Obesity and dental caries--A systematic review.

PURPOSE The purpose of this paper was to undertake a systematic review about the relationship between obesity in childhood, adolescence and/or adulthood and the prevalence of dental caries. METHODS The authors searched Bireme, Medline, ISI, Cochrane Library and the internet for papers from 1984-2004. The main search terms were 'obesity' and 'dental caries'. The inclusion criteria were studies that defined obesity (body mass index) and dental caries (total number of decayed, and filled teeth - DFT/DFS/dft/dfs) in their subjects. The following were excluded from this paper: articles on reviews, dietary guidelines, policy statements, papers related to oral health and nutrition deficiency--underweight, and with no relation between obesity and dental caries prevalence or dental health problems. RESULTS No systematic review has focused on correlating obesity and caries and only three stud ies had high levels of evidence. CONCLUSION Only one study with high level of evidence showed direct association between obesity and dental caries. In view of the findings, further well-designed randomised studies are needed to demonstrate the relationship between dental caries and obesity.