Yes, you heard it – chocolate is good for your teeth. This is great news for us chocoholics (I’m a choco-champion from way back) …but before you go out and buy yourself the biggest family size block of chocolate you can find (for dental reasons of course), you might want to read a little more and discover what part of the chocolate is the good bit for your teeth.
Alright, so where did all of this craziness come from? Arman Sadeghpour, a ‘doctoral candidate’ from Tulane University has apparently discovered that an extract from cocoa powder that is used in chocolate and teas (and a few other products) may be even better at fighting cavities than fluoride.
This is an extract published on the Universities website in May of this year:
The extract, a white crystalline powder whose chemical makeup is similar to caffeine, helps harden teeth enamel, making users less susceptible to tooth decay. The cocoa extract could offer the first major innovation to commercial toothpaste since manufacturers began adding fluoride to toothpaste in 1914.
The extract has been proven effective in the animal model, but it will probably be another two to four years before the product is approved for human use and available for sale, Sadeghpour says. But he has already created a prototype of peppermint flavored toothpaste with the cavity-fighting cocoa extract added, and his doctoral thesis research compared the extract side by side to fluoride on the enamel surface of human teeth.
Source: http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=7364
So it’s an extract from the cocoa bean not the actual chocolate product. And I guess the sugar and fat in the chocolate are going to give me cavities before this magic extract is going to fight the bacteria anyway. Damn, so I can’t brush my teeth with chocolate after all.
It’s great news though. If you’ve been reading my blog then you’ll know I have a small toothpaste obsession at the moment. I also don’t like fluoride in my toothpaste so a natural alternative to fluoride that works better than fluoride is the answer I’ve been looking for. I’m excited about this discovery and I hope in a few years time we can buy this product in our local stores.
Frances Kerr
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
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