• J Chin Med Assoc · Jan 2025

    Associations between tooth loss, denture use, and dementia in older Taiwanese adults.

    • Yi-Wen Chen, Chung-Yi Li, Shang-Chi Lee, Li-Jung Elizabeth Ku, Yu-Tsung Chou, Arief Hargono, Chang-Ta Chiu, and Wen-Hsuan Hou.
    • Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.
    • J Chin Med Assoc. 2025 Jan 1; 88 (1): 435143-51.

    BackgroundThe literature has mainly focused on the association between tooth loss and dementia, and evidence regarding the separate and joint effects of tooth loss and denture use on the risk of dementia is limited. This study investigated the links among tooth loss, denture use, and dementia risk in Taiwanese adults aged 65 years or older.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study utilized data from the 2009 National Health Interview Survey and 2008-2017 National Health Insurance claim records, including the records of 2247 individuals free from dementia treatment in 2008-2009. Dementia diagnoses were tracked until 2017. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) for exploring the correlations among tooth loss, denture use, and dementia risk.ResultsOlder adults with 20 or more natural teeth and dentures had the lowest dementia incidence (1.43 per 100 person-years). Those with <20 natural teeth, with or without dentures, experienced high dementia incidence rates of 2.31 and 3.33 per 100 person-years, respectively. After adjusting for various factors (i.e., sociodemographic characteristics, health conditions/comorbidities, and lifestyles), having <20 natural teeth or not using dentures was associated with non-significantly increased HRs of 1.30 (95% CI, 0.99-1.71) and 1.20 (95% CI, 0.95-1.52). Subgroup analysis revealed that compared to older adults with 20 or more natural teeth and dentures, those with <20 natural teeth and not wearing dentures had a significantly increased risk of dementia (adjusted HR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.04-2.37).ConclusionThis study found that having <20 natural teeth and not using dentures was significantly associated with an increased risk of dementia in Taiwanese individuals aged 65 years or above.Copyright © 2024, the Chinese Medical Association.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…