How fast we lose teeth in old age has been linked to a person's risk of dying in a comprehensive new study, emphasizing the importance of good oral health, and suggesting tooth loss could be a key indicator of other serious health problems.
Tooth loss has been connected to mortality before – generally, fewer teeth means a greater chance of an earlier death – but until now, there hasn't been any data on how losing teeth more quickly might affect this association.
To get that data, a team led by researchers from Sichuan University in China looked at tooth loss in 8,073 elderly people, tracking the rate at which they lost teeth against mortality, across an average of 3.5 years.
"Among older adults, the risk of all-cause mortality significantly increased with a more rapid progression of tooth loss, regardless of baseline tooth count," write the researchers in their published paper.
This relationship was still present even after adjusting for several other factors that can have an influence on health and disease, including sex, age, education level, drinking habits, and levels of regular exercise.
The researchers aren't suggesting that quickly losing your teeth can kill you. Rather, health issues leading to tooth loss may also be shortening your life. So tooth loss could be used as an indicator to assess someone's overall health and mortality risk.
