2017 Volume 67 Issue 3 Pages 172-180
The oral health of elderly people is not only important in the maintenance of solid nutrition and articulation but also for their quality of life (QOL). The presence of ≥20 teeth is one of the criteria in the maintenance of the oral function and general health. In 2015, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan announced the guideline called “Healthy Diet”, which supports the longevity of Japanese people. We examined the association between the presence of ≥20 teeth and healthy diet among 75-year-old people. This study included 338 people aged 75 years who participated in the Niigata Elderly Study (2003), in which oral examination, medical checkup, and a brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire (BDHQ) survey had been carried out. A healthy dietary pattern was defined according to Japan’s healthy diet guideline. The healthy diet assumes that one meal consists of three main dishes: grain dish, fish or meat dish, and vegetable dish. For each dish, there are lower and upper limits on the amount of food consumed per meal. For this reason, we set the per-day lower limit as equal to three times the lower limit for a meal. In this study, the sufficiency group satisfied all three dish divisions (i.e., those who achieved a healthy dietary pattern), and the insufficiency group did not meet at least one dish division. The association between the presence of ≥20 teeth and a healthy dietary pattern was evaluated using multivariable logistic regression. As a result, individuals with ≥20 teeth had significantly higher odds of having a healthy dietary pattern (adjusted odds ratio, 1.7; 95% confidence interval: 1.1–2.6). In conclusion, our results suggest that there is a relationship between the presence of ≥20 teeth and meal patterns in elderly people.
