Better Dental Health, Longer Life: Studies

Tokyo, Jan. 5 (Jiji Press)--Regular dental checkups and early treatment will help older people live longer, recent research studies have suggested.

Associations between the number of teeth and all-cause mortality have already been found, but little is known about dental conditions that should specifically be looked at to predict the incidence of death.

In their study, Naoko Otsuki, a lecturer at Osaka Metropolitan University, and team members including from the University of Osaka analyzed fiscal 2018-2020 dental checkup data collected from 190,282 residents aged at least 75 in Osaka, with particular attention to the number of sound, filled and decayed teeth.

The researchers first observed that elderly people having no teeth were 1.7 times more likely to die for whatever cause compared with those with 21 teeth or more. Then they found that the combination of sound and filled teeth can predict all-cause mortality more accurately than sound teeth alone or sound, filled and decayed teeth combined.

Death risks go down as the total number of sound and filled teeth increases, they concluded, warning that leaving dental problems untreated will result in higher risks.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]