Plaque pH and cH area after consumption of Milch-Schnitte

Objectives: To determine the acidogenic potential of the snack food Milch-Schnitte (MS) compared with sucrose and sorbitol. Methods: 15 subjects refrained from oral hygiene procedures for 48 hours to allow plaque to accumulate on their teeth. Plaque sampling was performed at least 2 hours after consumption of any food or drink. With a microspatula, samples of plaque approximately 1mg were collected uniformly from all accessible buccal, labial and lingual surfaces. The plaque was suspended in 30µl of distilled water in a plastic reservoir, mixed for 10 sec and the pH estimated using a Beetrode® electrode placed into the plaque suspension. Resting plaque pH was measured prior to the subjects being given a MS bar to consume for 2 mins. Plaque pH was monitored as above at 3,7,11,15,19,23,27 mins. Between each reading the electrode was rinsed in distilled water. The experiment was repeated using 10% (w/v) sucrose solution (positive control) and a 10% (w/v) sorbitol solution (negative control). The mV readings using the standard solutions were plotted against the pH of these. From this graph the pH value corresponding to the mV readings given during the experiment were plotted against time to produce the characteristic Stephan curve. Results: The mean minimum pH for sucrose, MS and sorbitol respectively was 5.54±0.64, 6.30±0.44 and 6.86±0.08 .The mean cH areas for the 3 test samples were 66.36±160.62, 17.25±11.61 and 0.39±0.62.Conclusions: The results show that consumption of MS has a significantly lower (p£0.05) acidogenic potential in terms of minimum plaque pH and cH area than sucrose. This work was sponsored by Fererro oHG mbH