Oral Sugar Clearance in Children Compared with Adults

Abstract

The aim of the present investigation was to study oral sugar clearance of various types of foodstuffs in children of different ages in comparison with adults. Thirty children and 20 adults were selected constituting five groups, each containing 10 individuals: 3-, 7-, 15-year-olds and adults, all with normal salivary secretion rate, and adults with low salivary secretion rate (dry mouth patients). Oral sugar clearance was studied using three glucose-containing products: solution, tablet and biscuit. Repeated saliva samples were collected every other minute, between 1 and 11 min after the intake, with a convenient method suitable for very young children. For that purpose, a small circular paper disc, absorbing approximately 20 μl of saliva, was placed under the tongue for 10 s. The glucose concentration of the samples was then analyzed enzymatically. The results showed that, in children, the oral sugar clearance became faster with increasing age. The adults and the 15-year-olds had similar patterns of clearance, while the dry mouth patients had the slowest oral clearance of all groups. The 3- and 7-year-olds showed the greatest variation in oral clearance between the various foodstuffs; the solution had faster clearance than both the biscuit and the tablet. The main conclusion from this study is that young children (3- and 7-year-olds) have both slower salivary sugar clearance and larger variation in clearance among various foodstuffs than older children and adults.

Oral Sugar Clearance in Individuals with Oral Motor Dysfunctions

“…The average sugar retention time for the control group was 3-6 min, which is in agreement with earlier studies [Hase et al, 1987;Hase and Birkhed, 1988;Crossner et al, 1991]. The corresponding value for nonagenarians has been reported to be around 25 min [Lundgren et al, 1997], for hospitalised elderly 30 min [Hase et al, 1987] and for patients with myotonic dystrophy 12 min [Engvall and Birkhed, 1997].…”

Effect of Amoxicillin Use on Oral Microbiota in Young Children

“…Therefore, in addition to the presence of amoxicillin in the saliva and gingival crevicular fluid, which would occur in all patients after amoxicillin use, it is possible that young children have an additional antibiotic challenge, as the antibiotic suspension itself may also be able to persist in the oral cavity. Hence, other studies have demonstrated that oral suspensions of carbohydrates can remain in the oral cavity for over 1 h (11) and that young children (age, 3 to 7 years old) have a slower salivary clearance than older children and adults (6).…”

Salivary Clearance from Different Regions of the Mouth in Children

“…As these estimations were done by using chambers of 6 mm in diameter, and the sur face area was found to have a significant influence on the rate of clearance [Lecomte and Dawes, 1987], it is difficult to compare their results with those from the children's mouths. Recently, Crossner et al [1991] measured the glu cose clearance in children and adults and concluded that the clearance time (the time required for the glucose con centration in saliva to drop to 5 mmol/1) of children was longer than that of adults. However, in that study, the same amount of glucose solution was used for both chil dren and adults, and the initial salivary glucose concentra tion (1 min after intake) for children was much higher than that for adults.…”