Assessing the impact of immersing teeth in fresh orange juice and commercial orange juice on enamel hardness: An in vitro study

The pH of orange juice is below the critical pH of the enamel. Lately, consumption of orange juice has considerably increased because of its commercial availability. This study aims to investigate the impact of immersion time and juice types, both fresh and packaged, on enamel hardness. 60 premolars were immersed in fresh orange juice (n = 30) and commercial juice (n = 30) for 30 and 60 min and assessed the obtained data using repeated analysis of variance, Friedman test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and independent t-test. Enamel hardness decreased (P < 0.05) at every assessed time, and the commercial juice immersion significantly decreased the enamel hardness (P < 0.05). This study infers that enamel hardness is adversely affected by the pH, citric acid concentration, and immersion time of the orange juice.