Study: Call for Cutting Sugar To Reduce Tooth Decay

For more than 20 years, the World Health Organization has suggested that an individual’s sugar consumption should be no more than 10% of their total caloric intake.

According to a recent news release, a new study conducted by Newcastle University and published in the Journal of Dental Research dives into the alarming contribution that sugar and “free sugars” have toward the presence of tooth decay.

The term “free sugars” can be defined as any sweetener that’s added to food by a person or a manufacturer, and also encompasses any sugar that’s present in other items used to sweeten food and beverages, such as fruit juice, honey, and syrups.

Although the effect sugar has on teeth has been known for quite some time, this study suggests that a diet made up of less than 10% sugar can dramatically decrease the chances of tooth decay from occurring. To go even further, one of the lead researchers, Paula Moynihan, professor of nutrition and oral health at Newcastle, suggests cutting your sugar intake down to 5% of your daily caloric value to lower the chances of developing tooth decay throughout your lifetime.

To conduct their research, 55 studies dating back as far 1950 were gathered to examine the relationship between sugar intake and the presence of tooth decay. The study considered the overall quality of evidence using the GRADE process, which solidified the consistency of results across available studies, the size of effect, evidence of a dose response, and the strength of association.