Dental caries in relation to nutritional stress in early English child populations.

This research studied an association between dental caries prevalence in the primary dentition and cribra orbitale, an indicator of nutritional stress in archeological populations. Skeletal remains of 221 British children (Pre-Roman to Late Medieval) were examined, of whom 100 had orbital material available. Dental caries, as dmfs, was related to the presence of cribra orbitale (none, slight, moderate, or severe). Thus, data for 50 children showed a statistically significant association (P less than 0.005) between caries prevalence and cribra orbitale using the Fisher Exact Test, suggesting that nutritional stress is an associated factor in caries etiology in children.