dietary antioxidants and periodontal disease

background : periodontal disease is a common oral disease, which oxidative stress plays an important role in its pathogenesis. the onset and progress of this disease is influenced by balance between oral biofilm and host response. regarding with the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of periodontal disease and reduction of total antioxidant capacity in patients with periodontal disease, it is suggested that a sufficient dietary intake of antioxidants would be beneficial in the treatment of these patients.the aim of this review article was to evaluate the role of dietary antioxidants in periodontal diseases methods: the literature review has been performed in the database pubmed, google scholar and iranmedex from 1991 until 2013.after studying of 60 articles, fulltext of 30 articles were assessed. findings: assayed studies indicated that dietary antioxidants including vitamin c, vitamin e, carotenoids (a and b –carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin and zeoxanthin ) and polyphenols (proanthocyanidin , flavonoids ) have an important role in protection against oxidative stress in periodontal disease. conclusion: based of the finding of this review study, it can be concluded that dietary antioxidants can be efficient in the prevention and treatment of patients with periodontitis. key words: antioxidant, periodontal disease, oxidative stress