Tooth Loss and 12-Year Mortality Risk in 8494 Older Adults From Ireland

Objectives

To investigate whether tooth loss is associated with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in older Irish adults.

Methods

A total of 8494 participants from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) were included. Survey data were linked to death registration records, covering individuals who participated in TILDA Wave 1 (2009/2010) and died by 31st January 2022. Cox proportional hazards regressions and competing risk survival analyses were employed to examine the longitudinal relationship between tooth loss and both all-cause and cause-specific mortality.

Results

The mean age of participants at baseline was 63.2 years (SD 10.2). Among the cohort, 3951 (46.5%) were categorized as “Dentate, no denture,” 3041 (35.8%) as “Dentate, with denture(s),” and 1502 (17.7%) as “Edentulous.” Over a median follow-up of 12 years, 1430 (16.8%) participants died. After adjusting for confounders, edentulous participants had a significantly higher hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality compared to dentate participants with no dentures (HR = 1.42, 95% CI 1.23–1.65, p < 0.001). For cause-specific mortality, edentulism had the greatest sub-distribution hazard ratio (SHR) with respiratory mortality (SHR = 1.57, 95% CI 1.03–2.41, p = 0.04), followed by cancer mortality (SHR = 1.31, 95% CI 1.01–1.71, p = 0.04). There was a nonsignificant association with cardiovascular mortality (SHR = 1.25, 95% CI 0.96–1.63, p = 0.10).

Conclusions

Edentulism was independently associated with all-cause mortality in a cohort of 8494 men and women from Ireland. Edentulism was significantly associated with respiratory and cancer mortality.