JENA, Germany, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Eating two grapefruits a day for a fortnight helped those with bleeding gums caused by gum disease, according to German researchers.
Researchers at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found eating grapefruit had a positive effect on both the 58 smokers and non-smokers in the study, the BBC reports.
At the beginning of the two-week study, all participants had low levels of vitamin C in their blood plasma, but smokers' vitamin C level was 29 percent lower than that for non-smokers. At the end of the study, vitamin C plasma levels increased for all those who ate the grapefruit.
The vitamin C level almost doubled in smokers, but that was because they started from a lower baseline than non-smokers, the authors said.
"Intractable gum disease is the biggest cause of loss of teeth in adults," Gordon Watkins, a scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, told the BBC. "This is a small-scale, short-term study but it reinforces the message that if you have enough vitamin C in your diet, then it tends to promote healing."
The findings are published in the British Dental Journal.
Each grapefruit contains approximately 92.5 mg of vitamin C.
Those taking part in the research were advised not to brush their teeth immediately after consuming the grapefruits.
This is because citrus fruits are acidic and can weaken tooth enamel making it susceptible to erosion.
