Abstract
The influence of sports drinks and mouthguards on the pH level of tooth surface was
examined. A custom-made mouthguard was fabricated for each subject. The pH level was
measured by electric pH meter with sensitivity of 0.01 up to 30 min. Sports drinks
(pH=3.75) containing 9.4% sugar were used in this study. Measurements were performed
on a cohort of 23 female subjects without a mouthguard (control), wearing a mouthguard
only (MG), wearing a mouthguard after 30 ml sports drink intake (SD+MG), wearing a
mouthguard during a 5-min jogging exercise (MG+EX) and wearing a mouthguard during
jogging after sports drink intake (SD+MG+EX). For 7 male subjects, the same measurements
were performed while a sports drink was taken over the mouthguard (MG+SD, MD+EX+SD).
MG showed statistically higher pH level than control (p<0.05). SD+MG exhibited a significant
decrease in pH level, and SD+MG+EX exhibited even below the critical level of pH 5.5
in some subjects. When sports drinks were taken over the mouthguard, no significant
differences in pH level were observed among the different conditions.Within the limitations
of this study, it was suggested that wearing a mouthguard during exercise is in itself
not a possible risk factor for dental caries, while wearing a mouthguard after consuming
sports drinks is.
Key words
mouthguard - dental caries - sports drinks - exercise
