Xylitol Chewing Gum

Xylitol (XYL) Chewing Gum

Subjects chewed for 5 minutes/piece for 40 months.

	Sticks/Day	Chewing episodes
Sugar	5	5
Sorbitol	10	5
XYL/Sorb (3:2)	10	5
XYL/Sorb (1:3)	10	5

XYL	3	3
XYL	5	5
XYL	5	3
XYL	10	5

Greatest caries reduction with xylitol, greater reduction with more xylitol.
Sorbitol not as great a reduction of caries.
Adding xylitol to sorbitol aided caries reduction, but not as good as xylitol alone.

Makinen et al, JDR, 74:1904 (1996)

Maintaining Mutans Streptococci Suppression With Xylitol Chewing Gum

Hildebrandt, GH and Sparks, BS. JADA,131:909-916, 2000.

As has been outlined in this site, a method for treating dental caries is to suppress ms with chlorhexidine, or CHX, mouthrinse. Oral ms levels, however, tend to quickly return to baseline values without further intervention. In this clinical study, the authors evaluated the effect of xylitol chewing gum and sorbitol chewing gum on ms regrowth.

They found that long-term ms suppression is feasible with xylitol chewing gum and can be expected to result in significant caries inhibition. Use of sorbitol chewing gum was not able to suppress ms regrowth.

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