From Caries Prevention in Children to Adults with Cancer: New Evidence and Ideas.

Abstract

Many of the original research reports in this issue of the JDR CTR consider the oral and general health concerns of younger populations in a variety of ways. It is commonly accepted that preventing the initial development of caries in young children will result in improved oral health for the population over their lifetimes. The literature is replete with reports on technologies aimed to prevent and treat this common disease (Cheng et al. 2022; Luiz et al. 2023). Three reports examine sugar intake in children and its impact on dental caries. Ha et al. (2022) used data on the 5to 14-y-old overweight and obese population in the Australian National Child Oral Health Survey (2012 to 2014) to determine the effect of drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) on decayed, missing, or filled primary teeth, taking into consideration the levels of fluoridation in their home water systems. Their findings emphasize the significant effect that SSBs have on the incidence/ prevalence of dental caries, as well as the modifying influence of community water fluoride. This study also showed that SSBs contribute to overweight/ obesity, particularly in low-income populations. While policy makers and politicians may not be inspired to protect the public from SSBs regarding tooth decay, the fact that SSBs are shown to contribute to the epidemic of overweight/obesity and its cost to society may inspire governments to react appropriately. Melough et al. (2022) used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2013 to 2014 and 2015 to 2016) to understand the associations between all free sugars in the diet and dental caries, as well as how much exposure to community water fluoride mitigates cariogenic activity in children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 y. The authors found that SSBs had the most pronounced association with caries and that the higher the concentration of fluoride in the water, the greater the reduction of caries. Based on these 2 reports, it appears that SSBs have a strong association with the development of dental caries and that community water fluoridation reduces this association. Bhoopathi et al. (2022) also studied an obese population; however, they focused on an adolescent population with developmental disabilities and obesity, using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (waves 2016 through 2019) with almost 70,000 adolescents aged 10 to 17 y; this population was categorized as developmentally disabled and/or obese and not developmentally disabled or obese. The authors found that adolescents with developmental disabilities and obesity, as compared with healthy adolescents with no disabilities or obesity, were significantly at higher odds of experiencing toothache, decayed teeth, bleeding gums, and difficulty eating or swallowing. It would be interesting to know whether the intake of SSBs is greater in developmentally disabled adolescents. Two additional reports on children assess the effect oral health prevention programs in 2 countries: A cost utility analysis was carried out by Anopa et al. (2022) within a randomized controlled JCTXXX10.1177/23800844231177991JDR Clinical & Translational ResearchFrom Caries Prevention in Children to Adults with Cancer editorial2023