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Are sodium lauryl sulfate–containing toothpastes suitable vehicles for xylitol?
Author(s) -
Assev Synnøve,
Wäler Sonni Mette,
Rolla Gunnar
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
european journal of oral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.802
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1600-0722
pISSN - 0909-8836
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0722.1997.tb00197.x
Subject(s) - xylitol , toothpaste , chemistry , polyol , dental plaque , food science , biochemistry , sodium dodecyl sulfate , dentistry , fermentation , organic chemistry , medicine , polyurethane
The hypothesis to be tested in this study was that toothpastes containing sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is unsuitable vehicles for xylitol. The bacteriostatic (and cariostatic) effect of xylitol is assumed to be caused by intracellular accumulation of xylitol‐5‐P in plaque bacteria. Experiments were designed to investigate whether presence of SLS would affect the uptake of xylitol by interacting with the bacterial membranes and thus inhibit xylitol‐5‐P formation. It was shown in an in vitro study that even very low concentrations of the strong anionic detergent SLS inhibited uptake of xylitol and xylitol‐5‐phosphate formation by dental plaque totally. The mild nonionic detergent ethoxylated stearyl alcohol (30x EO) had no such effect. In vivo experiments with toothpastes containing xylitol and either the strong or the mild detergent, showed that xylitol in toothpaste with SLS was not available for the plaque bacteria and gave no adaptation to xylitol, whereas in the presence of 30x EO it was available, and a xylitol adaptation was observed. Glucose metabolism, which was also studied for the plaque samples, was not significantly affected by presence of any of the 2 detergents, indicating that the amounts of xylitol in toothpastes were presumably too low to give clinical significant effects, even when mild detergents are used.