A Chocolate a Day Keeps the Dentist Away

Sure, a taste for chocolate has long been blamed for upping your cavity count at the dentist’s office. But in an unlikely development sure to spark smiles in chocoholics, medical researchers are now saying that chocolate may someday help prevent dental cavities.

Cavities form when bacteria changes sugars into acids that gradually eat away a tooth's surface. But Takashi Ooshima and his colleagues at Osaka University in Japan discovered that when they added cocoa bean husk, or the outer part of the bean, which is usually discarded in chocolate production, to the mouth bacteria, it stopped the process that forms cavities.

Rats that were fed the cocoa bean husk in their drinking water had healthier teeth. The researchers are next planning to test it on human teeth. They theorize that the results could lead to new treatments for tooth decay. For example, it may be possible to use the cocoa extract in a mouthwash or toothpaste or to enhance chocolate to make it healthier for teeth.

Scientists also note that chocolate is comparatively better for teeth than many other sweet foods, such as sugary sodas, because the antibacterial ingredients in cocoa beans are thought to offset the high sugar levels.

Sorry, white chocolate lovers. Technically, white chocolate isn't really chocolate. White chocolate has cocoa butter and sugar, but none of the cocoa beans that were found to neutralize mouth bacteria and stop dental decay.