I use Splenda daily to sweeten my morning chai tea, and I’ve been wondering if I’m reducing the likelihood of cavities by avoiding sugar or not. My tendency is to think that, since it has no calories, cavity-causing bacteria can’t live off it like they can with sugar. But maybe I’m wrong. I found websites talking about another sugar substitute, Xylitol, that has been proven to reduce the occurance of cavities, but nothing on Splenda or other sugar substitutes. So am I just sticking to my diet, or helping my teeth, too?
Here’s some scientific studies I found with PubMed:
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[li]J Dent Res. 1990 Aug;69(8):1480-4 reported that sucralose was unable to support the growth of ten strains of bacteria commonly found in plaque. The bacteria could not take up sucralose, nor could they metabolize it.[/li][li]J Clin Dent. 2002;13(3):116-8 reported that a number of studies into the cavity-causing potential of sucralose have been conducted and that ‘the sum of these studies’ concludes that sucralose cannot cause cavities.[/li][li]Caries Res. 1996;30(6):439-44 reported that people consuming tea sweetened with sucralose and maltodextrin (i.e. Splenda in packet form) experienced significantly less change in the pH near plaque on their teeth than people consuming tea sweetened with sugar. This means that sucralose is less able to promote the secretion of acid by bacteria in plaque than sugar.[/li][/ul]
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you will never get cavities if you use only Splenda – it just means that Splenda won’t be responsible for any cavities you do get. Therefore, these reports from scientific journals are more reliable than any evidence to the contrary you might find on a website, because people may correlate getting cavities with using Splenda even though Splenda was not at fault. You can’t eliminate every possible cavity-causing food from your diet, but using a non-cavity-causing sweetener would probably make some difference. Overall, the evidence shows that cavity-causing bacteria, like humans, are unable to absorb and metabolize sucralose and therefore that sucralose cannot cause cavities.