The effectiveness of pineapple extract (Ananas comosus) as a natural tooth whitening.

Smiling is essential for teeth appearance. Therefore, teeth whitening or bleaching is one of the most popular conservative dental treatments to improve aesthetics. Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical teeth-whitening ingredient that often causes side effects such as demineralization and sensitive teeth. Thus, developing alternative materials using natural ingredients is needed. Pineapple fruit (Ananas comosus) contains bromelain enzymes which can remove extrinsic stains on tooth enamel. This research aims to determine the effect of pineapple flesh extract (Ananas comosus) as a natural tooth whitening agent. This research was an experimental laboratory study using 32 samples of post-extraction teeth soaked in black tea solution and divided into 2 groups. The test sample group was smeared with pineapple flesh extract, and the negative control group was soaked in distilled water. Tooth color was measured using a spectrophotometer, and the data obtained were analysed using the normality test with the Shapiro Wilk, Paired Sample T-test and homogeneity test with the Levene Test. The normality test showed a value of p> 0.05, indicating that all data were normally distributed. The homogeneity test demonstrated a value of p> 0.05, indicating that all data were homogeneous. The Paired Sample T-test showed that the significance value of pineapple flesh extract and distilled water was p<0.05, indicating a significant difference between before and after treatment. Therefore, the conclusion would state that pineapple flesh extract (Ananas comosus) was 100% less effective as an external tooth whitening agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]