Childhood caries is associated with poor health and a faster pace of aging by midlife.

Objectives: Childhood caries is associated with poorer self-rated general health in adulthood, but it remains unclear whether that holds for physical health and aging. The aim of this study was to identify whether age-5 caries is associated with (a) biomarkers for poor physical health, and (b) the pace of aging (PoA) by age 45 years.

Methods: Participants are members of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study birth cohort. At age 45, 94.1% (n = 938) of those still alive took part. Data on age-5 caries experience and age-45 health biomarkers were collected. The PoA captures age-related decline across the cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, immune, dental and pulmonary systems from age 26 to 45 years. We used (a) generalized estimating equations to examine associations between age-5 caries and poor physical health by age 45 years, and (b) ordinary least squares regression to examine whether age-5 caries was associated with the PoA. Analyses adjusted for sex, perinatal health, childhood SES and childhood IQ.

Results: High caries experience at age-5 was associated with higher risk for some metabolic abnormalities, including BMI ≥30, high waist circumference, and high serum leptin. Those with high caries experience at age-5 were aging at a faster rate by age 45 years than those who had been caries-free.

Conclusions: Oral health is essential for wellbeing. Poor oral health can be an early signal of a trajectory towards poor health in adulthood. Management for both conditions should be better-integrated; and integrated population-level prevention strategies should be foundational to any health system.