Total antioxidant capacity of saliva and dental caries

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.