Sialagogic Effect of a New Mouthwash for Relieving Oral Dryness

Background/purpose: Oral dryness is known to cause several oral disorders, including candidiasis, glossitis, atrophy of the oral mucosa, dysgeusia and multiple caries. Recently, it has been noted that not only older people, but an increasing number of younger people are suffering from oral dryness as they become less able to accommodate to the range of emotional and physical environment changes, becoming overstressed and developing symptoms of depression as a result. Oral dryness is thus now a condition that affects people across the generations. The authors have previously developed an agent that is both simple and capable of providing not only hydration, but also total oral dryness care, and they have reported its potential effect. In this study, whether this newly developed oral dryness care agent increased the amount of saliva produced and contributed to moisture retention was investigated in individuals of different generations. Materials and methods: The young subjects (45 men) and the geriatric subjects (19 men, 27 women) washed their mouth with each mouthwash. Unstimulated salivary and stimulated salivary secretions were measured before mouth washing and immediately after (0 min) and 30 min and 60 min after mouth washing. Results: The present results showed that, with the exception of saliva secreted by young subjects with stimulation, the test mouthwash significantly increased the amount of saliva secreted by all age groups, both at rest and with stimulation, compared with the control mouthwash, and this effect was persistent. Conclusion: The present results suggest that the agent tested may be useful as a new mouthwash for relieving oral dryness, and it promoted saliva secretion in different age groups.