This Common Fruit Juice Could Be Great for Your Teeth, New Research Finds - VICE

For most Americans, cranberries are the fruit you think about only at Thanksgiving and when you get a UTI. But if you incorporate cranberries a bit more often, you may have much less plaque on your teeth.

That’s because researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago, who published their findings in Scientific Reports, found that cranberries seem to be one of Mother Nature’s favorite cleaning agents, as a compound in cranberry juice seems to be great at removing plaque buildup on your teeth.

Led by pediatric dentist Christine Wu, the UIC team recruited eight adults and 14 children (small sample size, I know) to test whether cranberry juice, which seems to be good at getting rid of UTIs, can maybe blast some of the bacteria out of your mouth. Participants arrived with a full night’s worth of oral film on their teeth.

Researchers swabbed one side of their mouths, made them swish and swallow pure unsweetened cranberry juice, a diluted 27 percent juice cocktail, or plain water, and then swabbed the teeth 30 minutes later.

The results showed that swishing pure cranberry juice slashed bacterial regrowth by 44 percent in adults and 33 percent in kids while significantly curbing acid production. Sweetened cranberry cocktail juice didn’t produce statistically significant results, so of course a big drawback here is that to benefit from cranberry juice you have to drink the unsweetened, extremely tart stuff that sometimes feels like drinking battery acid.

The secret weapon in cranberry juice is a compound called proanthocyanidins, the very compound that prevents E. coli from clinging to bladder walls when you have a UTI. When you drink it, the compounds target Streptococcus mutans, the bacteria that feast on dietary sugars and secrete the acid that destroys tooth enamel

A lot more testing lies ahead before you fully start seeing cranberry- or proanthocyanidins-based products claiming to rip plaque off your teeth in an instant.