Use Of Essential Oils In Dentistry Against Dental Caries -A Review

Abstract

Dental caries pose a significant public health problem across the world affecting school children and a large
majority of adults as they contribute to a massive loss of natural teeth worldwide. The cause of dental caries is
the bacterial biofilm that shelters tooth surface and later causes tooth loss, therefore biomaterials such as
titanium dental implants are used to replace a missing tooth. Titanium implant is inserted into the jawbone to
replace the missing tooth; however, it can also fail due to bacteria that shelters their surface. Essential oils are
promising natural products and have been used for hundreds of years as natural medicines to fight a wide range
of pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses. As a results there has been an increased interest in the use
of essential oils because of their antifungal, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties. Antibiotic resistance is a
major health problem as microorganisms can survive and increase in the presence of antibiotics however the
chief benefit of natural products such as essential oils is that they do not increase antibiotic resistance compared
to the long-term use of synthetic antibiotics. When bacteria are treated with essential oils, these oils degrade
the cell membrane which is detrimental to the cytoplasmic membrane. Therefore, essential oils inhibit the
growth of pathogens by targeting the membrane and cytoplasm and, in some cases, they totally alter the
structure of the bacterial cell. Essential oils have shown great potential in the biomedicine field and therefore
their use in dentistry can be beneficial.