Xylitol Candy, Ice Chips at The Gentle Dentist – Shelby Twp
Hi, this is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com in Shelby Township, Michigan in Macomb County. Our phone number is (586)247-3500.
You know, we all pretty much like sweets. That’s just the way that our bodies are. We like sugar and sweets. The problem is that, sweets, what do they do? They cause cavities, they cause can cause obesity if you really consume too much with little activity. They’re not good obviously for diabetics. Diabetics need to control the blood sugar.
A couple of years ago, Pam, my office manager was watching “Shark Tank”. On “Shark Tank”, they had a candy made out of xylitol called Ice Chips. I can show you some.
There’s a number of different flavors. Margarita, berry mix, strawberry daiquiri, eggnog, lemon, peppermint and, and a number of different other flavors and they taste great. The key is that xylitol is a sugar substitute. It’s natural. It actually is harvested from the Birch tree bark.
On the other hand, sugar is a carbohydrate. The bacteria in the mouth uses this carbohydrate as a food source. When sugar is used by the bacteria it will form an acid, lactic acid as it’s by-product of the metabolism.
In other words, when you have some pop, let’s say, or have some candy, your acidic level increases or your pH drops, same thing.
The sugar substitute xylitol works really well because, you can taste it. It’s tasty. But what it does, it ends up starving off the bacteria that form these cavities. And it’s great, because its glycemic index is very low, because it’s not a sugar. Therefore, diabetics can use it pretty regularly and it can rehydrate and re-moisten the mouth, which helps with that and it tastes really good.
You have to take basically 6 pieces per day and suck on them throughout the day. It actually has a functional use and can actually starve all the bacteria in order to reduce the cavities and help diabetics maintain their insulin levels more uniformly. So we find that Ice Chips are very popular in our dental office. We have a number of people who come in and purchase this product.
There aren’t a whole lot of distributors of it. So, if you’d like to come in, they’re $5 a tin like this. And that tin can last you a long time. It contains 50 grams. That’s enough to get you through about 2 weeks of time.
Be careful, you don’t want to use too much because it can cause constipation if you have consumed way too much of it, but that’s it. That’s the biggest problem with it.
So, here’s an alternative for diabetics to have something that’s sweet, and also, for seniors who get constant cavities from dry mouth and don’t have the abilities to fight off or to neutralize the effects of the bacteria when they eat sugar.
Xylitol Candy, Ice Chips at The Gentle Dentist – Shelby Twp
If you’re a diabetic or if you have a dry mouth and if you want to change what’s going on in your mouth give us a call at 586-247-3500.