A obesidade está associada à cárie dentária na dentição decídua?: resultados de uma Coorte de nascimentos no sul do Brasil

Abstract

Obesity and dental caries share common risk factors, such as an individual's diet and an unfavorable socioeconomic position. Although this issue has been broadly discussed in the literature, it is unclear whether there is an association between these two variables. Therefore, the aim of this study is to verify the association between overweight/obesity and the occurrence of dental caries in children, among the participants of the 2015 Birth Cohort Study in the city of Pelotas/RS. This longitudinal study used data obtained from perinatal, 24 and 48-month follow-ups. The exposure was overweight/obesity, assessed through general anthropometric measures (weight and height) and defined according to the parameters preconized by the World Health Organization. As confounding factors, demographic, maternal education and family income were used. The outcome was dental caries at 48 months, evaluated through the simplified ICDAS index. Two outcomes were assessed: dental caries experience, encompassing since white spots to filled teeth, and cavitated lesions. The present study was approved by the Ethics Research Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Pelotas, under approval No. 717.271. From the 4,275 participants eligible, 3,375 children (50.5% boys and 49.5% girls) composed the analytical sample. At 24 months, 2,475 (73.3%) children were eutrophic (95% CI 71.8; 74.8) and 900 (26.7%) presented overweight/obesity (95% CI 17.5; 20.1 and 95% CI 7.0; 8.0). In relation to caries prevalence at 48 months, 37.6% children had dental caries experience, and 26.3% had cavitated lesions. Among children classified as eutrophic at 24 months, 38.5% presented dental caries experience at 48 months. Among obese children, the prevalence of dental caries experience was 34.8%. A similar pattern was observed for cavitated lesions: the prevalence was of 26.4% among eutrophic children, the same 26.4% among overweight, and 25.5% among obese children. The adjusted Poisson regression analysis using confounding factors showed no different between groups. In conclusion, our cohort study in Brazilian children of 48 months did not observe any association between overweight/obesity and dental caries in the primary dentition. Our indings suggest that obesity in childhood should not be considered a risk factor for caries development in children.