Nutritional status is associated with permanent tooth eruption chronology

ABSTRACT

Either obesity and underweight are public health concerns that affect the development of children. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the nutritional status affects permanent tooth eruption chronology in Brazilian children. Methods: A hundred sixty children were examined by a pediatric dentistry and at the clinical examination, the number of erupted permanent teeth was evaluated. The anthropometric measurements of the children were determined, and they were divided into groups underweight, eutrophic, overweight and obese. The association between delayed tooth eruption and nutritional status groups was evaluated using chi-square test. The Shapiro­Wilk test was used to verify the normality of the data. To compare the mean number of delayed teeth according to nutritional status' groups Kruskal-Wallis test with multiple comparison by Dunn's test was performed. Results: Fifty-six children had delayed tooth eruption in at least one permanent teeth and delayed tooth eruption was more common in underweight children than in eutrophic children (p=0.0091). Conclusion: In conclusion, our study suggests that underweight Brazilian children have a higher incidence of delayed eruption (AU)