the effect of dried fruits consumption on dental plaque ph

Introduction: in this randomized controlled clinical trial, we evaluated the effect of three dried fruits (date, raisin, and apricot) in comparison to 40% sucrose and sorbitol solutions (as positive and negative controls, respectively) on the ph of dental plaque. materials and methods: 20 healthy dental students were requested to stop their oral hygiene 24 hours before and also avoid eating and drinking 2.5 hours before each session for five sessions. at each session, initial ph was measured using a ph meter electrode. then, 20 grams of the randomly selected food was chewed, spread in the mouth, and swallowed after 5 minutes. the ph of the dental plaque was measured 1, 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes after consumption. data were analyzed using repeated-measure anova (p < 0.05). results: following consumption of date, raisins, and apricots, the plaque ph loss was significantly higher than that of sorbitol at both 1,5 minutes (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference between these groups in comparison to sucrose in these intervals (p > 0.05). comparison of ph changes after 10, 20, and 30 minutes did not show statistically significant differences between any of the groups (p > 0.05). in the sucrose and apricot groups, ph significantly decreased compared to its initial ph (p = 0.006 and p < 0.0001, respectively), but there was no significant difference in date, raisins, and sorbitol (p < 0.05). conclusion: the results indicated that date, raisin, and apricot could reduce dental plaque ph similar to sucrose and significantly higher than sorbitol. however, no significant difference was observed in reducing plaque ph at different time intervals between other dried fruits.  keywords: apricot; dried fruit; dental plaque; dental caries.