Functional Foods: Towards Improving Oral Health

The aim of this special issue is to provide a foundation on which further research for the development of compounds from food as possible candidates for improving oral health could be based. The maintenance of oral health can be invariably achieved by manipulating the oral microbiota toward a population of mixed species that is less likely to induce diseases such as gingivitis or caries. Dental caries and gingivitis are the most prevalent infectious diseases of humans and are due to the accumulation of dental plaque (a bacterial biofilm) on the tooth surface and at the gingival margin, respectively. There is evidence that certain beverages and foods can protect against caries and gingivitis. However the use of foodstuffs (functional foods) as a starting point for frac-tionation of compounds that influence the composition of the oral microbiota to one that is beneficial or at least nonpathogenic has been the focus of intensive research [1]. An advantage of this approach is that such natural agents are likely to be nontoxic. Furthermore, the identified active components can be used as food supplements negating the necessity to adhere to a particular diet as discussed by Shmuely et al. [2]. Perhaps most important advantage of searching for such dietary agents is that approval of clinical trials is easier to obtain, as toxicity is usually not an issue. Interestingly, dietary agents often lack bactericidal activity but retain their ability to manipulate the oral microbiota by exhibiting other important properties for example antiadhesion or antibiofilm activities. Such agents may be expected to decrease the selection pressure placed on resistant strains and therefore reduce their emergence in biofilm communities. The collection of manuscripts in this special issue is mainly composed of research articles and one review article. The latter highlights the importance of food intake with emphasis on the effect of Mediterranean diet on oral health, discussed by G. A. Scardina and P. Messina. All the research articles represent methodological studies by a coherent group of investigators (Investigators from 7 academic institutions and an industrial partner representing 5 countries well as an industrial partner, Givaudan). The consortium and project were named NUTRIDENT and was a C 2.2M specific targeted research project entitled " Towards functional foods for oral health care-isolation, identification and evaluation of beverage and food components with anti-caries and/or anti-gingivitis activities. " It was funded from within the Framework Programme 6 (FP6)—Thematic Priority 5: Food Quality and …