Fizzy drinks have long been the scourge of the dentists and doctors – and a new report has highlighted just why.
Research from the Children’s Food Campaign has put the sheer scale of the problems caused by sugary drinks into context – and the results may surprise those outside the healthcare profession.
The campaign group believes that if a 20p per litre duty was added to the cost of sugary drinks, the NHS would save millions of pounds by stopping several bad health issues at their root.
Putting up the price of such drinks would save a staggering £38m over 20 years, argues the report, which was published in partnership with FoodActive and University of Liverpool academic Brendan Collins.
Included in this figure are the savings it believes would be made by cutting the number of diabetes cases by 6,300, stopping 1,100 cases of cancer and reducing strokes and coronary heart disease by over 4,300 cases.
But also factored into the equation is tooth decay caused by sugary drinks, particularly among children age 3-12. It warns that soft drinks are the biggest single source of sugar for most young people.
At Ewan Bramley Dental Care, we have seen at close hand the damage done by soft drinks and would support anything that helps curb their consumption.
Whether or not a tax would be enough of a deterrent to stop people buying them remains to be seen. But certainly we need some form of action to highlight the dangers of drinking pop and other sugary drinks – especially among young people.
As a respected and trusted dental clinic we do everything we can to play our part in getting the message out that sugary drinks lead to tooth decay.
But we also help people who have unfortunately already damaged their teeth, by offering a range of fast, painless and affordable treatments to get smiles sparkling once more.
Click here to find out more about our treatments.
