@TheGuinnessTooth: You might want to do a little research on "tooth remineralization". Apparently, teeth are living material, like bone, and are constantly trying to repair themselves, like bone. The pH of your saliva has a lot to do with it. Also, the glycerin (in 90%) of toothpaste coats the teeth. While it can help protect against some decay, it can also seal things in a bit and it prevents saliva from delivering the minerals the teeth need to repair themselves. I'm probably leaving things out, but Dr. Weston A. Price did some really interesting studies about teeth. It's worth a look, anyway.

bring back the SUGAR. i'll gladly pay a bit more to have the real stuff.

So, in conclusion- Pro-business? That never even crossed my mind.

This makes me proud to be an American! #1! #1!

@quizmasterchris: Minor point of order: Bush signed the Wall Street bailout.

This story does a good job of reinforcing that the toothbrush was invented here.....anywhere else and it would be called a teethbrush.

@Geroge Lamothe: SECONDED!! Diet Pepsi is the BEST.

Another thing. While you still have insurance, restore your mouth. Get rid of the decay. A little cavity can quickly become a giant pain and thats results in 2 things you dont want to deal with when you loose your job, no dental insurance and consequently those little marks on the xrays now mean eather root canals or extractions(which I do mostly) when pain or sweling occur. And if your laid off and are low on funds your coming in for an extraction.

Get your teeth taken care of now!!!

@Red-headed bookworm: Hey, my mother's parents were from Harlan Country! *waves*

I was shocked when I was 16 and went with my grandmother back to the "old county" when one of her many sisters died. Her father was the police chief who had been killed in the line of duty in the 40's. I had thought that I was deprieved because I bought my handmade Italian leather dress shoes at the store outlet, and then I saw families that I was related to not have enough money to buy shoes...period. I never felt so ashamed as I did on that day when I met them and then I saw that I better shape up, fast. During that trip I saw just how much my grandparents worked to bring their kids, and to follow me and my cousins, away from that poverty. I am a concert musician and it is a very humbling thought whenever I think of my grandparents as I come off the stage after a concert, carrying an instrument that costs more than most brand new cars. I'm standing under stage lights playing Mozart and my grandmother grew up in extreme, crippling poverty. I wish they were both still alive to see me now.

Basically...it's hard as hell, but there are options to succeed...you just might not see any major turnaround until several generations down the line.

Also, there are two acids in Mountain Dew.

And finally, sorry to be pedantic, but 54 mg of caffeine is a high level for most children.

You shure have a purty mouth!

Now are ready to squeal like a pig?

My God... Appalachia *is* America, circa 2505

Amen. All the article really needed to say was "Central Appalachia", and the rest of it was a given.

@Paul Dmytrewycz: NOTHING beats an Ale-8, but only in the returnable bottles. And I have the best parents. I still get semi-annual Ale-8 deliveries in FL. However, it's interesting to note that Mt. Dew is my drink of choice now that I moved out-of-state...Managed to ditch the accent...Can't win 'em all, I guess.

@nighttrain2007: You're right, there are a lot of heavily obese people in Wisconsin. Cheese, bratwurst and beer are dietary staples there.

I've been in the south, and heard southerners tell plenty of "yankee" jokes. I think there's plenty of joking going on in all parts of the country.

We got fast-tracked NAFTA, "ending welfare as we know it," we still have the Taft-Hartley Act, we still have a minimum wage in the sewer, we're still the only industrialized country not to guarantee health care, we still have the largest prison population and the highest tuitions and an infant mortality rate of a banana republic... the list goes on and on.

We had a Dem president & two houses of Congress Dem majority the first couple of Clinton yrs & we got NAFTA. Now we have the same situation and we have a tremendous Wall St bailout. And two wars with no sign of ending.

Part of the problem here is that people want to believe that one of the two parties looks out for the little guy, when in fact we have two very pro-business parties.

Please bring to the table a couple of examples of the Dems having put forth an earnest effort on behalf of the poor. Heck, how 'bout the middle class...

@johnfrombrooklyn: It could be bad for her bone health in general. Phosphoric acid (in most soda) may cause bones to lose calcium, which could be a problem for women who are in their 30s and older, so probably not building bone density as quickly. Caffeine can also interfere w calcium absorption into bone, so it could be a double whammy for bone health.

I got this advice from my dr, who was concerned about my diet coke habit (which wasn't as strong as what you describe!) and have been trying to cut back... or at least drink more milk & do high impact exercises. That bendy-chicken-bone-in-coke thing we did in school has started to haunt me.

It's just my opinion but I know a lot of these folks who are democrats too and hold the same beliefs. The issues here transcend all the blue/red, republican/democrat stuff being tossed around here - the people aren't looking at any national platforms really. It is more about the culture that is ingrained into these communities about isolation and fear. It's the fundamentalist religion, narrowly defined roles of what is acceptable and at times, a real hatred of success. You know what I mean if you got out - I bet as many wonderful people who helped you get out, there were some people who wanted to drag you back in. The cycles of poverty that don't end, the high teen pregnancy rates and the large families. And sadly now, meth has created a living hell in some communities. I'm sure ole sheriffs wish moonshine runners and bad batches causing blindness was the worst of their problems these days.

It's sad, there is a community I know of that borders Appalachia and has had some gifted female athletes in two sports. The kids work hard and with help from coaches and others, get at least partial athletic scholarships to go to college. But about 75% of them don't make it to the end of college and come right back home. They just can't seem to exist outside of the insular communities they've been raised in.

Many of these people are salt of the earth. They'd share their last meal with you if you needed it and they can make a penny stretch further than anyone I know. The land is almost hypnotic, especially early in the mornings or when you are up high in the mountains driving down.

I feel your pain but this goes so much past politics and even simple poverty.

@leaves4chonies:

But wait, "Research confirms that high fructose corn syrup is safe and nutritionally the same as table sugar."

Gotta love those silly HFCS commercials.

[www.hfcsfacts.com]

@satoru: I think more of them are on cisterns than on wells, at least my family in Kentucky always had cisterns.

@squinko: I lived in Lexington. I miss Ale-8-One.

@Metricula: And THAT is one of the problems. Do people realize how much water costs when you aren't on city water, can't have a well and only have a cistern? You have to conserve the water because you have to pay for it and truck it in.

Sugar doesn't rot teeth. It feeds bacteria that release acidic waste, and the acids attack and dissolve the minerals that make our teeth.

All carbonated beverages are slightly acidic. The tangier, more sour, or more "zippy" they taste, likelier the higher the acidity is. The acidity is less concentrated and more easily flushed away by natural bodily mechanisms. The acidity in beverages such as soda, OJ, lemonade, etc. will do harm to teeth, but the danger is usually so fleeting as to be negligible. Similarly, high sugar foods are not a problem unless proper oral hygiene habits are not followed (brush, floss, rinse, etc., as soon as possible after consuming anything).

And here's an amazing tip: rinse with 50/50 a mixture of listerine and 3% hydrogen peroxide (the brown bottle stuff that fizzes when applied to minor abrasions) every 1-2 days and you'll be amazed at how rapidly and thoroughly dental plaque is eliminated.

@Ingram81: Yeah. And I know coal pollutes but I'm always torn on this issue. My great-grandfather risked his life to get better conditions for people working in the mines. People in charge tried to kill him because of it. I don't know what people in that region would do without mining. I don't know what a good compromise is.

I'm going to watch this, but I already know it's going to be one of the saddest moments of my year.

@elysse: I know. My granpa grew up in Harlan County. It's poor there, extremely poor. I think poverty has more to do with the problem than what they drink. Sure, diet plays into it but the diet is usually a symptom of poverty. Until you've been somewhere where they don't have indoor plumbing, still, and where people live in shacks, don't judge. My grandpa worked hard and joined the Marines in order to not have to work in a mine. My family lived in the same area for generations. It's a hard life there and they do the best they can with what they can get.

Sheesh... See if you get a job on GMA.

So relax folks. He wasn't necessarily saying that Obama is better than McCain, just that Obama would be more likely to set policies that benefit the poor.

My dentist warns me about this with ANY pop! I used to drinking it 5 days a week. Now I am down to 2-4 times a month or less. Ice Tea with Lemon became my new drink of choice at restaurants.

I saw this on GMA and they blamed Pepsi. I have to agree with Pepsi on this one. It is your job to take care of your self and what your eating. If you had a dentist, get a cleaning and exam every 6 months, and he should also have warned you about pop.

Water is free, but if it's been polluted by coal runoff for the last 30 years (due to lax regulations), then it's a lot easier to understand why people wouldn't want to drink it. Appalachians aren't stupid. They know what's in their water.

They don't seem to be surviving very well, that's basically what this entire article is about. The standard of living in some of these isolated communities is Third World standard and we as Americans owe it to our fellow Americans to give them the same quality of life that you or I have. I was especially pissed when the Senate cut rural broadband from the stimulus package...without the Internet these people are going to be left further and further behind.

I see you are a fiscal conservative and don't like throwing money at the problem, but one way or another you're going to end up subsidizing Appalachia. Either you give them good money to build schools, heal the land, and improve health care, or you give them bad money when they show up indigent at local ERs because they've got cancer from mining chemicals leaching into the water, or they constantly draw unemployment benefits because they don't have the education needed to get a job.

You nailed it with alternative energy funding, though. A lot of Appalachians vote for the person who won't touch the coal industry, but they don't realize that a) coal can be done cleaner and better by the same people who are producing it now; and b) coal is a nonrenewable resource that will run out soon. By placing Appalachians and their know-how at the vanguard of green mass energy, you're helping them wean off coal now, and become the producers of green energy in the future.

@ThickSkinned: But, it's what plants crave!

How about subsidizing college graduates who came from these towns to come back? One of the biggest problems is lack of professional jobs. Subsidizing housing and cost-of-living a network of educated folks who know the area and are willing to help organize the communities in terms of education and health care would do a LOT to help the whole population. (Not to mention that these subsidies would be great buys too because CoL is relatively inexpensive in Appalachia.)

The farmers will always know how to farm, but it's families that have traditionally relied on income from mining and heavy industry that really need help to break that cycle.

dudes - the media loves to assign a villain nameplate to an innocent consumer product (it supposedly sells more newspapers and/or creates more TV viewers). let's review: admitted poor region, admitted poor personal hygeine, admitted poor dietary intake, admitted poor health care, admitted poor dental care. their whole body has rotted from within because of their personal or parental choices AND not seeking health care. no one can blame mt dew for that.....

@ThickSkinned: I think I know a way to tell the difference between the Rich Hillbillies and the Poor ones... The rich ones drink Moutain Dew, the poor ones drink Mountain Thunder (Sams Choice)!!

And all those things you said...yeah they're true.

He just says that he's going to join the Crips.

Word!

According to [www.overcaffeinated.org] it has 54mg per 12-0z. can, hardly a hig-level. I agree kids should be drinking something nutritious, but blaming their teeth problems on caffeinated beverages is reaching. And where is the acid? I think they are confusing it with phosphoric acid in many colas. Maybe wean them onto Diet-Mountain Dew (same caffeine), then juice (oh, wait, the sugar in fruit juices can cause obesity and rot teeth, too). Let's face it, Appalachia is one of the poorest areas of this country. One of the organizations I donate to reminded me there are just as many holes in rural cabin floors as there are in there teeth. It isn't Mt. Dew that's causing the problems. That said, there are many organizations that direct a large portion of the received donations directly to the folks who need it.

Yes it popular in the south and has lots of caffeine and sugar, but so do lots of other popular soft drink. Coke, Pepsi, Colt, Shasta, Mellow Yellow, etc.
Almost as bad.

We used to brew sweet tea because it seemed healthier than cola. But really it has just as much caffeine and sugar. But it was cheaper.

Five dollars.

Nobody ever filled one up on my watch.

And money isn't a good enough expensive. Last time I checked, water was free. And between water and mountain dew, water is cheaper and more healthy. Now, you still may be keeping your kids from getting all their vitamins. That's something that needs to be dealt with.

Ripper:

You know when fluoridation first began?

Mandrake:

No. No, I don't, Jack. No.

Ripper:

Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core commie works.

I'm surprised we aren't hearing stories about these kids getting rickets or something. Soda has a lot nastier effects than just your teeth. It's too bad it tastes so freaking good.

Anti-depressant, high in caffeine, high in sugar and
It'll tickle your innards!!!!!
It really doesn't get better then this.

Seriously wow.

Appalachia has great self-sustainable economies (farms, pastures, etc..) and walkable towns to live in, untapped since the 70's at least (last time I've heard of people actively moving back into these towns to live). If I knew it would be any good for my family, and we could make a living there.. well, I have had my eye on a farmhouse from the 1820's for about 5 years now that's just across the highway from the family property I'd gladly renovate. For now though, I won't even consider it until my kids are out of High School.. and they just started kindergarten.

@Ingram81: By "studies" do you mean read it in a magazine sold at the checkout counter? Or saw it on TV?
In that case, I have also read "studies" that the aluminum in the cans contributes to brain decay. Doesn't mean it's true.

Exactly.

It really drags down a discussion, IMHO, when the topic regresses to an endless series of "privilege checks" and overly PC posturing.

For example: my husband is disabled. He gets really angry when people tell him that they are offended by his use of the word "lame" to mean bad. Of course "lame" is not good; we would both be overjoyed if he could walk unassisted. But it's just a word, and we're both sick and tired of endless fights about usage instead of addressing the real problems in the world today.

Why can't we just stick to the topic and refrain from judging each other?

Obviously soda's a less-good option than milk, formula, or (100%) juice -- but the bad teeth has less to do with soda in baby bottles and more to do with sugars generally in baby bottles when babies are allowed to bottle-feed themselves to sleep. Which there's nothing inherently wrong with, but apparently you're supposed to use water if you give them a bottle to take to bed.

Problem is that educated (or even more-aware) young people from rural regions never come BACK to their hometowns, causing a vicious cycle of brain drain in these parts of the country.

So the average zeitgeist, for lack of a better word, is always going to remain constantly at a lower-than-average level. It's analogous to making gravy, where you constantly are skimming the fat off the top and you end up with the same substance left in the pan over and over and over again.

What Appalachia needs is a massive amount of Federal spending in order to get the infrastructure up to even the most basic American educational and health standards. I know that's not going to sit well with the conservatives, but this sort of shit is what the "free market" gets you.

@HurtsSoGood: speaking of ignorance, are you insinuating that only the Democrats support dental hygiene? the people of that area certainly aren't wealthy in the classical sense, but they do believe people ought to do for themselves and keep only what they earn

If I were to be making fun of blacks, many people would be up in arms on this site, even if they aren't black. But its ok to make these jokes about Southern people and people from Appalachia apparently, even though I'm offended though I'm not from Appalachia.

So if no one cares if I'm offended, why should I care about them being offended?

Appalachia is home to Abstinence-Only education, so much so that there is practically no education on sex at all.. because, you know, it's dirty and God frowns on sexuality. So then you have stories like the ones from my husband's hometown where the pregnant teenage girl says "yeah, he put his thang in my hoo-ha, but we didn't have sex."

Fluoridation of the water supply most likely won't help since they are referring to very rural regions. My assumption is that they rely more on well water than centralized water distribution where fluoridation would help.

@Sanspants: I don't know if it's a prophecy as most of the people around here, Central Florida, are already like the folks in the movie.

Condoms - effective 90% of the time, every time.

Just because I vote republican doesn't mean I think everything they do is right.
I'm not sure what you mean by voting against their long-term economic interest. Voting democrat for the people living their doesn't help them either.

Make it a kitten and puppy and then we can be friends :-)

I know it's considered bad taste to blame the person who claims to be a victim, but it's really hard in this case. I'll try to keep this to a minimum:

Kids don't work, so where did he get the money from to buy it?

Why do they call it "mountain dew"? Because it wears away the calcium and leaves big holes in the mountain (and/or teeth)?

I will agree with you there, but you know the best way to make a liberal around here? Proper education as children and examination of the issues as adults. So many political campaigns are run here with the R side basically telling these folks that if the D gets his way that the brown people will move in and take their jobs, their daughters will be forced to abort, their guns will be taken away and Christianity will be outlawed... oh, and they will all be forced to have gay sex. Since they have little or no time to devote to really looking into what they truth may or may not be, and since the Rs have the money to basically buy out any media in the area, they depend on their gut reactions to fear, plain and simple.

I have an overly optimistic idea that while the older folks may be a lost cause, the younger Appalachians only need the opportunity to look deeper into the problem to see what they really need. They don't get that opportunity, and it looks like they may never. I refuse the notion that they all just wallow.

@YeiEnyo: You just need to check and see if the soda contains citric acid or other acids like that. Most sodas have them, and while removing the sugar helps, that acid will still slowly desolve teeth. It's like sucking on a lemon.

Of course, you could just brush yo teef.

Nowadays I limit my consumption of MD to one can per day (to wake up!) and then I switch to water. MD is delicious and addicting but terrible on your dental health if you drink too much of it. I learned my lesson the hard way - those dental bills were about $2K...

@concordia: Oh, come on! That dentistry picture from last fall was hilarous.

What's really gross is the teeth of meth users. That will make you lose your lunch and breakfast.

(And Buy One Get One Free Mountain Dew 12-packs!)

AHHH It's the melungeons!

I grew up in Western NC. Drink Sundrop (the Southern version of Mountain Dew) heavily (probably around 3 liters a day) and exercise regularly. No major cavities, and a Masters in History.

@Paul Dmytrewycz: I bet that lady is the type of person who thinks her child has ADHD so she has to get him some meds to calm him down all the time.

Whoa. You think Ale 8 is disgusting? Something is wrong with your taste buds.

Unless there's a slurry spill in the Big/Little Sandy.. then Anheuser-Busch will drop a few cases of canned water to the towns free. I shit you not. My husband's family is in Louisa, and every time there's a contaminate spill in the Big Sandy Anheuser-Busch drops off 2 cases of A-B canned water to each house. It's becoming a 3x a year ordeal nowadays.

Makes you sick, doesn't it?

Racial jokes are funny because they have a grain of truth. I am getting very tired of overly PC people telling me I should be offended because my neck is red/I live in the South/enjoy Cheerwine.

I agree. I lived up in rural Kentucky for about three months while working for a non-profit, and even in that brief time it was amazing what these people had to deal with.

And last time I checked, soda was WAY cheaper than clean, bottled drinking water. :(

I'm good about dental hygiene, but not perfect, and have also never had a cavity. Definitely thankful for some good teeth genes.

Digg - Fattest, Unhealthiest US City is... Yep, in West Virginia.

I have an irrational love of this part of the country. It's full of so much beauty and history, and those "hillbillies" that every loves to poke fun at are often direct descendants of the families that landed there in the early and mid 1800s, they live on that land because their great-great-great-grandaddy walked the mountain ridge and staked a claim. They fought on both sides of the Civil War, they built railroads and worked mines that no-one would dare go into, they lived and fought with Indians, they built their lives from nothing and now their descendants are neglected when the state owes them so much of it's founding successes.

.....okishutupnow.

@torgonius:
Better link
[www-personal.umich.edu]

You shouldn't be worried though because when their adult teeth start coming in the baby teeth go away. That is the time to start the healthy habits.

But yeah, giving soda to kids in a bottle, very bad idea regardless!

@quizmasterchris:
Instead of the state level, look at it at the county level. Much more of the country is 'red' when you look at it that way, with 'blue' being mainly concentrated in more urban areas. County level map on this link:
[www-personal.umich.edu]

Wait, Mountain Dew (reg) has caffine in it? Don't you have to buy Mountain Dew Energy for the caffine?

Oh wait, guess that must only be for Canada where they have seperate skus for the caffine and non-caffine versions.

I can't drink regular soda though, the few times I have had to drink it because there was nothing else around its actually made me sick because its so sweet. Hint if your going to a party bring your own bottles of diet soda or bottles of water, parties usually don't stock diet soda because they think everyone hates it.

...why are we discussing red state/blue state? Was Obama impeached already?

Yeah, those silly sluts wouldn't even BE in a situation if they all just kept their legs closed.

<_<

Thanks for the douche bag comment, by the way. I just need to go kick a kitten today and I'll accomplished all of my goals for the day.

@shepd: Oh I don't doubt your story at all. My mom had tooth decay issues ever since menopause. Her body was leeching calcium from her teeth or something like that.

@Pink Puppet: I know soda is cheaper than milk but still, my parents didn't let us have soda every day. It was a treat for us. I really hope some of these kids do get better diets though.

Sad story. :(

I don't think that politics has very much to do with the people that live here. Folks that move to Appalachia and see it as a "return to small-town values" or whatev, sure, but the people in the most abject poverty around here are consistently exploited by Republicans by playing on their fears of God, Guns and Brown People. Many of the people I have encountered in Appalachia are, if you would but give them a moment and talk TO them rather than AT them, just as unhappy with the way they live and are just as hurt at being considered "Those" people as anyone else would be...and surprisingly are quite liberal-minded when not provoked... only they have no way to work themselves out of where they are, and after enough generations of living like that they simply don't know HOW to get out anymore. The appalachian people are the cannon fodder for the military, the region is the playground of EPA-hating, money hungry companies (see: Mountaintop Removal) and heartless exploitation by local and national government.

To wit (and my personal crusade): State legislation has made midwifery all but outlawed in Kentucky thanks to some pretty misogynistic representatives (also, former OBs in the state capitol). That means that these areas that could be better served by a housecall-making, considerably less expensive, midwife are left to their own devices as to whether a woman gets *any* kind of well-woman care whether in pregnancy or not. Religious fanatics have made abortion and birth control damn-near impossible for women to obtain in these areas. That leaves a woman in her fertile years with this choice: get pregnant out of wedlock and be slut-shamed, get pregnant at all and be subjected to whatever and whomever will be there for their birth.... and for people in general from that area: leave the region and either be a quick learner and STFU about their roots or be subject to mockery and humiliation for the rest of their lives because of where they come from.

Good Lord, another essay. Sorry.

Seriously, we'll say that 22% or so of the adult population of a state voting one way or the other can reduce the attitudes of the entire state into a simplified stereotype..?

Of the roughly 49.9% of WV eligible voters who bothered, 56% voted for McCain. That's about 20% of the adult population. "Red as can be", you say? Oh, and they reelected Rockefeller to the Senate with about 65% of the vote. Two Dems in the Senate, for whatever good that does anyone in distress.

This all makes even less sense considering that the two parties have pretty much the same damn positions on every issue, starting with poverty issues and health care. Neither candidate or party is planning to provide poor Americans with the support they'd get in any other industrialized nation. Shame on us.

You make me sick you liberal douche bag.

They vote Republican because THEIR MAIN SOURCE OF INCOME IS WORKING AT COAL MINING. And this administration has made it precisely clear that coal is equivalent to the devil. So imagine you have a choice between 2 politicians, and one says that your job of sucking bull semen through a tube is going to have to go away. Clearly to make ends meet if you have any common sense, you would vote for the other guy.

It's very sad.

But for the sake of this story just assume "Central Appalachia" equals any small, isolated town in the Southern part of the US.

Mountain Dew can equal cigarettes, booze, meth, video poker, what have you.

America's England! LOL!

Seriously, putting soda on baby bottles? that's nasty, Ugh!

Let's bet, when the class-action lawsuits due to Mountain Dew causing this will start coming from Shyster lawyers.

Mountain Dew is VERY popular here, second only to the local favorite: Ale-8-One. (Which is absolutely disgusting, by the way.) A close third is Diet Coke (NOT Diet Pepsi.)

@ThickSkinned: That is probably the most prophetic movie ever made.

/end latte liberal rant.

Mt. Dew is for rich folks. Mellow Yellow is where its at!

yay!

We fail a lot of groups and areas in this country, but most of the other ones aren't such a target for mockery.

... Brawndo?

I grew up in that part of the world and fled just as soon as I could. Most of the 'smart kids' I went to high school with did the same and are now living in other parts of the country. If anything the situation i that regard is worse now than it was 50 years ago. In my parents generation a good chunk of the 'smart kids' became teachers, doctors, nurses, etc.. and moved back to their hometowns to try to make things better. But society in general has become more mobile and a much lower percentage of the 'smart kids' in my generation were willing to settle for the low quality of life in crappy Appalachian towns when it was so easy to move to better places. I suppose the towns have also become crappier too - they had downtowns and factory jobs when I was a kid, now it's just dead towns and Walmart as far as the eye can see.

Also, Jez... it's Appalachian, not appal-a-chin.

*twitch* Sorry, people, I get extremely disgusted at how people can be so callous towards the Appalachians. I moved here from Houston, and before then I couldn't even imagine that there were families that lived in the United States in such poverty... This is my hot-button.

Oh wait, where are my manners? WHURZ TEH MOONSHINE? HUR HUR HUR. DUM PEEPLZ.

*twitch*

The thing that I'm concerned about is that I drink a ton of mountain, 4-5 cans per day. I have cavities, yes, thats to be expected (actually most of them came from the period where I was addicted to limeade), but my teeth have never decayed like this. The kids just aren't brushing and flossing their teeth, and thats a parenting issue.

Every case of dew should come with a travel toothbrush and tube of toothpaste.

He also told me it's better to chug than sip.

DUM KENTUCKY, HUR HUR HUR HUR, REDNECKS, MOUNTAIN TRASH HAR HAR HAR.

There, now that I can fit in... I'd like to bring up my personal experiences in the Applachian regions. They are poor, DIRT poor. Seriously, 3rd world country poor, think Honduras, only with snow. Tar-paper shack poor. The areas in question don't get much funding by the state and are constantly being dumped on by coal companies, contaminating their rivers and killing off their wildlife, meanwhile they have little to no access to decent public schooling or healthcare, much less dental, and have little to no prospects in life....

But sure, let's pick on them for being backwoods toothless hillbillies rather than try to help. THEY DUN'T NO NO BETTURZ.

/rant off.

I got my first cavity this past year after going through a few months where I got lazy about brushing twice a day. I'm now back to my good habits though and hope not to get any more.

I would say that they should put some kind of a warning on the label, like cigarettes, but that would be an affront to our cherished tradition of lassez-faire capitalism.

the kid stopped brushing AFTER rotting his teeth with MD

@3.5 B: disk_GitEmSteveDave: It's not that they needed APPALACHIAN translation, they needed I SPEAK WITH MY GUMS BECAUSE I HAVE NO TEETH translation.

@AngrySicilian: I admit it wasn't the smartest thing to "believe" in, but it was what I DID. I have been seeing the dentist regularly for over 5 years now, and except for getting my wisdom teeth pulled b/c they were "crowding" my other teeth, I haven't had nary a cavity. My poor oral hygiene(of the past) had nothing to do with getting the teeth knocked out, as I had/have very strong teeth.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Is anyone surprised, really?

Blame the Dew, that's what I'd do.

@JayCor:

It may be just me, but I thought that was one of the worst/stupidest movies I have ever seen... and that is coming from somone who saw Napoleon Dynamite at least 12 times in the theater.

@ChinaDeathBus_GitEmSteveDave: "My dentist even commented I'm a good patient b/c I "don't bleed that much"."

IIRC from my collected dental health knowledge, I thought that if your gums didn't bleed (much) it means they're healthy and gingivitis-free, having been toughened up by proper and regular brushing.

My ex-boyfriend was addicted to Diet Coke -- several liters a day -- and he would go through periods where he'd try to quit or cut back every so often. He once told me during one of these periods that he was worried because he couldn't hear his heart beating any more.

A lot of it has to do with Genes. Obviously, abusing your teeth like these people will wreck anyone's teeth, but there are people with teeth very likely to get cavities and people with teeth that are unlikely to get cavities. Genetics at work.

Chat with your dentist about it. Me, I must be on the craptastic side of things, because my teeth started getting cavities the the point of getting fillings most dentist visits before I had the terrible diet I have now.

Fluoridated water isn't quite the trick, they need to stop the acid from seeping below the gum line and rotting teeth.

Soda companies can't make people buy and drink their soda strictly by advertising. If they could they would charge ridiculous prices for sugar and caffeine.

Ohh wait, there's Red Bull. Please disregard above statement.

Don't blame mountain dew, blame the irresponsible parents.

That being said, after having my front teeth knocked out my my ex in a bizarre pool toy accident, I have since gotten over my fear of dentists and also my aversion to brushing/flossing my teeth, and just yesterday had a great check up. My dentist even commented I'm a good patient b/c I "don't bleed that much".

To preempt the complainers: yes, diet soda still has the acids in it, but the sugar is the major factor in creating cavities.

Idiocracy FTW!

All IMHO.

If you put Dew in your kid's baby bottle, you should have the kids taken away from you. As a child you need more milk and calcium since you are growing.

But the brominated vegetable oil acts as an important dietary supplement to moonshine.

Wow... I mean.. I do the dew, but this is taking it to an extreme. Don't they get tired of it after a while?