Are You Going to Lose Your Teeth When You Get Old?

    Oral health is a concern for the elderly. What about you? Do you worry as you age that your teeth are going to age gracefully or are they all going to fall out?  After all, teeth should be pretty durable, right? It might be true that tooth loss is greater as you get older, but does that mean tooth loss is age related? An 18 month study done in Iowa in 1988 says something along those lines. Although the study was done over 20 years ago, there are still some relevant results that are worth mentioning. 

    The study was over an 18 month period of a population aged 65 and older that resided in two different Iowa counties. Data was collected by interviews, dental examinations and then an 18 month follow-up. During this study 25 had died during the 18 months, and 13 had moved or were too ill to participate in the follow up. So of the 482 people available to follow-up, 451 participated. 

    It was found that seventy-nine percent of the subjects never lost a tooth during the 18 month period. It was also found that 24% of the males and 19% of the females lost a tooth. There was no age-associated trends in the incidence of tooth loss. 

    A couple of the risk factors that showed tooth loss were number of years of education and number of negative life events in the past year. The findings from this study comes to the conclusion that tooth loss happens in very few people as they get older. However, 18 months might not be long enough to investigate. A longer observation would show a more accurate study. More studies are needed, especially in other populations. And there are certainly more studies. 

    I don't know about you, but this sure makes me want to learn more. Knowing not all old people lose their teeth gives me hope! It's something we should all think about no matter what age we are. We all need our teeth!

Hunt, R. J., Hand, J. S., Kohout, F. J., & Beck, J. D. (1988). Incidence of Tooth Loss among Elderly Iowans. American

            Journal of Public Health, 78(10), 1330–1332. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.78.10.1330

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