Tangy citric acid sweets like Haribo's as the cause of the child tooth decay epidemic

[GH64]

I have an idea about what may be causing the ongoing tooth decay epidemic in children: it is the tangy but erosive citric acid contained in Haribo sweets (and similar tangy sweets).

Citric acid is particularly erosive to tooth enamel: one study found citric acid far more erosive to teeth than the phosphoric acid found in soft drinks like Coca Cola.

The Haribo brand of children's sweets that now dominate the UK market are loaded with citric acid, as well as malic acid, in order to create their tangy flavour. If you look the ingredients in Haribo's sweets (click on the word "Ingredients"), pretty much all their sweets contain citric acid.

In the last decade or so, Haribo sweets have rapidly come to dominate the UK market, and this rise of popularity has coincided with the child tooth decay epidemic, which began about a decade ago.

I have found that if I suck a lot of tangy citric acid-containing sweets every day like Haribo, after some days I start to feel sensitivity appearing in my teeth, suggesting that the enamel has been thinned by this acid.

Once I stop eating these sweets, the sensitivity eventually disappears after a few weeks, as the enamel is slowly rebuilt from the minerals calcium and phosphate in the saliva (this is how teeth are normally rebuilt), this rebuilding being helped along by the fluoride in toothpaste.

Here is a BBC article on the current child tooth decay epidemic.

Enamel does not rebuild. Most decay I’ve found is due to parents leaving their kids to brush their own teeth and not supervising properly. Children do not have the manual dexterity to brush their teeth properly

Is it really just the last 10 years ? I suspect that difficulty finding a dentist and waiting times to see an NHS dentist if your child is lucky to have one will have contributed to any increase.

Also with dental treatment not being free, could people be skipping dental checks ?

@RobinHumphries exactly. We have been told it's necessary for us to brush our kids' teeth until at least 12 y/o. I know one dentist who still brushes his 15 y/o son's teeth at night.

We also have a blanket ban on juice, raisins and sweets. They are just not allowed under any circumstances.

It's sweet stuff in general, not haribo in particular.

There was far worse stuff back in the day! It’s all down to proper teeth brushing.

The absolute nightmare of finding a dentist, ANY dentist, never mind an NHS one...

No 'school nurses' in any meaningful way anymore...

Cost of living leading to children in wraparound care 8am-6pm giving precious little family time...

I lost a tooth from eating Haribo Tangtastics. I actually felt the sugar cut into my gum, then the gum started to throb and was extremely painful. It flared up on and off for a few weeks then it seemed to settle down apart from the gum feeling swollen. Dentist didn't seem to understand what had happened and suggested root canal. I didn't have it done as the cost was £3,500 with no guarantees it would work. I lost the tooth a couple of years later and you could see the holes where the sugar had broken through and caused the decay.

The average child in the U.K. eats 8 times a day . We are a nation of grazers and each time you have something to eat or drink it takes an hour for the acid to stop attacking the teeth.

84% of toddlers exceed the daily sugar recommendations and the majority of their sugars come from pure fruit juices, yogurts and fromage frais;

98.5% of 7 year olds exceed the daily sugar recommendations and here the main sources are pure fruit juices, cakes and pastries, and chocolate-based confectionery.

Adults in the U.K. also grossly exceed daily sugar targets.

Im afraid as a nation we have an appalling diet , we graze during the day , we do not eat a balanced and healthy diet

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220502/British-childrens-sugar-intake-exceeds-current-public-health-recommendations.aspx

You're not being unreasonable, especially the tangy ones with the sourish sugar on. I feel my teeth tingling when I eat that shit.
It's apparently normal for schools to send the kids out with a bag of them every other day now too🙄

And don't even get me started on fruit pastels

After eating Haribo, or any sweets, use a mouthwash recommended by dentists which a mouthwash with the smile icon on the packaging.

This is the advice my dentist gave to me for treating hypoglycaemia.

I spent nearly 30 years anaesthetising for paediatric dental lists and I don't think I'd say that the high level of dental decay in children is a recent issue. It's always been a big problem though I agree it's probably a more visible one nowadays. Eating acidic, sugary, sticky sweets is obviously not good for teeth but not the only or main cause of the problem . Increasing child poverty, poor diet, lack of investment in preventative public health strategies, reduction in school health services/health visiting etc and the demise of NHS dentistry are higher on my list of reasons than the popularity of Tangfastics and it's not the Haribo corporation I blame for those issues.

This is good advice where you have no alternative when having a hypo and need glucose quickly but is no use for a child who is eating 8 times a day as the average U.K. child is.

Also the research shows that for toddlers most of their free sugars are coming from fruit juice, yogurt and fromage frais and for 7 year olds it is fruit juice, cakes, pastries and chocolate based confectionary .

Tempting though it is to blame sweets or a particular sweet the problem actually is in the vast majority of U.K. children’s diets and adults diets. We all eat many times the recommended amount of sugar every day , a lot of which is hidden sugars in seemingly “healthy” choices like yoghurt.

Ever? Not at parties or anything? I find that sad.. those kids may well rebel and eat sugar until the cows come home if they are completely banned^^ in their childhood. Like you say, under no circumstances is that ban ever lifted.

It also can open the flood gates to eating disorders etc. moderation is key here, not to rebuke it all.

I’ve worked in NHS for years this is not a new thing. It’s been happening for years and years. More noted so now because waiting lists are so long .

Its not as simple as it’s harribo!

Juice in a bottle
Even fizzy drinks in bottles
Milk in bottles being left to sit in the mouth at bed time(sugars in milk)
Poor diets and snacking on sugary foods regularly.
Poor dental hygiene and not helped by parents.
No contact with dentists: previously just not taken but also now lack of dentists.
Poor parental education regards to oral hygiene and nutrition (yes in 2025)
Medications and health conditions (rarer)
Reductions in health promotion and support strategies funding.

@Lollygaggle
The average child in the U.K. eats 8 times a day . We are a nation of grazers and each time you have something to eat or drink it takes an hour for the acid to stop attacking the teeth.

I didn't know that 😯

Not the schools I know.

Kids aren't allowed sweets or crisps for snacks. This includes after school care.

Edited to add: where free school meals are provided for all or certain age groups of kids it is really pushed.

Eat sweets after meals, and be greedy so eat them all at once rather than grazing.

No mouthwash needed.

Wow! You have saved a nation!!!!!

seriously. Enamel doesn’t rebuild and why the hell are you ‘sucking a lot of tangy citric acid-containing sweets ever day’!

I think the 'five a day' fruit & veg thing has been a disaster for children's teeth. Seems it is almost always fruit and not veg and often juice rather than the actual fruit.

Unprocessed fruit is not a problem, it’s only when it is dried eg raisins, pulped eg smoothies or juiced is the sugar liberated to become free sugar and cause decay.

Even then the advice is fruit juice should only be one of your five a day. The problem is juice is often given more often , or sipped over a long period or not given with a meal. Ts not how much sweet stuff you have , it’s how often inbetween meals you have it which is the problem.

Tooth enamel (more properly known as hydroxyapatite) gets rebuilt all the time by minerals present in the saliva. It is an ongoing process called remineralisation.

When you use fluoride toothpaste, though, this does not build up normal hydroxyapatite on teeth, but rather builds up the teeth with fluorapatite.

Fluorapatite is is stronger and more resistant to acid attack than the natural hydroxyapatite, which is why brushing with fluoride toothpaste can help prevent tooth decay.

Teeth are remineralised under alkaline conditions, but they are demineralised (dissolved away) under acid conditions.

This is why sugar is bad for teeth, because bacteria in the mouth consume the sugar, and then excrete acid, which dissolves away teeth.

There is a concept known as critical pH, and when the mouth become too acid and goes below this critical pH, the tooth enamel starts to demineralise.

But when the pH is above the critical pH (when the mouth is more alkaline), then the then the tooth enamel starts to remineralise, meaning the enamel surface of the tooth rebuilds and thickens itself from the minerals found in the saliva, and from fluoride, if fluoride toothpaste is used.

So sugar which feeds bacteria, as well as acids from foods and drinks we consume, are the main factors behind acid erosion of teeth, which leads to tooth decay.

I was telling my daughter about sherbet recently. We used to eat bags of it.

The crisis has everything to to with the dearth of accessible dental care not our modern diets. Mine was much much worse as a child of the 80s and I know I’m not an anomaly

We already know what's causing the tooth decay 'epidemic'? It's not a mystery. A combination of frequent sugar attacks and poor brushing.

I don't think anyone has ever argued haribo are good for your teeth, but I don't think we can blame tangy haribos alone