Early Childhood Caries and Weight Status: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The purposes of this study were to: (1) examine the association between body weight status and caries experience; and (2) determine if overweight or underweight children are at greater risk of developing early childhood caries. A search of studies in PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar databases that tested the association of body weight with dental caries index in preschool children was conducted in April 2018. Studies' characteristics were extracted for the qualitative review, and means and standard deviations of decayed, missing, and filled teeth/surfaces (dmft/dmfs) index by body mass index standardized categories were retrieved for quantitative syntheses.