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health advisory Hospital Dentists Yu 2007-11-11 18:18:39

Answer:

Your mouth is naturally full of bacteria. Sugar serves as food for the bacteria whose byproduct is acid. The acid eats away at your teeth.

sugar + bacteria = acid = decay

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Cause of calories or cavities, as in tooth decay?

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The acidity of sugar will eat the enamel right off of teeth.

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its one of the longest molecule chains

but it breaks down the saliva that washes away bacteria from surface

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You used the correct term, carries, which means decay. A lot of people are not familiar with the term. Sugars are higly acidic and break down enamel, which allows them to get directly on the soft part of the tooth. They do the most damage when they just sit there, which is why drinking sugary drinks is so damaging, b/c they never get "washed away". So, if you have a sugary food or drink, you need to get that sugar off your teeth. Brush, or drink water, or chew sugar-free gum, which increases saliva to wash it off your teeth.

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It takes the bacteria found in your mouth to mix with the sugar in foods eaten or that you drink to metabolize and make the lactic acid that forms the plaque, then the plaque (which is a lactic acid) literally etches the enamel away or dissolves it until it reaches the dentin where it spreads much faster and this bacteria can reach the pulp by way of the dentin tubules causing the nerve to die in the tooth. Hope that I've been of some help with this.

It's the sugar that works with the bacteria already in the mouth that forms the plaque. I don't know what chemical compound found in sugar facilitates it with the bacteria, but sugar causes the bacteria to form plaque at a faster rate, which causes it to be known for causing caries.

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