Xylitol Chewing Gums and Dental Caries Prevention: a Systematic Review

Introduction: Dental caries are a major public health problem. Various attempts have been made to deal with the problem. One of them is reducing sugar consumption, but it is not so effective. Tobacco-use control programs, however, have shown that substitution therapy-replacing a harmful habit with a positive, more culturally acceptable practice-can be effective. Xylitol has attracted much attention as an alternative sweetener. The effect of xylitol on caries development relates to its non-cariogenicity and to the beneficial effect of substituting sucrose with xylitol in chewing gums. Objective: Investigate the effectiveness of xylitol chewing gum in the prevention of dental caries. Methods: A systematic literature survey was carried in electronic data bases like Pubmed, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library with MeSH terms "xylitol chewing gum", "dental caries" in the English language. The authors extracted data on study characteristics, dental caries increment, and the main findings. Results: 199 potentially relevant studies were identified. The 10 articles selected for this review showed that the use of xylitol chewing gum is associated with prevented fractions ranging from 33.33 percent to 63.03 percent. Conclusions: The evidence suggests that xylitol chewing gum has a caries-reducing effect. Further well-designed randomised trials are needed to confirm these findings. Keywords: xylitol, chewing gums, dental caries