So Lets Say...?!

So Lets Say...?

you ate 30g of sugar on day one, and went to be without brushing your teeth. On day two, you ate 60g of sugar, but flossed and brushed effectively...Which day would be better for your teeth???

It would depend on how you consumed the sugar. Are you consuming it all at once or in small increments throughout the day? Also, in what form is the sugar? It is not so much the amount of sugar that you consume, but rather the frequency with which it touches your teeth. For instance, if you were to drink a case of Mountain Dew over the course of 1/2 hour, you would do much less damage than if you drank one 20 oz bottle by sipping on it throughout the day. The bacteria that live in your mouth metabolize the sugar and then produce an acid which eats away at tooth structure. After about 30-40 minutes of consuming sugar, your saliva has buffered most of this acid. However, if you are constantly bathing your teeth in sugar, then your saliva "can't keep up" and your mouth stays acidic. If you consumed the 30 and 60 grams of sugar all at once on both days, then day one would be worse since no oral hygiene was performed. However, if the sugar was not consumed in this manner, you must take the above mentioned info into consideration to get the right answer.