Abstract
Introduction It is known that cognitive impairment is linked to aging and neurobiological, psychological, and social factors. Recently, however, mastication and the number of teeth has also attracted attention, with a previous case control study reporting a correlation between the loss of teeth and Alzheimer's disease. Objective To investigate possible relationships between cognitive function and various demographic variables, stress, medical history, and number of natural teeth in a specified female population. Materials & Methods A sample of the Saudi female population, 40–65 years of age, who visited the King Khalid University College of Dentistry (Abha, Saudi Arabia), was studied. Education, occupation, perceived stress, and medical history, along with the number of remaining teeth, were assessed. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to assess cognitive performance and the results were statistically analyzed. Results Subjects were divided into those with mild, moderate, and severe impairment based on MMSE score; the association between age, education, occupation, medical history, and cognitive function demonstrated statistically significant results. Fifty percent of subjects with 0–16 teeth exhibited severe cognitive impairment. Of the cognitive abilities, attention, recall, and language skills were linked to the number of remaining teeth. When subjects were categorized into only high and low cognitive impairment based on MMSE score, regression analysis did not reveal a significant correlation between any of the studied variables and cognitive impairment. Conclusion Results of the present study add to the recent data and head towards the theory of likely connection between the number of teeth and hippocampus-dependent cognitive functioning. Results of regression analysis revealed an absence of conclusive relation in the latter part of study. Longitudinal analyses including comprehensive clinical dental data with brain-imaging will shed further light on probable causal relationship(s).
Highlights
It is known that cognitive impairment is linked to aging and neurobiological, psychological, and social factors
Investigators based in the United States have reported that the annual progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia occurs at a rate of 5.9%, which is significantly higher than the rate of progression of normal cognition to dementia, which is approximately 0.6% [2]
When years of education were considered and associated with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, severe impairment was observed in all subjects who reported 0–5 years of education
Summary
It is known that cognitive impairment is linked to aging and neurobiological, psychological, and social factors. To investigate possible relationships between cognitive function and various demographic variables, stress, medical history, and number of natural teeth in a specified female population. Subjects were divided into those with mild, moderate, and severe impairment based on MMSE score; the association between age, education, occupation, medical history, and cognitive function demonstrated statistically significant results. When subjects were categorized into only high and low cognitive impairment based on MMSE score, regression analysis did not reveal a significant correlation between any of the studied variables and cognitive impairment. Results of the present study add to the recent data and head towards the theory of likely connection between the number of teeth and hippocampus-dependent cognitive functioning. Other possibilities that have emerged in the past decade as likely factors in the context of cognitive impairment include mastication and the number of teeth. Research involving animals and humans has proposed a probable causal connection between mastication and cognitive impairment [5]
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