Association between overweight/obesity and increased risk of periodontitis

Abstract

Objective: To investigate periodontitis as a co-morbidity of overweight/obesity in an age-matched sample of periodontitis cases or periodontally healthy controls.

Methods: Participants were periodontally assessed using whole mouth clinical periodontal measures. Multivariable conditional logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratio for diagnosis of periodontitis when body mass index (kg/m² ), overweight (BMI 25-29.99 kg/m² , or obese BMI ≥ 30 kg/m² ) were the explanatory variables. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated of all possible BMI (kg/m² ) cut-off points discriminating individuals for diagnosis of periodontitis.

Results: The study comprised 286 participants. BMI showed a dose-response association with increased odds (1.12 per increase of 1 kg/m² , 95% CI 1.05-1.20, p = 0.001) of being a case compared to a control independent of gender, ethnicity, smoking status and dental plaque level. Similarly overweight/obese were independently associated with increased odds of diagnosis of periodontitis for overweight (OR = 2.56, 95% CI 1.210-5.400, p = 0.014) and for obese (OR = 3.11, 95% CI 1.052-6.481, p = 0.015) compared to normal weight individuals. The ROC curve analysis confirmed diagnosis of periodontitis was 1.6 times more likely in an individual with the BMI ≥ 24.32 kg/m² .

Conclusions: Overweight/obese individuals are more likely to suffer from periodontitis compared to normal weight individuals in this case-control sample.

Keywords: body mass index; obesity; overweight; periodontitis.