Red wine can fight cavities too

For red wine lovers, there is another bubbly news. According to new research, red wine, as well as grape seed extract, could potentially help prevent cavities - and your visit to the dentist's chair too!

This discovery could lead to the development of natural products that ward off dental diseases with fewer side-effects.

To prove their point, researchers grew cultures of bacteria responsible for dental diseases as a biofilm.

They dipped the biofilms for a couple of minutes in different liquids -- red wine, red wine without the alcohol, red wine spiked with grape seed extract, and water and 12 percent ethanol -- for comparison.

"Red wine with or without alcohol and wine with grape seed extract were the most effective at getting rid of the bacteria," said lead author M. Victoria Moreno-Arribas, an authority on wine chemistry from Spain.

Cavities, periodontal disease and tooth loss affect an estimated 60 to 90 percent of the global population.

The problems start when certain bacteria in the mouth get together and form biofilms, which are communities of bacteria that are difficult to kill.

Previous research has suggested that polyphenols, grape seed extract and wine can slow bacterial growth, said the study that appeared in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.