Relationship between oral health and mortality rate.

Background/aims: Some symptoms of diseases or causes of death are often related to oral health, especially cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between poor oral health and mortality risk, especially when cases of fatal cardiovascular diseases were excluded.

Material And Methods: An odontological investigation was made on a sample of 1393 individuals, aged 18-65 years, in 1970 in the County of Stockholm with a follow-up in 1997, when the mortality rate and causes of death in the sample during the time period 1971-1996 were registered. Oral health was defined as a sum of scores for number of missing teeth, apical lesions, caries lesions and marginal bone loss.

Results: A significant correlation was found between poor oral health and an increased mortality risk even when persons dying from cardiovascular diseases were excluded from the analyses.

Conclusion: Poor oral health was found to be a risk indicator of all-cause mortality. The lack of specificity of the associations between oral health and mortality strengthens the hypothesis that the significant correlations could be explained by not identified confounding factors.