Sports Drinks - How to Dissolve Your Teeth

 This is about those wonderful fruity flavors.  In order to create the flavors in today’s beverages, those tangy and/or fruity flavors, the makers use fruit juice as their base or they add organic acids that come from organic juices.  Reading the label you will usually find citric, ascorbic, or malic acid; often several.  Also, there is commonly a fruit juice concentrate which will have high amounts of organic acids.

"Organic "systems are designed to maintain stability.  In other words, if nature establishes a fruit with a certain acid level, there is also a "buffering" system that holds that acid level constant.  This reserve system is huge so that living systems can resist significant insults from the outside world and still survive.  For example:  Comparing a glass of Coca Cola (inorganic) with apple juice (organic), the apple juice will require 8 times as much base (antacid) to upset the balance and neutralize the apple juice compared to the Coke.  It is this lasting power that makes it possible for sports drink acids to do so much damage to teeth.

The other crucial ingredient is how we use these drinks ... sipping.  Sports literature expounds the value of maintaining hydration during physical activity.  This has translated into sipping patterns to maintain hydration during sports.  Large bottles (lots of calories) are at game side for frequent gulps during game breaks.  The athlete is bathing her teeth in acid attack.  This frequently translates into a sipping style of hydration every day for many of us, especially our youth.  Athletes in sports that allow a hydration pack on their back are bathing their teeth continuously with enamel dissolving acids.

The most alarming example I witnessed was a patient of mine.  For 13 years this bright and personable boy had been a cavity free patient in my practice.  He is quiet, studious and has a real creative talent with computers.  He developed a habit of coming home from school, doing his homework and then his computer graphics and programming.  He was bathing (sipping) his teeth in organic acids (sports drinks and other beverages) all afternoon and evening several days a week.  In the short period between 2 regular cheek-ups his teeth deteriorated so severely he needed several crowns. And it was not cavities nearly so much as he just dissolved the enamel off of his teeth.

My simple rules of thumb.

Hydration - nature designed us to use water.

Electrolytes-we get plenty of them if we eat “real food.”

Calories.  We get enough in our meals so be careful about snacking.  Our bodies store plenty of glycogen to get us through long periods of exercise and exertion.

Next week:  Sports Drinks becoming energy drinks with dangerous implications. 

Pulling kids out of school

Pulling kids out of school

So I know this sounds drastic, but we actually did this for Son #2. He had been down about 100 points on his peak flow, and just couldn't seem to rebound. He had struggled for about 3 months, all during the winter and into spring.


Usually, he can do a burst of steroids and he'll start to come back up. Sometimes he needs a Decadron injection (more steroids.) That usually does the trick, however nothing seemed to be working. Even increasing his Advair to the maximum dose did nothing.

So, there we were in Asthma Doc's office (again.) Asthma Doc was smoothing out his bangs, which he always does while he is thinking. I could see him flipping back and forth on Son #2's chart and then listening to his lungs. Then more smoothing of the bangs. Finally he said "We need to pull him out of school."

I said, "Wait. What?" Asthma Doc was concerned that Son #2 wasn't able to let his body fully heal after every respiratory infection. He needed to be pulled out of school, let his body rest and recover, and avoid being around the other sick students.

My first thought was "If you think I'm going to home school him, you're crazy!" However, our school district has a system set up just for this. If they need to miss a month of school or less, the district will arrange for a tutor from your school to visit your home. They will bring all assignments from all 8 teachers, help with homework, then take the completed homework back to the school. If it is longer than a month, a district tutor would be set up.

There are students needing this for a variety of reasons, they can be in car accidents, being treated for cancer, recovering from surgery, etc.

So, Son #2 was home for a month! I work part time, so I needed to adjust my schedule. Then Wonderful Neighbor helped out too. I had to be there during all tutoring sessions and also help with homework. It was a slow process, but he finally started to turn the corner. Asthma Doc was right, he needed to rest and let his body heal. And it helped not being around a germ infested junior high.

So, it is a drastic step, but sometimes kids with severe asthma need it. I felt more at peace, not having to run to the school for breathing treatments (inhaler just doesn't cut it for Son #2.) And I didn't feel like I was on edge all the time, checking his breathing.

Something to think about-it really seemed to work after we had tried everything else. And I had some great bonding time with my son, it doesn't get much better than that!