London - Sweets that slash levels of harmful bacteria in the mouth could be a new weapon against tooth decay. They are designed to stop the bugs that cause decay from sticking to the surface of teeth, where they trigger erosion.
Instead, the harmful bacteria are swallowed in saliva and then flushed out of the body.
The sugar-free sweets work by using a type of ‘friendly’ probiotic bacteria (lactobacillus paracasei) to bind to the harmful type (streptococcus mutans).
As the sweet is sucked, the friendly bacteria are released into the saliva. They then lock on to the corrosive type, forming a clump, which reduces the harmful bacteria’s ability to stick to the surface of teeth.
As a so-called ‘friendly’ bacterium, found in some probiotic yoghurt drinks, for example, lactobacillus is a group of organisms that helps break down food, absorb nutrients and fight off bugs that might cause diseases such as diarrhoea.
The boiled sweets, developed by German firm Organobalance GMBH, could be targeted at children to try to avoid the early onset of tooth decay.
Rotten teeth in British children costs around £45?million a year to treat and by the age of 15, teenagers have had an average of 2.5 teeth filled or removed due to decay.
A recent survey suggested one in four five-year-olds in England already has tooth decay.
Streptococcus mutans, the most harmful bacterium in the mouth, feeds on sugar in the diet, which it ferments into an acid that burns holes in the surface of a tooth.
At the moment the only effective way to reduce bacteria numbers is to brush and floss regularly to reduce plaque (because plaque is where harmful bacteria congregate).
The sweets were developed after laboratory tests on rats showed that lactobacillus paracasei reduced levels of harmful microbes in the mouth.
The lactobacillus paracasei were first treated with heat, which stops them multiplying in the mouth but means they can still be recognised by the harmful bacteria which bind to it. To test it on humans, researchers developed a range of flavours containing heat-treated strains of the friendly bug.
They recruited 60 adults and split them into groups. Some ate sweets containing lactobacillus paracasei, and others ate identical-looking sweets with no bacteria.
Over one-and-a-half days, all the volunteers ate five sweets. Each time, researchers tested saliva samples to measure levels of the tooth-eating organism.
The results, published in the journal Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins, showed 75?per cent of those given the bacteria-loaded sweets had significantly lower levels of streptococcus mutans after eating only one sweet and this reduction persisted throughout the experiment. Those on placebo sweets also saw a slight reduction in the ‘bad’ bacteria, but researchers think this might have been because they were more inclined to suck for longer — creating more saliva to flush the mouth out — because they knew they were taking part in an experiment.
The sweets could be available within the next year or two. Scientists are also developing toothpastes and mouthwashes containing the friendly bacteria.
Commenting on the findings, Dr Nigel Carter, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, said: ‘This adds to the growing belief that probiotics have an important role to play in improving oral health.’
* MEANWHILE, researchers at the California Institute of Technology are testing probiotics, which have been found to influence mood and emotions, to see if they can help improve the symptoms of autism.
As well as struggling with social behaviour autistic people often have problems with their gut.
The study involved mice that had been ‘bred’ to be autistic (giving their mother a virus during pregnancy led to characteristics such as repetitive digging and anxiety).
The mice were given a form of the beneficial bacteria. According to the study, published in Cell last month, they showed less anxiety and were less likely to engage in repetitive behaviour.
Daily Mail