{"doi":"10.1186/s12903-021-01934-0","title":"Number of teeth is associated with all-cause and disease-specific mortality","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Tooth loss has been shown to correlate with multiple systemic comorbidities. However, the associations between the number of remaining natural teeth (NoT) and all-cause mortality have not been explored extensively. We aimed to investigate whether having fewer NoT imposes a higher risk in mortality. We tested such hypotheses using three groups of NoT (20-28,10-19, and 0-9), edentulism and without functional dentition (NoT < 19). METHODS: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States (NHANES) (1999-2014) conducted dental examinations and provided linkage of mortality data. NHANES participants aged 20 years and older, without missing information of dental examination, age, gender, race, education, income, body-mass-index, smoking, physical activities, and existing systemic conditions [hypertension, total cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and stroke (N = 33,071; death = 3978), or with femoral neck bone mineral density measurement (N = 13,131; death = 1091)] were analyzed. Cox proportional hazard survival analyses were used to investigate risks of all-cause, heart disease, diabetes and cancer mortality associated with NoT in 3 groups, edentulism, or without functional dentition. RESULTS: Participants having fewer number of teeth had higher all-cause and disease-specific mortality. In fully-adjusted models, participants with NoT0-9 had the highest hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality [HR(95%CI) = 1.46(1.25-1.71); p < .001], mortality from heart diseases [HR(95%CI) = 1.92(1.33-2.77); p < .001], from diabetes [HR(95%CI) = 1.67(1.05-2.66); p = 0.03], or cancer-related mortality [HR(95%CI) = 1.80(1.34-2.43); p < .001]. Risks for all-cause mortality were also higher among the edentulous [HR(95%CI) = 1.35(1.17-1.57); p < .001] or those without functional dentition [HR(95%CI) = 1.34(1.17-1.55); p < .001]. CONCLUSIONS: Having fewer NoT were associated with higher risks for all-cause mortality. More research is needed to explore possible biological implications and validate our findings.","journal":"BMC Oral Health","year":2021,"id":157543,"datarank":0.5926865577872142,"base_score":3.9512437185814275,"endowment":3.9512437185814275,"self_citation_contribution":0.5926865577872142,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5926865577872142,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":51,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9618,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":665545,"name":"Wai S. Cheung","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":337135,"name":"Bjorn Steffensen","orcid":"0000-0003-0165-4252","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":590498,"name":"Donald R. Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-7881-8801","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":664696,"name":"Yau‐Hua Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-4723-5064","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:44:21.786014Z","pmid":"34749715","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":[]}