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Uhlen MM, Stenhagen KR et al. Eur J Oral Sci 2016;124: 426–432

Dental erosion is perplexing. For example, despite acid exposure, not everyone demonstrates erosion. In addition, why do males have a higher prevalence and severity of erosion than females? The investigators posited that polymorphisms in genes involved in enamel formation, may affect the susceptibility of an individual to erosion. Ninety premolar teeth, extracted for orthodontic reasons, were subjected to erosive challenge with 0.01M HCl. Fifteen single nucleotide polymorphisms were analysed from salivary DNA. When examining terciles and quartiles, there were significant associations between erosion and amelogenin (closely related proteins involved in amelogenesis), X-linked tuftelin and tuftelin-interacting protein (may initiate the enamel mineralisation). Enamel loss was higher in those teeth extracted from males than females. So although females may be genetically less susceptible than males to dental erosion, simpler explanations may be that merely men exert greater masticatory forces or, as has been shown, women have thicker enamel.