Age accelerated effect of tooth loss on cognitive function among Chinese older adults

Objectives

Focusing on older adults in China, this study aims to examine the association between tooth loss and cognitive impairment.

Methods

This study used six waves of data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey across 16 years and applied generalized estimation equation regression models.

Results

Severe tooth loss was significantly related to cognitive impairment after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors, and self-rated poor health. The adjusted prevalence ratios of cognitive impairment were 1.35 (95%CI: 1.30, 1.40) for edentulousness vs. no or mild tooth loss (0–9), and 1.25 (95%CI: 1.20, 1.30) for severe tooth loss (10 or more) vs. no or mild tooth loss. The effect of tooth loss increased with age from <1% for all three groups to 50.9% for edentulousness, 35.6% for severe tooth loss and 30.7% for no or mild tooth loss.

Discussion

This study lends support to the hypothesis that oral health is an important covariate of cognitive impairment. Future studies should continuously explore this topic by adding more objective oral health assessments and speculate potential pathways that may underlie the relationship using high quality longitudinal data.