title: Stress and dental caries in the rat.
abstract: The stress of crowding and exposure to inescapable electric shock increased both the incidence and the severity of dental caries in rats housed in a conventional animal facility. Male Osborne-Mendel rats were inoculated intraorally with cariogenic bacteria, fed a high-sucrose diet, and housed in either a conventional or a sheltered facility. Rats in both housing conditions were subdivided into control and stress groups. At the end of the 56-day trial period, stressed rats from conventional housing had a significant increase in both incidence and severity of dental caries in comparison to their controls. In contrast, stressed rats from sheltered housing had a trend toward increased cariogenesis which reached significance in only one of five scores. These rats also failed to gain weight comparable to their controls, making it possible that stress-induced reduction in appetite partially offset stress-induced exacerbation in cariogenesis.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003441:Crowding; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D004597:Electroshock; D006799:Housing, Animal; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D013290:Streptococcal Infections / Q000517:prevention & control; D013295:Streptococcus mutans; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications* / Q000276:immunology