Abstract
OBJECTIVES:
Periodontitis
has been hypothesized as being one of the most common potential risk
factors for the development of dementia and cognitive impairment. In
order to investigate the relationship between periodontitis and
cognition impairment, the National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey (NHANES) database was analyzed after adjusting for potential
confounding factors, including age and other systemic co-morbidities.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
In
total, 4663 participants aged 20 to 59 years who had received full
mouth periodontal examination and undergone the cognitive functional
test were enrolled. The grade of periodontal disease was categorized
into severe, moderate, and mild. Cognitive function examinations,
including the Simple Reaction Time test (SRTT), Symbol Digit
Substitution Test (SDST), and Serial Digit Learning Test (SDLT), were
adopted for the evaluation of cognitive impairment.
RESULTS:
The
subjects with mild and moderate to severe periodontitis had higher SDLT
and SDST scores, which indicated decreased cognitive function, compared
to the healthy group. After adjusting for demographic factors,
education, smoking, cardiovascular diseases, and laboratory data,
periodontitis was significantly correlated with elevated SDST and SDLT
scores (P values for trend = 0.014 and 0.038, respectively) by
generalized linear regression models.
CONCLUSION:
Our
study highlighted that periodontal status was associated with cognitive
impairment in a nationally representative sample of US adults.
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