Iron Chef - Tooth Decay
The acid in soda attacks your teeth for 20 minutes after the first sip. The sugars in the soda interact with the bacteria in your mouth to to cause the acid. Every soda, sugar-free or regular contains there own acids. But it's not just soda, smoothies with high levels of sugar can promote decay too. To test this we made two experiments to find out how much these drinks really effect your teeth. We were given two ingredients, Coca Cola and a Bolthouse Green Smoothie. We wanted to experiment with human teeth and see how both drinks affected human teeth. Our claim for this experiment was that the natural sugar wouldn't cause as much damage as the drink with artificial sugar. We then wanted to conduct another experiment to further explore the bacterial growth in someone's mouth after they drink these two beverages.
The acid in soda attacks your teeth for 20 minutes after the first sip. The sugars in the soda interact with the bacteria in your mouth to to cause the acid. Every soda, sugar-free or regular contains there own acids. But it's not just soda, smoothies with high levels of sugar can promote decay too. To test this we made two experiments to find out how much these drinks really effect your teeth. We were given two ingredients, Coca Cola and a Bolthouse Green Smoothie. We wanted to experiment with human teeth and see how both drinks affected human teeth. Our claim for this experiment was that the natural sugar wouldn't cause as much damage as the drink with artificial sugar. We then wanted to conduct another experiment to further explore the bacterial growth in someone's mouth after they drink these two beverages.
Our hypothesis for the first experiment was, if human teeth are placed in a cup of coca cola, green juice, water, coffee and lemon juice for 14 days, then the tooth that was in the cup of coca cola will have the largest increase in weight because the coca cola contains the most corn syrup, which can cause a lot of plaque and buildup on teeth if not brushed frequently. Our second hypothesis for the second experiment was, if a person drinks 20 ml of the Bolthouse green smoothie then they will have more natural bacterial growth in their mouth compared the same person when they drink 20 ml of the Coca Cola because the soda has artificial sugars and the Bolthouse drink contains natural sugar.
Here are the materials for our first experiment:
- 15 Teeth
- 15 Plastic cups
- 6 tablespoons of Coca Cola soda
- 6 tablespoons of liquid coffee
- 6 tablespoons of listerine
- 6 tablespoons of water
- 6 tablespoons of green smoothie
- 1 Scale
- Gloves
- Measuring cups
Here are the materials for our second experiment:
- 80 ml of Listerine
- 12 Q-tips
- 80 ml of Coca Cola
- 80 ml of Bolthouse drink
- 4 Test subject (Two girls Two boys)
- 1 Microscope
- 12 Agar plate
- 12 Cups
- 1 Timer/Stopwatch
The procedures for our first experiment is:
- Fill 3 small plastic cups with 2 tablespoons of Coca Cola
- Repeat the first step, but instead of filling the cup with the soda, use the water, Listerine, Bolthouse drink, and coffee
- Dry each tooth gently with a paper towel and then weigh each tooth before they are placed into the liquid, record the number in the chart created below on the doc and take pictures of the teeth
- Place one tooth in each of the 15 cups
- Wait 24 hours and then weigh each tooth to see how the beverage affected it
- Record the new weight of the tooth and put it back into the same cup it came from
- Weigh each tooth every day for 2 weeks and record all
- weights in the table below.
The procedures for the second experiment is:
- Have each test subject clean their mouth with 10ml Listerine for 60 seconds because it takes listerine about 45 seconds to kill bacteria.
- Have them rinse their mouth with water for 30 seconds to clear out the Listerine.
- Have the test subjects put 20 ml of Bolthouse in their mouth for 30 seconds, making sure to coat their tongue, cheek, and teeth, and then have them swallow it.
- After 30min, swab the test subject’s teeth with a Q-tip.
- Then swab the q tip onto the agar plate.
- See how much bacteria has grown after 20 min. Then check after 2 weeks.
- Look at each of the swabs under the microscope to check how much bacteria grew in the agar plate.
- Repeat steps 1-5 for 5 more test subjects to get more accurate results.
Weight in Grams Throughout 14 Days:
Tooth #
|
Day 1
Oct. 17
|
Day 2
Oct. 18
|
Day 3
Oct. 19
|
Day 4
Oct. 20
|
Day 5
Oct. 21
|
Day 8
Oct.
24
|
Day 9
Oct.
25
|
Day 10
Oct. 26
|
Day 11
Oct.
27
|
Day 12
Oct. 28
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
N/A
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
3
|
N/A
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
1
|
5
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
1
|
6
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
N/A
|
2
|
2
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
N/A
|
3
|
2
|
8
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
N/A
|
1
|
2
|
9
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
2
|
10
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
3
|
11
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
N/A
|
2
|
1
|
12
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
3
|
13
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
2
|
2
|
14
|
2
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
3
|
N/A
|
2
|
2
|
15
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
N/A
|
1
|
2
|
Coca Cola Coffee Green Juice Water Listerine
Here are the teeth before the experiment begun:
Here we are preparing for and commencing the experiment:
Here are the teeth after 24 hours of being in each drink (from left to right) Coca Cola, Coffee, Green Smoothie, Water, and Listerene
Here are the teeth in the middle of the 2 weeks (Day 8)
Here are the teeth on the last day of the experiment (Day 12)
To wrap up the experiment,
Our claim was that the teeth in a drink with natural sugar wouldn't be as damaged as the ones in artificial sugar. Based on the pictures it is obvious that the ones in the smoothie and water have stayed in the same condition throughout the entire experiment and the ones in coca cola have a lot of damage. Based on the pictures, the teeth in coca cola have a lot more build up and plaque along with staining. The teeth in coffee didn't have a lot of plaque, just some staining. The teeth in the smoothie had almost no change because the smoothie has all natural sugars. The teeth in water had almost no change as well because the only thing in water is hydrogen and oxygen, there is no sugars. The Listerine stained the teeth a neon blue because there is a lot of food coloring in it and in the end there was a little but of plaque but not a horrible amount.
Our original hypothesis was, If human teeth are placed in a cup of coca cola, green juice, water, coffee and Listerine, then the tooth that was in the cup of coca cola will have the largest increase in weight because the coca cola contains the most corn syrup. Our data does support this based on the pictures. There were definitely some errors in our experiment, the beaker was turned off in the middle of our experiment. The weight was interestingly inconsistent with our other data so my group thinks that maybe some of them weren't fully dried before weighing or maybe there was something wrong with the scale. In conclusion, the drinks with artificial sugars or sweeteners caused the most damage to the teeth than the ones with natural sugar.
