title: Obesity and dental caries: systematic review.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Identifying, through a systematic literature review, evidence of a possible association between obesity and dental caries.
  
  
  METHODS
  A search of articles published between 2005 and January 2012 was performed in the Medline/PubMed, LILACS and Web of Science databases. The quality of scientific evidence of the selected articles was assessed by the items proposed for observational studies in the Downs & Black instrument.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Initially, 537 references were found; after checking the titles and abstracts by two independent researchers, twenty-eight articles were selected for complete reading. Ten of them that assessed the primary and/or permanent dentition observed a positive association between obesity and dental caries and one study found an inverse association. According to the Downs & Black classification, thirteen articles with good scientific evidence were found.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present review did not find sufficient evidence regarding the association between obesity and dental caries, and it did not clarify the possible role of diet and other possible effect modifiers on this association.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pelotas, PelotasRS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Alexandre Emidio Ribeiro
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pelotas, PelotasRS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Ana Maria Baptista
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Menezes
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pelotas, PelotasRS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Flávio Fernando
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Demarco
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pelotas, PelotasRS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Fabiana
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vargas-Ferreira
authors.affiliation: Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, School of Dentistry, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
authors.forename: Marco Aurélio
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Peres
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D001938:Brazil; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications*; D012307:Risk Factors