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Dental caries, a so called "disease of civilization," seems to be worsening in the United States and appears to be related to the food that people eat. For these reasons, it seemed timely to hold a formal discussion onf the factors that bear on the problem, and the symposium on "Dietary Chemicals in Relation to Dental Caries" was organized and presented at the winter meeting of the American Chemical Society in 1966. Plans were laid from the beginning to publish this symposium, but absence of a critical paper on amino acids and proteins introduced delays. When Abraham E. Nizel, of the School of Dental Medicine, Tufts University, graciously accepted the invitation to fill this gap and submitted his paper in the fall of 1968, the other authors were invited to up-date their papers top early or mid-1970. By the time his paper was ready for revision, Robert C. Caldwell had been appointed Dean of the School of Dentistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleague at the University of Alabama School of Dentistry, Joe P. Thomas, agreed to supervise the revision. The resulting volume is a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the major food-related factors that enter into tooth decay and its prevention. While it may not have all the answers, it does present the results on the major lines of effort on both cariogenic and cariostatic influences and will serve as a sound base for future research.
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