Venezuelan children who ate a special cavity-fighting candy that stuck to their teeth were found to have 62 percent fewer cavities than those who brushed their teeth regularly, researchers said Tuesday.

Children in the study were testing the effectiveness of BasicMints, an experimental fluoride-free treatment designed to mimic a component in human saliva that neutralizes acids in the mouth that can erode tooth enamel.

Researchers at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, who developed the active compound in the mints known as CaviStat, tested them in 200 children in Venezuela aged 10 1/2 to 11 who were getting their adult molars but still had some baby teeth left.

"Unlike regular candies, we want this product to be stuck in the teeth," said Mitchell Goldberg, president of Ortek Therapeutics Inc, a privately held company in Roslyn Heights, New York, that licensed the technology from Stony Brook.

Half the children in the study took two of the medicated mints in the morning after brushing with a fluoride toothpaste. They followed the same routine at night. The other half brushed normally twice daily with fluoride toothpaste and took plain sugarless mints.

After 12 months, children who took the cavity-fighting mints had 61.7 percent fewer cavities than the placebo group.

The soft mints are designed to be dissolved and chewed into the biting surfaces of the back teeth, where about 90 percent of cavities in children occur.

Goldberg said in a telephone interview that unlike sugarless gum, which fights cavities by temporarily increasing the flow of saliva in the mouth, the mints actively neutralize acids that cause cavities.

(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2008)