{"doi":"10.1093/gerona/glaf294","title":"Oral health conditions and domain-specific cognitive decline in older adults: evidence from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging 2005-2024","abstract":"BACKGROUND: While associations between poor oral health and cognitive impairment are documented, research on how different oral health conditions relate to specific cognitive measures remains limited. METHODS: Using data from 756 Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging 2005-2024 participants (mean age = 72.0 years, 52.5% women, 24.2% Black), we investigated the association between the first oral health assessment and subsequent cognitive decline across domains in older adults aged 60+ who were free of cognitive impairment at baseline over an average of 7.7 follow-up. Cognitive function was assessed across language, executive function, attention, memory, and visuospatial ability domains, with domain-specific composite scores calculated using various cognitive tests. Oral health was evaluated for clinically-assessed tooth loss and dental plaque, alongside self-reported periodontal symptoms. Linear mixed-effect models were used to examine the longitudinal associations with cognitive decline, adjusted for socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. RESULTS: After covariates adjustment, more tooth loss was associated with greater declines across all cognitive domains, including language (β = -0.0017; 95% CI = -0.0025, -0.0008), executive function (β = -0.0011; 95% CI = -0.0019, -0.0002), attention (β = -0.0011; 95% CI = -0.0021, -0.0001), memory (β = -0.0018; 95% CI = -0.0030, -0.0005), and visuospatial ability (β = -0.0017; 95% CI = -0.0029, -0.0006). Dental plaque was associated with executive function (β = -0.0165; 95% CI = -0.0276, -0.0054) and memory (β = -0.0279; 95% CI = -0.0444, -0.0115) declines. Presence of periodontal symptoms was only associated with executive function decline (β = -0.0004; 95% CI = -0.0007, -0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Tooth loss may indicate broader cognitive decline, while other oral health conditions, such as plaque and periodontal symptoms, particularly affect memory or executive function. Future studies are warranted to investigate underlying mechanisms.","journal":"The Journals of Gerontology Series A","year":2025,"id":549816,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9467,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":286278,"name":"Qu Tian","orcid":"0000-0003-2706-1439","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":416615,"name":"Huabin Luo","orcid":"0000-0002-5144-3210","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1445144,"name":"Susan M Resnick","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":21956,"name":"Luigi Ferrucci","orcid":"0000-0002-6273-1613","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":432522,"name":"Bei Wu","orcid":"0000-0002-6891-244X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":630532,"name":"Xiang Qi","orcid":"0000-0003-3958-8609","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":48,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:12.321988Z","pmid":"41467738","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}