Effect of chewing gums on plaque pH after a sucrose challenge

The objective of this study was to determine whether sugarless chewing gums sweetened with different sweeteners differ in their ability to reduce an acidogenic response from a 10 percent sucrose-rinse challenge. Five commercially available chewing gums and two control regimens ("no gum" or paraffin) were tested using a plaque pH telemetry system. The gums were sweetened with sucrose, high-intensity sweeteners (aspartame, saccharin, or acesulfame-K), or a polyol (xylitol). Using a seven-period randomized block design, eight adult panelists were challenged with a 10 percent sucrose solution and then randomly used one of the test regimens during each of the seven test sessions. Each two-hour test session was divided into five periods: resting baseline (five minutes); sucrose rinse challenge (two minutes); postsucrose challenge (ten minutes); gum chewing (ten minutes); post gum chewing (ninety-three minutes). The factors analyzed were: the area of the curve (pH X Time) below pH 5.5, the minimum plaque pH attained, the changes in plaque pH over relevant intervals, and the length of time the plaque pH remained below pH 5.5. The various response variables showed a similar pattern of statistically significant differences. All of the sugarless gums were effective in significantly increasing plaque pH and in reducing the area under the curve after the sucrose challenge compared with "no gum" treatment. No statistically significant differences were noted among the sugarless gums. The response to sucrose gum was intermediate between sugarless gums and "no gum" but was not statistically different from "no gum" or three of the sugarless gums.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)