with the coke acids. This should reduce your risk of stains and decay.
