Oral health: Wine gums

WITHOUT regular brushing and flossing, teeth accumulate bacterial films that secrete acid and cause cavities (see article). But sometimes even these good habits are insufficient to shift such films, and a chemical called chlorhexidine has to be deployed as well, in the form of a mouthwash. Chlorhexidine, however, stains teeth and affects people’s sense of taste, so an alternative would be welcome. And Victoria Moreno-Arribas of the Institute of Food Science Research in Madrid believes she may have one: a derivative of red wine.Dr Moreno-Arribas knew from previous work that red wine has antimicrobial properties, but she could find few studies which looked at whether it attacks dental biofilms specifically. To rectify that, she and her colleagues grew five troublesome oral bacteria, Actinomyces oris, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus oralis and ...



from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1oy29kA