Dental Caries increases risks of Osteoporosis with pathological fractures, BMC study

This research identified 7 and 17 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for periodontitis and DMFS (the sum of Decayed, Missing, and Filled tooth Surfaces) as the instrumental factors for this study using summary-level GWAS meta-analysis data from the GLIDE collaboration. MR studies of these instruments were conducted on persons from the FinnGen consortium for OP, OP with pathological fracture, postmenopausal OP with pathological fracture, and site-specific fractures.

This was same for European adults for the relationship with BMD of the forearm, femoral neck, and lumbar spine. This study simultaneously evaluated the independent causative effects of PD and DMFS on various outcomes using single-variable Mendelian randomization (SVMR) and multivariable Mendelian randomization (MVMR). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) techniques were mostly used to produce the estimations. The weighted median, MR-egger, and leave-one-out test were among the sensitivity analyses.

The outcomes of this study found beneficial causative effect of DMFS on osteoporosis and postmenopausal OP with pathological fractures in MVMR after controlling for PD. Yet, the single-variable Mendelian randomization (SVMR) study did not reveal these causal linkages. Several sensitivity studies showed that the causal relationships were strong. Overall, dental caries suggests the presence of a teeth-bone axis by causally increasing the incidence of OP and postmenopausal OP with pathological fracture.

Source:

Zhang, G., Zheng, J., Zhou, Y., Zhou, M., Zhang, J., Liu, Y., Geng, Y., Wang, W., Xin, M., Yang, B., Zhang, L., & Huang, L. (2025). From teeth to bone: dental caries has causal effects on osteoporosis and osteoporotic fracture. BMC Oral Health, 25(1), 340. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12903-025-05735-7