Severity of dental caries and risk of coronary heart disease in middle-aged men and women: a population-based cohort study of Korean adults, 2002-2013

Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 19;9(1):10491. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-47029-3.

Abstract

We aimed to evaluate the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) according to dental caries status in middle-aged patients using a population-based cohort database containing medical/dental claims, health examination, and death records in the Republic of Korea. A total of 234,597 patients were identified in the database who were without history of cardiovascular disease, including 104,638 patients without dental caries, 41,696 with incipient/moderate stage dental caries, and 88,262 advanced/severe dental caries. We used Cox proportional hazards model adjusted for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and medical characteristics to compute hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for CHD according to severity of dental caries. During 1,491,190 person-years of follow-up, there were a total of 6,015 CHD events. After adjustment for potential confounders, patients in the highest quartile of outpatient visits for advanced/severe stage dental caries was associated with an increase in CHD risk (HR = 1.13; 95% CI: 1.04-1.22) as compared with patients without dental caries. When the analysis was restricted to the patients with advanced/severe dental caries, dose-response relationship between number of outpatient visits for dental caries and risk of CHD was observed (Ptrend: <0.001). Prevention and control of dental caries might be worth promoting in clinical practice to prevent CHD.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cohort Studies
  • Coronary Disease / epidemiology
  • Coronary Disease / etiology*
  • Dental Caries / complications*
  • Dental Caries / epidemiology
  • Dental Caries / pathology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Proportional Hazards Models
  • Republic of Korea / epidemiology
  • Risk Factors
  • Severity of Illness Index
  • Socioeconomic Factors