Recent study tests if replacements for missing teeth lower the risk of poor cognition

A recent study aimed to find out if missing teeth replacement with fixed prostheses may protect against cognitive decline. The study was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the AADOCR, in conjunction with the 47th Annual Meeting of the CADR. The AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting & Exhibition took place at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on March 15-18, 2023.

The study by Elizabeth Kaye of Boston University examined 577 men in the VA Normative Aging Study (NAS) and Dental Longitudinal Study. Tooth status and type of replacement, if any, were recorded at triennial dental exams (1969-2001). Masticatory efficiency was assessed with carrot chewing tests. The Spatial Copying Task (SCT) was administered up to four times between 1995 and 2001. The investigators defined poor cognition as any weighted SCT score <13 (lowest tertile of initial SCT scores in all NAS participants). Tooth-level Cox proportional regression, accounting for clustering within individuals, estimated the hazard of poor cognition, adjusted for education, epilepsy medication use, and time-varying values of tooth status (present, absent, fixed bridge/implant, removable replacement), age, cigarette smoking, and coronary heart disease.