Oral health is strongly linked to many other systems in our organism – dental problems can affect the gastrointestinal tract, circulatory and nervous systems, etc.
It's also well-known that edentulism in older adults may lead to dementia. Researching this phenomenon, Chinese doctors from New York University revealed that cognitive decline may be prevented by using dentures.
These findings proved the exceptional importance of restorative dentistry for keeping elderly organisms healthy.
What did scientists examine?
This large research started in 2008 and lasted 10 years, involving 27,708 adults (43% of them – male) aged 65 and older (mean age – 86) with missed teeth. During all these years, scientists measured participants' cognitive abilities with the Mini-Mental State Examination system, which covers six factors of cognitive ability:
- cognitive orientation
- registration
- attention
- language
- memory
- visuospatial ability
To make this assessment more precise, scientists also include Chinese cultural and socioeconomic factors in the system, with a total score of 30 points.
What did the research reveal?
As it turned out, a group with dentures had an average of 1.03 points higher than participants with edentulism. Also, they had a lower annual cognitive decline. Additionally, scientists found that participants without dentures were older, less educated females from rural areas who were widowed or had never been married.
Still, researchers did not observe significant links between edentulism and cognitive decline, which allows us to assume that dentures may play a protective role against this phenomenon.
Why it works this way?
Research suggests that people with dentures have a more diverse diet, including various nuts, fruits, and vegetables that provide organisms with a set of nutrients important for cognitive functions.
Also, the paper contains an alternative hypothesis – dentures affect the masticatory system, increasing jaw movement, which improves cerebral blood flow.
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