Mountain Dew Addiction Helps Rot Central Appalachins' Teeth
Central Appalachia is the number one spot in America for tooth decay to due to their poor diet, lack of access to dental care, and widespread addiction to Mountain Dew. They say it's used as a kind of anti-depressant, thanks to its high-caffeine and sugar levels. Good Morning America visited and found they even put it in baby bottles. Some 2-year olds have 12 cavities in their baby teeth. They discovered an 11-year old Dew-drinker boy who hadn't brushed his teeth in several weeks because they hurt too much. Crazy to think that's what acid, sugar and caffeine will do to your teeth when combined with a bad diet and little in the way of dentist visits.
[via Good Morning America]
RELATED: A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains [GMA]
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Wow... I mean.. I do the dew, but this is taking it to an extreme. Don't they get tired of it after a while?
But the brominated vegetable oil acts as an important dietary supplement to moonshine.
What about Diet Coke? I have an assistant who drinks at least 12 a day just in the office. Probably another 4 or 6 at home. But her teeth seem fine.
Umm wow. I'm an avid soda drinker (Diet Pepsi Max is my drug of choice) but I have great teeth at 26. I had cavities in my teens and swore to take care of them after that. Brushing twice a day and dental visits mean I have healthy teeth.
If you put Dew in your kid's baby bottle, you should have the kids taken away from you. As a child you need more milk and calcium since you are growing.
The Mountain Dew spokesperson may be the only person in America today that wishes he or she didn't have a job.
It doesn't have electrolytes like brawndo does. Brawndo, it's what plants crave!
@johnfrombrooklyn: Oh god, please don't take Diet Coke away from me. It's the last soda I have left! >_<
@battra92: What they really need is education. Ignorance isn't much of an excuse when it is detrimental to the health of children, but some people in particularly poor or relatively isolated locales just don't know any better.
Putting soda in a baby bottle???? Two year olds with cavities? Isn't it the parents responsibility to brush a two year olds teeth, along with making sure their older children do the same? Assuming they don't have dental insurance, buying toothpaste is cheaper than going to the dentist.
All IMHO.
This sounds more like stupid consumer than anything MT Dew or Pepsi is doing.
@johnfrombrooklyn: Diet Coke has no sugar so at least she has that working for her. Plus a big part of it is a poor diet. Central Appalachia is a very poor section of our country. As such many of the families there don't eat a very healthy diet. Some of it is a lack of funds some is a lack of education. It's a real shame.
@johnfrombrooklyn: Diet soda doesn't have sugar in it - no cavities.
To preempt the complainers: yes, diet soda still has the acids in it, but the sugar is the major factor in creating cavities.
Central Appalachia includes all of West Virginia. Mystery solved...
I used to drink two liters of Mt. Dew a day, and rarely brushed my teeth, and except for maybe 4 or five cavities over my lifetime, it never adversely affected me. Do these children have access to floridated water? Could that be part of it?
That being said, after having my front teeth knocked out my my ex in a bizarre pool toy accident, I have since gotten over my fear of dentists and also my aversion to brushing/flossing my teeth, and just yesterday had a great check up. My dentist even commented I'm a good patient b/c I "don't bleed that much".
@EricLecarde: Regular coffee drinkers don't seem to get tired of coffee. I doubt this is much different.
Don't blame mountain dew, blame the irresponsible parents.
Little fact: Mountain Dew at first never had a specific recipe. Bottlers in different regions had different formulas for "Mountain Dew". I forget the exact year, but Pepsi then put forth a common recipe.
@valthun:
Soda companies can't make people buy and drink their soda strictly by advertising. If they could they would charge ridiculous prices for sugar and caffeine.
Ohh wait, there's Red Bull. Please disregard above statement.
@3.5 B: disk_GitEmSteveDave: wow.. dude.. no offense intended, but you just admitted two things that I would not want to be talking about on the internet.
Fluoridated water isn't quite the trick, they need to stop the acid from seeping below the gum line and rotting teeth.
@battra92:
A lot of it has to do with Genes. Obviously, abusing your teeth like these people will wreck anyone's teeth, but there are people with teeth very likely to get cavities and people with teeth that are unlikely to get cavities. Genetics at work.
Chat with your dentist about it. Me, I must be on the craptastic side of things, because my teeth started getting cavities the the point of getting fillings most dentist visits before I had the terrible diet I have now.
Wow... just... wouldn't you have the sh*!t$ the entire time? For real? That's so much sugar and acid.
@johnfrombrooklyn: Well, Diet Coke has artificial sweetener, aspartame, so it won't decay teeth. But there are health concerns about high levels of aspartame consumption, and then, of course, there's all the caffeine.
My ex-boyfriend was addicted to Diet Coke -- several liters a day -- and he would go through periods where he'd try to quit or cut back every so often. He once told me during one of these periods that he was worried because he couldn't hear his heart beating any more.
@ChinaDeathBus_GitEmSteveDave: "My dentist even commented I'm a good patient b/c I "don't bleed that much"."
IIRC from my collected dental health knowledge, I thought that if your gums didn't bleed (much) it means they're healthy and gingivitis-free, having been toughened up by proper and regular brushing.
@JayCor:
It may be just me, but I thought that was one of the worst/stupidest movies I have ever seen... and that is coming from somone who saw Napoleon Dynamite at least 12 times in the theater.
@EricLecarde: FIRST RULE OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN! DON'T EVER GET TIRED OF MOUNTAIN DEW, OR OTHER PRODUCTS WITH 'MOUNTAIN' IN THE TITLE.
The look of that first guy in the pickup truck will haunt me forever.
Also: Why are there words on the screen? Are the accents that strong they felt they needed to translate Appalachian to English?
Cue up Duelin' Banjos please!
@valthun: I agree whole heatedly. That's like blaming McDonalds for making you obese when you choose to eat there three times a day. They may be the debbil for other reasons, but making oneself fat is ones own wrong doing.
At least 4 out of 5 dentists agree that "not brushing your teeth for several weeks will help rot your teeth".
Blame the Dew, that's what I'd do.
"Mountain Dew's name is a previously-existing euphemism for moonshine, which likely traces back to Ireland (see the Irish folk song "The Rare Auld Mountain Dew"), and has generally been marketed to highlight its potency. It was originally marketed as "zero proof moonshine" and had pictures of hillbillies on the bottle until 1973."
Is anyone surprised, really?
@Beerad: Yeah, that's what he explained to me after the quizzical look on my face. Hard to talk when he's buffing you with that paste stuff. I just thought it was a funny expression/compliment.
@AngrySicilian: I admit it wasn't the smartest thing to "believe" in, but it was what I DID. I have been seeing the dentist regularly for over 5 years now, and except for getting my wisdom teeth pulled b/c they were "crowding" my other teeth, I haven't had nary a cavity. My poor oral hygiene(of the past) had nothing to do with getting the teeth knocked out, as I had/have very strong teeth.
@3.5 B: disk_GitEmSteveDave: It's not that they needed APPALACHIAN translation, they needed I SPEAK WITH MY GUMS BECAUSE I HAVE NO TEETH translation.
@johnfrombrooklyn: She probably brushes her teeth. Poor kids. I feel bad for them. Kids won't brush their teeth without someone telling them to.
@CubeRat88: Oh no. It's not just you. The movie was horrible. But it did have some funny partys. Brawndo was one of them.
the kid stopped brushing AFTER rotting his teeth with MD
Maybe they should create a Mt Dew with vitamins. Mt Dew Plus!
I work with a guy who brings in a 2 liter of Mountain Dew every day, and has done so for the last 10 years I've worked for the company. He's 32 years old, and two years ago had to have his teeth replaced with dentures. Coincidence? I don't think so. I smell a lawsuit.
I would say that they should put some kind of a warning on the label, like cigarettes, but that would be an affront to our cherished tradition of lassez-faire capitalism.
apparently Pepsi is rebranding it to Mtn Dew...
not quite sure why
(well, i do have some ideas: trying to remove the "mountain people" from their brand image? and/or possibly trying to update it with txt5peak?)
@shepd: Yep, genes play a pretty big factor. I have two little cousins who, despite proper dental care, a healthy diet (not too much sugar), and visits to the dentist have several cavities each. I think they get it from their mother.
I got my first cavity this past year after going through a few months where I got lazy about brushing twice a day. I'm now back to my good habits though and hope not to get any more.
@thezone: And yet these states are as red as red can be. Why did West Virginia vote for McCain? Can the level of outright ignorance be that ingrained in the culture of that region?
As a person who lives in Kentucky (albeit a metropolitan area), I'd like to take this moment to express my dismay at some of these comments... no wait..
DUM KENTUCKY, HUR HUR HUR HUR, REDNECKS, MOUNTAIN TRASH HAR HAR HAR.
There, now that I can fit in... I'd like to bring up my personal experiences in the Applachian regions. They are poor, DIRT poor. Seriously, 3rd world country poor, think Honduras, only with snow. Tar-paper shack poor. The areas in question don't get much funding by the state and are constantly being dumped on by coal companies, contaminating their rivers and killing off their wildlife, meanwhile they have little to no access to decent public schooling or healthcare, much less dental, and have little to no prospects in life....
But sure, let's pick on them for being backwoods toothless hillbillies rather than try to help. THEY DUN'T NO NO BETTURZ.
/rant off.
@undefined:
I asked a dentist about this a few days ago. He said it's not as bad, but still bad. It reduces the pH in your mouth from the carbonation and something else I can't remember, think Diet Coke is acidic.
He also told me it's better to chug than sip.
I'm really thankful that there's no picture to accompany this post.