Association Between Bruxism and Salivary Cortisol Levels: A Systematic Review

The objective of this study was to verify the existence of an association between daytime and/or nighttime bruxism and the levels of cortisol in patients that carry this parafunction. A systematic review of observational studies were conducted in the following databases: PubMed; OVID and VHL (Virtual Health Library, LILACS, IBECS; MEDLINE and Scielo), until January of 2016 and without language restriction. An evaluation of titles and abstracts was conducted, followed by the full reading of the articles to determine which researches would be included. Observational studies that associated daytime and nighttime bruxism with salivary cortisol levels were included. Evaluation of the methodological quality was performed and extraction of data from the researches included. Two articles were included in this review. One of them showed moderate positive correlation between the BiteStrip scores and the levels of salivary cortisol in patients with bruxism. On the other hand, the other research demonstrated that children with sleep bruxism are more likely to have low levels of salivary cortisol. There is no conclusive evidence of association between bruxism and salivary cortisol.