Regular Dental Visits Boost Oral Health
March 3, 2010
By Nancy Volkers
InteliHealth News Service
INTELIHEALTH - People who visit the dentist regularly have better oral health, an 18-year study has found.
Most studies that look at the benefit of regular dental visits are called cross-sectional studies. They ask people one time about how often they visit the dentist and when they last visited. This study kept track of the same 932 people, starting at age 15. At that age, 82% had received dental check-ups and visited the dentist in the last year.
Researchers asked about dental visits at ages 18, 26 and 32. By the time the people in the study were 32 years old, only 28% had visited the dentist in the last year.
At any of these ages (15, 18, 26 and 32), people with regular dental visits had:
- Fewer missing teeth in general
- Fewer missing teeth because of decay
- Less decay
- Fewer fillings
The longer people kept up regular dental visits, the more likely they were to have good oral health.
The study was done by researchers at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. It was published in the March issue of the Journal of Dental Research.
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