Abstract
Objective: Dental caries is one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide. Saliva has many functions in the oral cavity and is the first line defense against dental caries. Oxidative stress can affect initiation and progression of many inflammatory and infectious diseases such as dental caries. Thus the aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of saliva and dental caries. Study Design: 100 healthy high school students (50 female and 50 male) with age range of 15 -17 years were randomly selected, divided to four groups. Unstimulated whole saliva specimens were collected at the morning. TAC of saliva was evaluated by spectrophotometric assay. Statistical comparisons were performed using Student’s t-test, by SPSS 13. Results: The level of TAC was significantly higher in the saliva of caries active group relative to the caries free subjects. Statistical analysis for male and female groups showed a statistically significant reduction of TAC level in female group. Conclusion: TAC was higher in caries active group. Thus this result showed that total antioxidant capacity may influence in dental caries and activity can be measured by salivary factors and this may be helpful in preventive dentistry. Key words:Dental caries, saliva, total antioxidant capacity.
Highlights
Saliva is a complex fluid in the oral cavity, composed of a mixture of secretary products from the major and minor salivary glands [1]
Tulunglu showed that total protein and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of saliva were increased with caries activity [12]
In this study TAC of saliva was evaluated because any antioxidant work together [23], other studies suggested that TAC evaluation was statistically significant than individual antioxidants [24] the measurement of any individual antioxidant may be difficult and expensive, TAC shows the action of all non-enzymatic antioxidant [25] in addition this results may be a guide for future researcher to work in individual antioxidant activity in caries
Summary
Saliva is a complex fluid in the oral cavity, composed of a mixture of secretary products from the major and minor salivary glands [1]. Saliva has multifunctional roles in the oral cavity [2], and is very important for the maintaining of oral health [3]. The main component of saliva is water, it play key roles in lubrication, mastication, taste perception, prevention of oral infection and dental caries [1,6,7]. For example saliva peroxidase controls oral bacteria which lead to dental caries and periodontal diseases [12]. Tulunglu showed that total protein and total antioxidant level of saliva were increased with caries activity [12]. Very little studies have been discussed about the TCA of saliva with dental caries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the TAC and dental caries
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