Effect of Green Tea Beverage Temperature on Salivary Flow Rate

Previous researches demonstrated that temperature was a noticeable stimulus on the salivary flow rate, an influential factor on caries incidence and green tea is one of the most popular drinks in both hot and cold beverages. Objectives: to compare the effect of temperature of green tea beverage on salivary flow rate. Methods: Unstimulated saliva were collected for 10min. from 30 healthy, 20-22 year old subjects before and after drinking 300ml of 5, 30, 50ºC green tea beverage by straw. The amounts of saliva were measured for flow rate calculation. The differences of the mean flow rate between before and after drink were analyzed by one way ANOVA and LSD. Results: The mean flow rate after drinking of 5ºC green tea (0.75±0.28ml/min) was significantly higher than the mean flow rate before drink (0.47±0.27ml/min), after drinking of 30ºC and 50ºC green tea (0.56±0.32 and 0.60±0.30 ml/min), respectively (p<0.05).The mean flow rate after drinking of 30ºC and 50ºC green tea were significantly higher than the flow rate before drink (p<0.05) but there was no significant difference between them. Conclusion: This finding suggested that cold green tea beverage was more effective than hot green tea beverage on stimulating of salivary flow rate. This study was supported by the Dental Research Fund, Faculty of Dentistry, Grant 11113/2005.