Gorecki P, et al. – The clinicians conducted this study to assess the effect of preoperative supplementation with encapsulated fruit and vegetable juice powder concentrate (JuicePlus+) on postoperative morbidity and Quality of Life (QoL). They concluded that pre–operative supplementation with a fruit and vegetable supplement rich in antioxidant micronutrient (AM) could improve postoperative QoL and reduce surgical morbidity and post–operative complications after surgery.

• The clinicians performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled two-arm parallel clinical trial evaluating postoperative morbidity following lower third molar surgery.
• They randomized patients aged between 18 and 65 years to take verum or placebo for 10 weeks prior to surgery and during the first postoperative week.
• The initial endpoint was the between-group difference in QoL over the first postoperative week, with secondary endpoints being related to other measures of postoperative morbidity (pain and trismus).

• The clinicians randomized 238 patients.
• Out of them, 183 received surgery (Intention-To-Treat population).
• In the active group, postoperative QoL tended to be higher compared to the placebo group (p = 0.059).
• Moreover, comparing verum to placebo groups, reduction in mouth opening 2 days after surgery was 3.1 mm smaller (p = 0.042), the mean pain score over the postoperative week was 9.4 mm lower (p = 0.007) and patients were less likely to experience moderate to severe pain on postoperative day 2 (RR 0.58, p = 0.030).