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Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Health, Food And Drink
Joe Harker
If you're the type to take sugar in your coffee and slowly sip it over the course of the day then you may wish to amend your drinking habits, or at least take up flossing.
For many people, the morning coffee is a crucial part of the daily routine as they're pretty much non-functional early on without it, or have the mood of a hungry bear with a particularly sharp headache.
Coffee is the solution for lots of folks here, but you could be doing that fine set of teeth you possess some serious damage with your drinking habits.
You only get two sets of teeth in life and the first lot all fall out when you're very young, so the second set has to last you for decades.
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It's imperative you protect your gnashers from danger, and, according to a former dental assistant, that can mean coffee as well.
The tooth-teller named Lesley took to TikTok to explain that trying to space out your caffeine intake by sipping was a potential risk if you took sugar in your coffee, and drinking it through a straw wouldn't save you either.
She explained: "Most people would think that because they’re drinking out of a straw, and they’re constantly sipping on it, it’s better.
"If you’re sipping on it all day long, that’s how you get cavities because you have sugar in your mouth all day long."
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There is some backing to what she's saying, as assistant professor of dental medicine at Columbia University's College of Dental Medicine, Dante Devoti, said that drinking a cup of coffee 'in a single sitting is better for your teeth than sipping one cup throughout the entire day'.
As for the science-y bit, sipping from one cup doesn't allow your salvia to raise your oral PH levels to neutralise the acid, which puts your teeth at risk of erosion - and if you like sugar in it, then your drinks become 'even greater offenders to your teeth, especially if sipping', Devoti says.
This whole chunk of advice works along the same lines as the Easter advice to eat all of your seasonal chocolate in one sitting if you want to give your teeth the smoothest ride.
It might not be the best advice as far as diet is concerned, though Easter was never the healthiest holiday to start with, but according to dentists, you should try and scoff the lot as quickly as possible.
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Doing that instead of pacing your chocolate egg consumption over a longer period reduces the amount of time your teeth are exposed to sugar, making the principle similar to the idea of sipping sugary coffee all day which will keep your teeth under constant barrage.
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To help maintain your teeth's health, it's best to stick your regular toothbrushing routine, and also drink water afterwards to wash away any remaining food particles and increase saliva to neutralise the acid.
Still, if you don't want all your teeth to fall out it might be worth slamming that big mug of caffeine all in one go.