Evaluating the erosive effect of sour candy on human

Abstract

The radical increase in consumption of acidic (sour) candies amongst children and teenagers is considered a significant public health concern. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the erosive potential of sour candy in comparison with their regular counterparts at different exposure times. Sixteen prepared tooth samples were randomly assigned into four groups, namely: sour candy (n=8), regular candy (n=8); each of these was prepared to have protected (unexposed) and exposed surfaces in respective candy solutions for 15 min and 2 h (n=4). An Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) was used to measure the surface roughness (Ra) between the exposed and unexposed enamel surfaces for each sample group. The mean Ra measured was used for statistical analysis whilst the elemental loss was assessed using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDX). The findings showed that sour candy significantly eroded the exposed enamel samples (P<0.01). Overall, the samples exposed to the sour candy for 2 h had the highest eroded Ra values. The study suggests that frequent and long-time consumption of sour candies may pose a negative impact on the tooth as they are found to be highly erosive. Key words: Candy; erosion, tooth enamel, sour candy.