Intra-oral acid production associated with eating whole or pulped raw fruits

Abstract

The hypotheses that raw fruits, whether whole or pulped, were cleared rapidly from the mouth and that the sugars in the whole and pulped fruits are fermented with equal efficiency to acids by the oral microflora were tested in this study. Groups of 7-9 adult subjects chewed 10 g of raw, whole or pulped fruit (apple, banana, orange, pear and pineapple) for 1 min and whole, unstimulated saliva samples were collected during the following 60-min interval. Each saliva sample was assayed for the concentrations of fruit-derived sugars (glucose, fructose and sucrose), fruit-derived acids (malic and citric) and acids which may be produced as a result of bacterial fermentation (acetic, lactic, formic and succinic). We found the fruit-derived sugars were rapidly cleared from the mouth (within 5 min). The major bacterially produced acids were lactic and succinic, which reached maximum concentrations in the 5-min sample. There was no significant difference, within a fruit, in the salivary levels of any of the sugars or acids between the raw whole or raw pulped forms. In light of these findings it seems unwise to assume that fruits may be consumed without consideration of their acidogenic potential.