High-fluoride paste may prevent white spots from braces

The special paste with almost four times the usual fluoride content helped prevent about a third of the chalky-looking spots among kids between the ages of 11 and 16 years old, researchers say. “To reduce this effect, several products are available on the market, but evidence of the effectiveness of the products is lacking,” said Mikael Sonesson, lead author of the study and an orthodontist at Malmö University. To see whether a high-fluoride toothpaste that patients could use at home would protect against the spots, more than 400 kids at five dental practices who were scheduled to get braces were recruited starting in 2008. They were randomly divided into two groups, with about half receiving a paste containing 5,100 parts per million fluoride to use at home and the other half receiving paste that was similar in every way, except it contained 1,450 ppm fluoride – the amount in most standard commercial brands, according to the researchers.