Frequent consumption of sugary foods and drinks exposes teeth to acids and prevents the mouth’s pH level from stabilizing. Now, U.S. researchers have found that certain combinations of foods and beverages affect dental plaque acidity. In particular, they observed that the consumption of milk reduced plaque pH drop after eating a sugary breakfast cereal.
In the study, 20 adults were given four combinations of foods. The first group ate 20 g of a dry sugary cereal only. The second, third and fourth groups consumed the same amount of this cereal followed by 50 mL of whole milk, 50 mL of 100 percent apple juice and 50 mL of tap water, respectively.
In order to examine the combinations’ effectiveness in reducing dental plaque acidity after a sugary meal, the researchers measured the plaque pH in the participants’ mouths. While relatively low values were observed in the groups that had consumed the dry cereal (5.83), or juice (5.83) or water (6.02) after the cereal serving, a significantly higher plaque pH (6.48) was found in the group that had consumed the milk after the cereal.
The researchers concluded that drinking milk after a sugary cereal challenge significantly reduced plaque pH drop due to the sugary challenge. "When discussing the cariogenicity of foods and beverages with patients, dentists and other health care professionals should emphasize that the order of ingesting sugary and nonsugary foods is important and may affect their oral health," they recommended.
The study, titled "The Effects of Beverages on Plaque Acidogenicity After a Sugary Challenge," was conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.
