Influence of the Replacement of Dietary Sucrose by Maltose in Solid and in Solution on Rat Caries

The incidence of fissure caries was determined in Sprague-Dawley and Osborne-Mendel rats housed in a frequency-controlled feeding machine and fed diets containing 67% sucrose, maltose or corn starch. The effect on caries of reducing the sugar content of the diets to 35% and of supplying the sugars as 20% solutions to Osborne-Mendel rats was also observed. Caries was negligible in the rats fed a corn starch diet and there was a non-significant tendency for fewer lesions to appear in the rats fed maltose compared with sucrose. The high and low maltose diets produced less caries than the sucrose diets of the same strength, and the high sugar diets were associated with more caries than the low sugar diets. However, both of these trends were not statistically significant. No severe fissure lesions were detected in rats drinking either sucrose or maltose solutions and there was a non-significant trend for there to be fewer lesions in the sucrose group. No smooth surface lesions occurred in either group.