For over 20 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that an individual's sugar consumption should be no more than 10 percent of their total caloric intake.

According to recent news release a new study conducted by Newcastle University and published in the Journal of Dental Research dives into the alarming contribution that sugar and "free sugars" have towards the presence of tooth decay.

The term "free sugars" can be defined as any sweetener that is added to food by a person or a manufacturer and also encompasses any sugar that is present in other items used to sweeten food and beverages, such as fruit juice, honey and syrups.

Although the effect sugar has on teeth has been known for quite some time, this study suggests that a diet made up of less than 10 percent sugar can dramatically decrease the chances of tooth decay from occurring. To go even further one of the lead researchers, Professor Paula Moynihan, Professor of Nutrition and Oral Health at Newcastle University, suggests even cutting your sugar intake down to 5 percent of your daily caloric value to lower chances of developing tooth decay throughout your lifetime.

To conduct their research, 55 studies dating back as far 1950 were gathered to examine the relationship between sugar intake and the presence of tooth decay. As the release states, the study considered the overall quality of evidence using the GRADE process which solidified the consistency of results across available studies, the size of effect, evidence of a dose response and the strength of association.


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