Want to make coffee less acidic? Add cream to it
The table below is from a 2008 article by Ehlen and colleagues ( ), showing the amount of erosion caused by various types of beverages, when teeth were exposed to them for 25 h in vitro . Erosion depth is measured in microns. The third row shows the chance probabilities (i.e., P values) associated with the differences in erosion of enamel and root. As you can see, even diet drinks may cause tooth erosion. That is not to say that if you drink a diet soda occasionally you will destroy your teeth, but regular drinking may be a problem. I discussed this study in a previous post ( ). After that post was published here some folks asked me about coffee, so I decided to do some research. Unfortunately coffee by itself can also cause some erosion, primarily because of its acidity. Generally speaking, you want a liquid substance that you are interested in drinking to have a pH as close to 7 as possible, as this pH is neutral ( ). Tap and mineral water have a pH that is very close to 7. Black cof...