The Effect of Cucumber Fruit (Cucumis Sativus L) on pH Saliva at The Rapha-EL Orphanage Foundation

Increasing the pH of saliva will affect oral health. One way to increase the pH of saliva is to chew fruit that is fibrous, crunchy and contains lots of water. The research objective was to determine the effect of cucumber on salivary pH at the Bina Mandiri Social Orphanage. This type of research is a one group pretest and posttest group design. The study population was the children at the Rapha-El Orphanage Foundation. The sample size is determined based on the Roscoe formula of 20 people. Methods of data collection by measuring the pH of saliva before and after chewing cucumbers using a digital pH meter. The data that has been collected, then analyzed by paired t test. The results showed that there was a difference in the average pH of saliva before and after chewing cucumber (p = 0.001). The conclusion is that there is an effect of chewing cucumber on increasing the pH of saliva in children at the RaphaEl Orphanage Foundation. .


Introduction
Oral health is a condition that shows that in the mouth such as debris, tartar, and plaque. If oral hygiene is neglected, plaque will form on the teeth and will spread to the entire surface of the teeth 1 .
Maintenance efforts that can be made to maintain healthy teeth and mouth by means of mechanics, chemis, and modification of mechanical and chemical methods. Currently, to clean teeth and mouth using a mechanical method, namely by brushing the teeth. In addition, other additional maintenance efforts that support natural teeth cleaning can be done by eating fruits. 2 Saliva is a thick fluid which is produced by the salivary glands, parotid glands, sublingual glands, and submandibular glands located under the tongue, near the cheek muscles, and near the palate (palate) in the mouth. 99.5% of the saliva content is water, while other substances consist of calcium, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium 3 .
The main function of the salivary glands is to secrete saliva into the oral cavity to help protect the mouth, maintain the condition of the mouth, digest food, and kill bacteria in the mouth. If there is no saliva or the amount of saliva drops drastically and stops protecting the teeth, the bad thing that will happen is reduced cleaning activity from bacteria and food traces from the mouth, reduced buffer due to changes in acid in the mouth, so that oral activity becomes more acidic. One way to measure the degree of acid or base is the Potential of Hydrogen (pH) Afrina et al (2018). The

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Journal Homepage: https://eurekabiomedical.com/index.php/EHI average normal pH in saliva is 6.7. 4 Several factors can cause changes in saliva, such as microorganisms present in the oral cavity, average salivary flow rate, and salivary buffer capacity 5 . To control the pH, volume, and thickness of saliva to remain normal, adequate nutrition is needed and the food in the oral cavity contains vitamin C so that the viscosity of saliva is lower, besides that by chewing food that contains lots of water, it can control the pH that exists. in the mouth which also affects the pH of saliva 3 .

Methods
This research is a pre-experimental study with one group interpretation and posttest group design. This In this study, the tools and materials used were: digital pH meter, plastic container, plastic mouthwash, measuring cup, mask, gloves, and tissue.
The research procedures were as follows: Distributing informed consent and research explanation to respondents, the sample was instructed to rinse with mineral water for 30 seconds, measure the initial saliva pH score before chewing cucumber fruit treatment, giving cucumber 25 grams to chew for 1 minute then swallowed, The pH measurement of saliva after chewing cucumber, before and after chewing was collected using the spitting method for 5 minutes.
Saliva is collected in a plastic container, the saliva flow rate is obtained by measuring the volume of saliva in ml / minute, and recording the saliva pH results using a digital pH meter.

Result and discussion
The results of the study on age characteristics showed that the majority of respondents were 14-16 years old, as many as 11 people (55%), while only 9 respondents aged 11-13 years (45%). In terms of gender, the results showed that the majority of the sample were women, namely 12 people (60%), while the sample was male only 8 people (40%).
The   16,17,18,19,20 . From the results of this study, it was found that the pH of saliva before chewing cucumber was acidic and after the pH was alkaline.
Thus, from the results of this study it was shown that chewing cucumber can prevent dental caries.

Conclusion
The conclusion in this study is that there are