Obesity and dental caries in early childhood: a systematic review protocol.

Objective: The objectives of this review are to examine whether overweight/obese children experience more dental caries compared with non-overweight/non-obese children, and to identify common risk factors associated with both conditions.

Introduction: Systematic reviews have shown that any evidence on a link between overweight and/or obesity and dental caries remains inconclusive. This relationship has not been assessed for children under six years of age with primary dentition. Therefore, an updated systematic review of this topic is necessary as its findings will be important for young children, clinicians, researchers and policy makers.

Inclusion criteria: Studies examining children under six years of age and with complete primary dentition at the time of dental caries assessment will be included. The exposure of interest is the overweight and/or obesity status of children under six years of age. The outcome is dental caries in children with complete primary dentition. There will be no restriction on setting, date or language.

Methods: MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest Central, Scopus, CINAHL, and Google Scholar will be searched for eligible studies. The electronic database search will be supplemented by OpenGrey and Grey Literature Report databases, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, and the International Association for Dental Research conference websites. Two reviewers will independently screen and select studies, assess methodological quality and extract data. Meta-analysis will be performed, if possible, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment Development and Evaluation (GRADE) Summary of Findings presented.

Systematic review registration number: PROSPERO CRD42018085292.