“…More re cently, LDH has been implicated in reducing the severity of dental caries in rats [Bibby et al, 1985], The availability of suitable cariogenic diets [Navia et al, 1969] and the development of caries scoring tech niques [König et al, 1958;Green and Hartles, 1967] has enabled laboratory rats to be used extensively as reliable models for studying the effects of various fac tors on dental caries [Navia, 1977;Bowen et al, 1980;Firestone and Navia, 1988;Shern, 1988]. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the addition of LDH to high and low sucrose in the diet and drinking water may be important in reducing the number and severity of caries lesions in laboratory rats.…”