The radical increase in consumption of acidic (sour) candies amongst children and teenagers are considered a significant public health concern. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the erosive potential of sour candy in comparison with their regular counterparts at different times of exposure. Sixteen prepared tooth samples were randomly assigned into four groups, namely: sour candy (n=8), regular candy (n=8); each of these was prepared to have protected (unexposed) and exposed surfaces in respective candy solutions for 15 min and 2hrs (n=4). An Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) was used to measure the surface roughness (Ra) between the exposed and unexposed enamel surfaces for each sample group. The mean Ra measured were used for statistical analysis whilst the elemental loss was assessed using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDX). The findings showed that sour candy significantly eroded the exposed enamel samples (P<0.01). Overall, the samples exposed to the sour candy for 2hrs had the highest eroded Ra values. The study suggests that frequent and long-time consumption of sour candies may pose a negative impact on the tooth as they found to be highly erosive.

Keywords: Candy; erosion, tooth enamel, sour candy.