As caries is a most common affliction of teeth, which are predominantly composed of inorganic elements, it was considered worthwhile to determine their elemental composition and to find if it bears any relation to caries formation. For this purpose, 35 inorganic elements were determined in 15 non-carious and an equal number of carious whole teeth after their dissolution in nitric acid. The results showed that out of 35 elements, strontium was the only element found to be present in significantly lower amount in carious teeth, thus strongly suggesting that its deficiency may help form caries. The decrease in Ca, Mg, Ti, P, Li, Be, V, Ni, Zn, Nb, Ag, Cd, Sb, Ba, La , W, Pb, and Bi and slight increase in K, Cr, Cu, and As was not statistically significant. However, statistically significantly greater amount of boron, manganese, molybdenum, and fluorine in the carious teeth indicates towards their possible role in predisposing or causing dental caries.

In order to determine any possible relation between chemical composition of a person's blood to formation of dental caries, whole blood was analyzed for 35 inorganic elements (Si, Al, Fe, Ca, Mg, K, Mn, Ti, P, Li, Be, B, V, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Y, Nb, Mo, Ag, Cd, Sn, Sb, Ba, La, Ce, W, Pb, Bi, Zr, and F) in the 15 people having sound teeth as well as an equal number of those having multiple caries. The results showed the absence of 13 elements (Si, Al, Mn, Ti, Be, Co, As, Y, Cd, Ba, La, Ce, and Zr) in the blood of both groups. Of the remaining 22 elements, the results of only seven elements (Fe, P, B, V, Sr, Sn, and F) were significantly different between the two groups. The most remarkable finding of this study was significantly decreased amount of phosphorus, strontium, and fluorine and perhaps increased boron in the blood of persons with caries.

ABSTRACT

The administration of strontium salt is known to be beneficial for bones in preventing calcium loss and osteoporosis. Therefore, we decided to study if strontium treatment affects calcium release from teeth in vitro. Extracted carious as well as non-carious teeth were washed, cleaned, and dried. These were individually immersed in 25 ml of 1% lactic acid at 37 degrees C for 24 h, and the amount of calcium released was measured. The rate of calcium release from these teeth was again determined after their exposure to M/4 strontium chloride for 1 month at 37 degrees C. It was found that: (1) the rate of calcium release from non-carious teeth was significantly higher than carious teeth, possibly because there was more calcium present, (2) the rate of calcium release was almost halved after strontium treatment in both groups of teeth, (3) the Vicker's microhardness of non-carious teeth was higher than those of carious teeth, and (4) strontium treatment did not affect hardness. Strontium treatment may be beneficial in reducing loss of calcium from intact teeth-non-carious as well as carious-and this beneficial effect of strontium is unrelated to change in teeth hardness.

ABSTRACT