Erosion of dentine and enamel in vitro by dietary acids: the effect of temperature, acid character, concentration and exposure time

Sales of soft drinks has been increasing by 56% over the last 10 years and are estimated to keep rising at about 2-3% a year. Further, the reported in cidence of tooth erosion has been. increasingly documented. Whilst these fa ctors could well be linked, many individuals with erosive diets are not pre senting with erosion. This would suggest the effect's of many variables, he nce the aim of these investigations. Methodologies included preparing ename l and dentine samples from unerupted human third molars. Groups of five spe cimens were placed in citric acid over a temperature range of 5-60 degrees C for 10-min exposures; placed in citric, lactic, malic or phosphoric acid (0.05, 0.1, 0.5, and 1% (w/v)) for 10-min exposures; and placed in the same three organic hydroxy acids at 0-3% (w/v) or phosphoric acid at 0.1% (w/v) for 3 x 10-min exposures. Tissue loss was determined by profilometry. Resu lts showed that increasing temperature, concentration and exposure time inc reased the erosion of dentine and enamel. This study has shown that under h ighly controlled conditions, erosion of dentine and enamel by dietary acids can be greatly influenced in vitro by temperature, concentration, type of acid and exposure time. These factors could be employed in order to reduce the erosivity of soft acidic drinks.