title: Periodontal disease as one possible explanation for the Mexican paradox.
abstract: Mexican-American women have similar low socio-economic status as compared to Non-Hispanic Blacks. However, Mexican-American women have consistently been shown to have a lower rate of low birth weight births as compared to Non-Hispanic Blacks and similar to Non-Hispanic Whites. This phenomenon is referred to as the "Mexican paradox", and the explanation for this is still unclear. We used data from the third US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) to compare the rate of periodontal disease in Non-Hispanic Black, Non-Hispanic White and Mexican-American pregnant and non-pregnant women. We found that Mexican-American women have a lower rate of periodontal disease before and during pregnancy when compared to Non-Hispanic Blacks. Since periodontal disease has been associated with an increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, we hypothesize that the lower prevalence of periodontal disease before and during pregnancy among Mexican-American women may contribute to the "Mexican paradox".
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, Tidewater Building Suite 2022, SL-18, 1440 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA. xxiong@tulane.edu
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Buekens
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vastardis
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017677:Age Distribution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D010510:Periodontal Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data