Dental Status of Normal and Overweight Persons from Secondary Schools of Lodz

Background. To maintain oral health status, several determinants have to be taken into consideration. An increase of overweight among children and adolescents has been observed recently in many countries of the world, also in Poland. Is there an association between caries prevalence and body mass index? Objectives. The aim of the study was the assessment of dental caries among secondary school students from Lodz with a normal weight, overweight and obesity. Material and Methods. There were 487 examined students of both sexes, attending to the Lodz secondary schools: 119 junior high school students, 368 students from the secondary and catering vocational school. Eight age groups were selected, from 13 to 20 years old, which were next divided according to BMI index into 3 subgroups: with a normal weight (group I), overweight (group II) and obesity (group II). The research was carried out with diagnostic tools with the lighting of the head light system. The results were compared with the national cross-sectional surveys of the oral cavity condition and its factors from 2008 and 2010, and were statistically analyzed. Results. The overweight was noticed in 12.6% of the examined students and the obesity in 1.9% ones. The frequency of dental caries in the whole group was 85.4%, and the incidence was 4.26. For people with overweight (the group II) the indexes were accordingly: caries prevalence - 84.06% and caries experience - 4.30. The dental caries incidence was lower among the examined with the normal weight (group I) and it was 4.21. The proportion of caries free students was higher in the group of examined with greater BMI index (BMI > 95th percentile). DMF = 0 ranged from 14.6% persons in group I to 15.94% in group II. Among teenagers and adults with the normal weight the filling of the dental caries cavity was needed on average in one tooth, while in the group of overweight students it was needed in 1.32 teeth. The biggest differences in the number of teeth with the active dental caries were observed between 13-15 year-old students. There were statistically significant association found in the group of 14 year-old teenagers between weight status and the number of teeth requiring conservative treatment and in the value of dental caries experience. Slightly higher number of filled and extracted teeth was noticed in the group with the normal weight. The dental caries experience among the teenagers at the age of 15 and 18 living in Lodz with normal weight and overweight was lower than the one received in the monitoring of the oral cavity condition of people from the Lodz region in 2008. Conclusions. The research results showed the lack of statistic relationship between the body weight and the dental condition. For persons 15-18 years of age, there was no statistically significant difference in caries experience among the group with normal weight, overweight and obesity. Such differences appeared only in a group of 14 year-old overweight children