Teeth 2

[sammd]

The dentist says not to eat sugary food between meals. Does this include fruit as fruit has sugar in it?

[dot.hawkes]

he meant processed sugar

[cliffsdoll]

as opposed to natural sugar

[MrXLA]

Natural intrinsic fruit sugars do have a very negligible potential to cause dental decay. But this is insignificant compared to the extrinisc sugars found in chocolate and fizzy drinks. Citrus fruits in particular have a high erosive potential. But I would not discourage you in any way from eating or drinking natural fruits, as the benefit to health far exceeds any small potential risk to dental health.

[ktlou]

The easiest way to describe it is this - When you eat/drink anything sugary (that includes fruit - natural sugar is still sugar) it raises the sugar levels in your mouth. It takes about half an hour for those levels to fall back to normal (in which time your mouth has had time to protect your teeth from the sugar). If you were to eat or drink something containing sugar (for example a cup of tea or coffee or juice) every half hour or hour, it means that your mouth doesn't stand much of a chance at protecting your teeth which then raises the chances of tooth decay. You also shouldn't brush your teeth for at least half an hour before or after you have eaten as again, this destroys the protection against sugar! Therefore, it's fine to have a piece of fruit or glass of fruit juice once between your meals (obviously as MrXLA said, it's still very good for you) but if you do it continually between meals, it won't do much good for your teeth!

[sammd]

I see, thanks for the info!