Effect of Consuming Tea with Stevia on Salivary pH - An In Vivo Randomised Controlled Trial

Purpose: To assess the effect of consuming tea with stevia on salivary pH. Materials and Methods: This randomised controlled trial employed a Latin square design. Twenty-four male students aged 20-23 years were randomly allocated to 4 different groups, 3 experimental with tea sweetened by sucrose, jaggery or stevia, and one unsweetened control. Salivary pH assessments were performed at baseline and 1 min, 20 and 60 min after consumption of the respective tea. One-way ANOVA and repeated measures ANOVA followed by Tukey's post-hoc tests were employed to analyse the data. Results: One minute after tea consumption, the salivary pH of the sucrose group significantly decreased compared to the stevia group (p = 0.01). There was a significant difference between baseline mean salivary pH and post-interventional mean salivary pH values at all time intervals in the tea + sucrose, tea + jaggery, and plain tea groups (p 0.01). One hour after consumption of tea, the salivary pH values reached the baseline pH in stevia and plain tea groups, but it remained lower in the sucrose and jaggery groups. Conclusion: The results of the present study, in which the salivary pH values returned to baseline pH 1 h after drinking stevia-sweetened tea, suggest stevia's potential as a non-cariogenic sweetener. Keywords: salivary pH, Stevia rebaudiana, sucrose, tea