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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 11 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1285226
This article is part of the Research Topic

Aging-Related Sarcopenia and Frailty: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Prediction Models

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Frailty mediated the association between tooth loss and mortality in the oldest old individuals: a cohort study

Mingxia Wang1 Xiaomeng Deng2 Hanjie Chen2 Yuhan Diao2 Chang Liu2 Jun Gao2 Xin Tang2 Xiaoyan Li2 Yan Liu2 Jun Duan2*
  • 1Shenzhen Luohu District Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, China
  • 2Shenzhen Hospital, Peking University, China

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Tooth loss is associated with increased mortality risk; however, the mechanism underlying this is still not clear. The objective of this study was to explore whether frailty mediates the association between tooth loss and mortality risk among the oldest old individuals. The participants were followed up from 1998 to 2018 in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). Frailty was constructed following a standard procedure. The mortality, frailty, and the tooth loss were applied as the outcome, mediator, and independent variable, respectively. The Cox model was fitted, including possible confounders, for causal mediation analysis. A total effect (TE), an average causal mediation effect (ACME), an average direct effect (ADE) and a proportion mediated (PM) were calculated. During 129936 person-years at risk, 31899 individuals with mean age 91.79 y were included. The TE and ADE of severe tooth loss on mortality were 0.12 (95%CI: 0.08, 0.15) and 0.09 (95 %CI: 0.05, 0.13); the ACME of frailty was 0.03 (95%CI: 0.02, 0.03) with 21.56 % of the TE being mediated. This work illustrated that tooth loss is associated with mortality and frailty appeared to mediate the relationship.

Keywords: Cohort Studies, Inflammation, nutrition, Oral Medicine, Public Health

Received: 29 Aug 2023; Accepted: 30 Nov 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 Wang, Deng, Chen, Diao, Liu, Gao, Tang, Li, Liu and Duan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Jun Duan, Shenzhen Hospital, Peking University, Shenzhen, 518036, Beijing Municipality, China