THE EFFECT OF SUCROSE-CONTAINING CHEWING-GUM USE ON IN-SITU ENAMEL LESION REMINERALIZATION

Two independent cross-over studies have now been carried out to evalua te the effect of a regime of chewing sucrose-containing gum on enamel lesion remineralization. The first study has been reported in detail e lsewhere. This further study aimed to increase the data set with an ad ditional 13 volunteers. Similar protocols were followed in both studie s. Weighted averages from the two studies showed Delta z values corres ponding to 16.8% remineralization for the gum versus 11.6% remineraliz ation for the control (p = 0.046, two-sided). A significant difference between test and control was evident for lesion body (p = 0.0004, two -sided) but not for surface zone (p = 0.32, two-sided).