Association between overweight/obesity and increased risk of periodontitis

To investigate periodontitis as a co-morbidity of overweight/obesity in an age-matched sample of periodontitis cases or periodontally healthy controls.

Participants were periodontally assessed using whole mouth clinical periodontal measures. Multivariable conditional logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratio for diagnosis of periodontitis when body mass index (kg/m² ), overweight (BMI 25-29.99 kg/m² , or obese BMI ≥ 30 kg/m² ) were the explanatory variables. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated of all possible BMI (kg/m² ) cut-off points discriminating individuals for diagnosis of periodontitis.

The study comprised 286 participants. BMI showed a dose-response association with increased odds (1.12 per increase of 1 kg/m² , 95% CI 1.05-1.20, p = 0.001) of being a case compared to a control independent of gender, ethnicity, smoking status and dental plaque level. Similarly overweight/obese were independently associated with increased odds of diagnosis of periodontitis for overweight (OR = 2.56, 95% CI 1.210-5.400, p = 0.014) and for obese (OR = 3.11, 95% CI 1.052-6.481, p = 0.015) compared to normal weight individuals. The ROC curve analysis confirmed diagnosis of periodontitis was 1.6 times more likely in an individual with the BMI ≥ 24.32 kg/m² .

Overweight/obese individuals are more likely to suffer from periodontitis compared to normal weight individuals in this case-control sample.