Missing Teeth and Incident Cardiovascular Disease in Ageing Populations: Longitudinal Evidence from Three Nationally...

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention in ageing populations requires simple and clinically accessible markers that may help identify individuals at elevated risk. Tooth loss is a common oral condition in middle-aged and older adults and may reflect cumulative inflammatory burden, impaired oral function, and broader health vulnerability. However, longitudinal evidence from nationally representative populations across different countries remains limited. We investigated whether a baseline of missing teeth was independently associated with incident CVD in three nationally representative ageing cohorts from China, the United States, and England. Methods: We analyzed data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Participants aged 45 years or older without baseline CVD and with available baseline tooth status were included. Missing teeth were assessed at baseline as a dichotomous exposure. Incident CVD was defined as newly reported heart disease and/or stroke during follow-up. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), with sequential adjustment for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and clinical covariates. Kaplan-Meier, subgroup, and sensitivity analyses were also performed. Results: A total of 31,805 participants were included, comprising 13,451 from CHARLS, 11,384 from HRS, and 6970 from ELSA. During follow-up, 2336 incident CVD events occurred in CHARLS, 2914 in HRS, and 545 in ELSA. In fully adjusted models, missing teeth was associated with a higher risk of incident CVD in all three cohorts, with HRs of 1.31 (95% CI, 1.14-1.50) in CHARLS, 1.43 (95% CI, 1.29-1.57) in HRS, and 1.86 (95% CI, 1.49-2.31) in ELSA. Kaplan-Meier analyses showed consistently lower CVD-free survival among participants with missing teeth, and the associations remained broadly robust across subgroup and sensitivity analyses. Conclusions: In three nationally representative cohorts from China, the United States, and England, a baseline of missing teeth was independently associated with a higher risk of incident CVD among middle-aged and older adults. These findings suggest that missing teeth may serve as a simple and clinically accessible marker of elevated cardiovascular risk and support greater integration of oral health into cardiovascular risk assessment and preventive strategies for ageing populations.