School:  University of Debrecen - Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences and Environmental Management

Category: Nutracetical

Short description: Chewing-gum with natural flavonoids, anthocyanins which inhibit the saliva alpha-amilase activity .

Dental caries is considered to be a chronic oral diseases worldwide, according to WHO, it affects more than 75% of all adults. It is more common than asthma, hay fever, or chronic bronchitis in 5 to 17-year-old children. Our product is a novel functional chewing gum for caries prevention. Its active ingredient is a sour cherry extract from Hungarian varieties that, due to its high anthocyanin content, is having preventive anti-caries effect proven by clinical test. Unlike the conventional melting technology, it is produced with direct compression (similarly to pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements) so the beneficial ingredients do not deteriorated by high temperature as it happens during the conventional melting technology. The product has several advantages: gluten-free, lactose-free, does not contain soy lecithin, phenylalanine or added sugar, free from any artificial colourant. The primary target consumers of the product are children and youngsters. The technological innovation of our work regards how the dense extract is applied to the base material from which the chewing gum is compressed.