Abstract
Chewing xylitol gum is thought to be an effective method of caries prevention for children who run a high risk of caries or who cannot brush their teeth very well. To prevent the demineralization of tooth enamel and to promote remineralization with chewing gum containing fluoride, the amount of fluoride which can safely be added to the chewing gum is important. In this study the positive effects on the remineralization of human enamel using remineralizing solution containing 10% xylitol and low various concentrations of fluoride were examined using the CMR method and furthermore the positive effect on remineralization of trial xylitol chewing gum containing fluoride was compared with two commercially available xylitol chewing gums containing remineralizing promoting materials in vitro and in vivo. As a result, it was found that the degree of remineralization with remineralizing solution containing 10% xylitol and less than 0.4 ppm concentraion of fluoride did not show a significant increase compared with the control (0 ppm F), but the degree of remineralization with no less than 0.8 ppm concentraion of fluoride showed a highly significant increase compared with the control and the change in the tendency was obvious. These results suggested that xylitol restrains remineralization when the concentration of fluoride is low. The remineralizing effect of trial xylitol chewing gum containing fluoride(2μg/stick)was between that of two commercially available xylitol chewing gums in vitro, and was almost the same as the lower one in vivo.
