A COMPARISON OF CRUDE AND REFINED SUGAR AND CEREALS IN THEIR ABILITY TO PRODUCE IN VITRO DECALCIFICATION OF TEETH

¹ Department of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, S. Africa

1. By incubation in media containing sugar or cereals mixed with saliva for periods of, from two to eight weeks, healthy teeth were induced to decalcify. 2. Refined white sugar produced this change in a high percentage of teeth, crude cane juice caused very few to decalcify. 3. This strengthens the proposition that refined sugar causes caries but that sugar, eaten as it occurs in nature, does not. The suggestion that there is a "protective agent" in crude sugar-cane juice, which is removed in the course of refining, is advanced with the added assurance. This agent does not depend on an ability to prevent or reduce acid fermentation. 4. Whole mealie meal causes very few teeth to decalcify, highly refined mealie meal (60-70% extraction) produces this change in a high percentage of teeth. There is no significant difference between 90% extraction mealie meal and whole mealie meal. 5. Whereas whole wheat caused a high percentage of teeth to decalcify, highly refined white flour (60-70% extraction) attacked a significantly greater proportion of teeth. 6. By analogy with the proposition put forward for crude cane juice, it is suggested that the carbohydrate in those cereals occurs in nature with a similar "protective agent," which tends to inhibit its injurious action on the teeth. The fact that this is no more than a partial protection on the case of wheat does not affect the theory. 7. Of the highly refined substances dealt with, flour and mealie meal appear to be more potent in producing in vitro decalcification than sugar.

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