The Relationship Between Nutritional Status and Dental Caries in a Group of Healthy Children Aged Between 6 to 12 Years Admitted to Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of Hacettepe University Faculty of Dentistry

Abstract

Aim: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between nutritional status and dental caries in a group of healthy children, aged between 6 to 12 years, referred to Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of Hacettepe University, Faculty of Dentistry. Subjects and Methods: Oral diagnosis of 134 children (63 boys, 71 girls), who did not require any specific dietary needs with regard to chronic diseases were performed by one dentist in the pediatric dentistry clinic. Families completed a questionnaire including questions about demographical characteristics and oral health status of children. 24-hour food recalls were also obtained. The dietary carbohydrate, glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, starch, total monosaccharide, total disaccharide intakes were calculated by using BeBIS4 software program. The relationship between dental caries and nutritional status were performed by using SPSS 15. Results: Mothers and fathers educational level with primary school and below, bachelor’s degree and above were 43.3%, 29.8% and 14.8%, 32.8%, respectively. Out of total,4.5% of the children were not breastfeed and 46.7% of the children were breastfed for the first 6 months of age. A weak positive relation was found between the duration of breastfeeding and the missing in permanent teeth (p=0.38). 24.6% of the children aged between 0-1 did not used feeding bottle. No significant relation between status of using the bottle-feeding and decayed, missed, filled teeth in primary teeth and permanent teeth and dmft/DMFT index was found (p>0.05). The frequency of decayed teeth was 64.9% and 23.9% for the primary and permanent teeth, respectively. A strong positive relation between maltose and DMFT was found (p<0.01). Also a weak negative relation between glucose, starch and DMFT was found (p<0.05). Conclusion:With the increase of maltose, glucose and starch in the diet, increase in DMFT index was observed among school children.