Association between oral health status and body mass index in older adults

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between oral health status and body mass index (BMI) in adults over 65 years old. Methods: The study subjects were 4,550 adults over 65 years old from the 5th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(KNHANES V) in 2010-2012. Mastication-related oral health status included the number of remaining teeth, and mean number of decayed, missing, and filled permanent teeth(DMFT). Body mass index(BMI, $kg/m^2$) was categorized as underweight(<18.5), normal weight (18.5-22.9), overweight(23.0-24.9), and obese(${\geq}25.0$). Multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the association of BMI categories with the number of remaining teeth and DMFT. Results: The mean number of DMFT was highest($13.0{\pm}0.7$) in the underweight group and lowest($8.8{\pm}0.3$) in the obese group. Those having less favorable masticatory ability, and fewer number of remaining teeth and no prosthesis, tended to be underweight. Those having a higher number of remaining teeth and prosthetic teeth tended to be overweight or obese. In the multinomial logistic regression analysis, compared with those having 20 or more remaining teeth, including prosthetic teeth, those having less than 20 remaining teeth and no prosthesis had 4.48 times higher odds ratio of being underweight. DMFT was positively associated with underweight, while negatively associated with overweight or obesity. Conclusions: The masticatory ability and dental caries prevention maintained the healthy body weight in adults of old age.

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