Snack food intake of adolescents and caries development

The relationship between the frequency of eat-ing various snack foods, socioeconomic varia-bles, and an increment in caries was studied in 143 adolescents. There were negative correla-tions between DMFT increments and the fre-quency of apples, fruit juice, and sugarless gum intake, and a positive association of DMFT increments with chocolate candy intake and spending money. J Dent Res 45(6):568-573 June 1977. A considerable body of research evidence in-dicates that frequent consumption of sweet carbohydrate or snack foods leads to increased caries incidence. Although some laboratory and indirect clinical findings suggest that.sugar-containing foods may differ in their capacity to produce caries,23 there is little direct clin-ical evidence to demonstrate the relative car-iogenicity of specific carbohydrate snack items frequently consumed by children. It has been shown that consumption fre-quency and caries experience vary with socio-economic factors. Koch and Martinsson4'5 an-alyzed specific socioeconomic factors in a sample of 14-year-old Swedish children with demonstrated high and low caries incidence. The researchers used dietary histories obtained from the children's parents in their analysis. Investigation revealed a strong negative cor-This investigation was supported, in part, by th