Wednesday 9 September 2015

Smart Snacking

The motivation for writing this post is a question asked by one of patients’ mother who visited for a dental check up of her 6 year old daughter.


She asked: Doctor you recommend us to provide our children with fibrous food, to include more fruits and avoid fast food & snacks, to protect teeth from having cavities. She elaborated her problem further that nowadays it's not so easy to avoid junk food as children frequently love to munch on such items especially biscuits and chips. So what type of biscuits can we take to avoid cavity on a tooth.

The question does not remain confined to this particular mother, but it is the problem of a number of parents. So, dear readers the answer is through one of my original research work on five types of commercially available biscuits.

So what you are waiting for, scroll down & quench your thirst for the right snack biscuit.

The concept of health has prevailed for centuries and dietary habits are apparently changing with modernization. There has been an increased intake of food with fermentable carbohydrates like biscuits among children. It is widely accepted that all foods containing “fermentable carbohydrates” have the potential to contribute to caries (cavity) formation. These substances, after being hydrolyzed (acted on) by salivary amylase (an enzyme present in saliva), provide substrate for the actions of oral bacteria, which in turn lower plaque and salivary pH. This results in the beginning of tooth demineralization, leading to cavity formation.

The most common recommendation to maintain healthy teeth is to reduce the intake of sugar and other fermentable carbohydrates. It is best to consume sugar and other fermentable carbohydrates with meals, or as snacks in conjunction with protein such as cheese or milk to reduce the risk of this adverse effect.

In a study conducted by myself on school children who were exposed to five different commercially available biscuits; it was concluded that Oat biscuit was found to have least drop in plaque pH and found to be least cariogenic (causing cavity) due to the presence of phenolic compounds mainly avenanthramides, which are potentially health beneficial bioactive components found exclusively in oats. Cream biscuit was found to have a maximum pH drop, making it most cariogenic. The cariogenicity of sugary food is related to its stickiness, the longer it takes a food to clear the mouth the longer the drop in pH will remain, thereby causing more destruction of tooth and rapid cavity formation.

So, dear parents as La Rochefoucauld (a noted French author) said “To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

In todays’ world we cannot put dietary restriction on our kids, but certainly we can practice dietary modification.

Few of the Oat biscuit which are available in the market (please note: I am not at all advertising these brands). Even there are many other brands which are available in the market.