Abstract

Dr. Mini Sheth*, Harsha Hirdyani, Fatema Bandukwala and Neha S. Lotankar

ABSTRACT

Background: Oral health is an essential component of health throughout life. Millions of children suffer from oral problems. In India 60 to 65% population suffer from dental caries with 50 to 90% from periodontal diseases. Thus there is an urgent need to develop a strategy to prevent the increasing prevalence of dental diseases as indicated by OHI-S, by manipulating the resident microflora of oral cavity. Objective: To evaluate the impact of fructooligosaccharide supplementation to school going children and its effect on oral hygiene along with changes in oral Lactobacilli in mouth and in Bifidobacteria, Lactobacilliand E.coli in gut of children. Materials and methods: 255 children were enrolled (8-12years) in the study from the Primary school of urban Vadodara and were assessed for their oral hygiene status, using Oral hygiene index-simplified. Sixty children having fair oral hygiene were purposively selected and grouped as experimental and control group. Pre data was collected on their basic oral hygiene practices using a structured questionnaire. Oral Lactobacilli in saliva and gut Bifidobacterium and Lactobacilliwere determined using standard methods. Further, the experimental group was intervened with FOS (7g) in buttermilk (150 ml) and the control group was intervened with only buttermilk (150 ml) for period of 1 month. Results: The result of study revealed that at the baseline, most children (41.9%) suffered from fair and poor oral hygiene. The mean score for OHI-S at baseline was 2.003. Buttermilk and FOS added buttermilk intervention for 1 month resulted in improvement in mean score OHI by 70%. The intervention brought about an increase in gutBifidobacteria and Lactobacilli by 11.5% and 25% respectively, whereas the E.coli decreased by 17%.Oral Lactobacilli increased by 16.03%. Conclusion: The study concludes that daily dose of 7g of FOS along with buttermilk help improving clinical signs of oral hygiene in children and improves colonization of beneficial bacteria such as oral Lactobacilli,gut Bifidobacteria and gut Lactobacillialong with a reduction in colonization of E.coli in young school going childrenof urban Vadodara.