Tooth enamel softening with a cola type drink and rehardening with hard cheese or stimulated saliva in situ.

The in-situ remineralization effect of hard cheese was compared with that of saliva on tooth enamel in man. The intra-oral test of softening enamel surfaces by a cola type drink followed by rehardening by chewing hard cheese and/or parafilm was assessed by microhardness and SEM measurements. Cheese consumption significantly increased the enamel hardness, whereas stimulated saliva did not have this effect. The remineralizing effects are presumably due to uptake of calcium and phosphate salts by the surface enamel. Morphologically, the enamel surfaces did not return to their original state.