Use of amazonian fruits in dental bleaching

Natural products stand out for their chemical diversity, thus plants are important candidates for screening new bioactive compounds. This study evaluated the effect of plant extracts combined with 16% carbamide peroxide (PC16%) on tooth whitening. Bovine teeth and composite resin blocks were randomly assigned to pigmentation and whitening protocols. For pigmentation, they were immersed in diluted coffee (14 days), and whitening was performed by mixing 1g of plant extract from each species and 0.5mL of PC16% (9 days). The extracts were prepared from fruits of species occurring in the Amazon biome: Myrciaria dubia (Myrtaceae), Bactris gasipaes (Arecaceae), Euterpe oleracea (Arecaceae), Theobroma grandiflorum (Malvaceae), and Paullinia cupana (Sapindaceae). PC16% was used alone as control, and a group without whitening was also included. Color analysis was performed using ΔE2000, ΔE1976, and WhiteIndex through an EasyShade Advanced 4.0 spectrophotometer before and after the protocols. The pH of the extracts at a concentration of 10% and micrographs after whitening were analyzed. Data were analyzed by one-dimensional ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc test. Pigmentation showed significance only for bovine teeth (p 0.05). The pH of the pupunha and guaraná-de-maués extracts approached that of PC16%. Micrographs show that only the cupuaçu group had no surface alteration. Further research is needed to investigate variation factors, particularly given the study's limitations.