Abstract
BackgroundThe relationship between dietary and drinking water habits and oral health are still unclear. We aimed at evaluating the association of dietary and drinking water habits with number of teeth in the elderly adults.MethodsWe conducted a longitudinal study based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 1998 to 2018. The data of dietary and drinking water habits at baseline were collected using a questionnaire. The number of teeth at baseline and follow-up was collected for each subject. We used the linear mixed-effect model to analyze the associations of dietary habits and drinking water sources with tooth number.ResultsAmong 19,896 participants at baseline, the mean age of the participants was 83.87 years, with the average number of natural teeth of 9.37, 8.26, 8.38, 8.68, 4.05, 1.92, 1.12, 2.20 for the first to eighth waves of survey. Compared with subjects drinking tap water, 1.036 (95 % CI: -1.206, -0.865), 0.880 (95 % CI: -1.122, -0.637) and 1.331 (95 % CI: -1.715, -0.947) fewer natural teeth were reported for those drinking well, surface water and spring at baseline survey. Compared with participants with rice intake as the staple food, those with wheat intake (β = -0.684; 95 % CI: -0.865, -0.503) tended to have fewer natural teeth. Compared with participants with fresh fruit intake almost every day, those with quite often intake of fresh fruit tended to have fewer teeth with a significant dose-response trend (Ptrend <0.001). Similar decreased trend for number of teeth was also indicated for increased frequency of vegetable intake (Ptrend <0.001). Fewer number of teeth was found for subjects with less frequency of meat and fish intakes.ConclusionsThe study suggested that drinking well, surface water, and spring, intakes of wheat as staple food, as well as less frequency of fresh fruit, vegetable, meat and fish intakes were associated with significantly fewer number of teeth in the Chinese elderly population.
Highlights
The relationship between dietary and drinking water habits and oral health are still unclear
The drinking water sources at round 60 years were from well water (56.03 %), tap water (26.95 %), surface water (13.25 %) and spring (3.76 %)
Sensitivity analysis In the first sensitivity analysis after mutually adjusted for the drinking habits, drinking water sources at around 60 years, type of staple food, frequency of fresh fruit intake, frequency of vegetable intake, frequency of intake meat and frequency of intake fish in the multivariable models, the association disappeared for meat intake. (Table 6) In the second sensitivity analysis excluding participants with physical and cognitive impairment, the results didn’t substantially change and were consistent with the main analysis. (Table 7) In the third sensitivity analysis, the associations of drinking water and dietary habits with number of natural teeth using multiple imputation dataset were consistent with those of main analysis. (Table 8). In this longitudinal study, we explored the effect of dietary intake/water sources on tooth loss
Summary
The relationship between dietary and drinking water habits and oral health are still unclear. We aimed at evaluating the association of dietary and drinking water habits with number of teeth in the elderly adults. [5] Several large cross-sectional studies have reported that impaired dentition status is associated with poor dietary intake. [6] Besides correlation with the foods, large cross-sectional study in elderly Japanese suggested that the number of teeth present had a significant relationship with the intake of several nutrients, in particular, total protein, animal protein, sodium, vitamin D, vitamin B1, vitamin B6, niacin, and pantothenic acid. We conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the relationship of dietary intakes and drinking water sources with number of teeth in the Chinese elderly population
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