title: Association between dental caries and age-specific body mass index in preschool children of an Iranian population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to determine the association of dental caries and BMI-for-age in preschool children and whether BMI-for-age is similar or different between Severe Early Childhood Caries (S-ECC) and caries free children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four hundred preschool children aged 30-70 months were entered into this study. The parameters examined in this study were weight, height, BMI-for-age and number of decayed, extracted and filled surfaces of deciduous teeth (defs). Based on dental caries, the subjects were also divided into S-ECC and caries-free groups. Then data was analyzed by t-test, one-way ANOVA, multiple regression and logistic regression tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean and SD of defs index was 8.37 ± 11.2. In the underweight, normal-weight, at risk of overweight and overweight groups, these values were 4.89 ± 10.8, 8.84 ± 11.8, 8.68 ± 10.6, and 10.39 ± 10.2, respectively. Multiple regression analysis revealed a statistically a significant direct association between BMI-for-age and defs index (P = 0.001) after adjusting for gender and age. The percentage of subjects who were caries free and S-ECC was 44.8% and 51.2%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that there was statistically a significant inverse association between BMI-for-age scores and the frequency of caries-free (P = 0.001) and a significant direct association with S-ECC children (P = 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of this study demonstrated that there was an association between higher defs scores and severe early childhood caries with overweightness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Restorative Dentistry, Dental School, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bagherian
authors.forename: Mostafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sadeghi
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004245:DMF Index; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology; D003793:Dental Restoration, Permanent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology; D012737:Sex Factors; D013851:Thinness / Q000453:epidemiology; D014081:Tooth Extraction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014094:Tooth, Deciduous / Q000473:pathology