Due to the changes in lifestyle and dietary regimen of today’s society, more and more snacks are used between meals every day, which in turn might advance the risk of dental caries. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between dietary regimen and dental caries in 9-year-old students of Tehran; districts 4, 5 &8 through 2010-2011.
Methods:
In this descriptive-analytical study, 560 students (59.3% females, 40.7% males) were selected by cluster randomized method from the primary schools of Tehran. Afterwards, the cases were assessed using questionnaires and dental examinations. The dental examinations were done according to WHO criteria by indices of dmft and DMFT. The frequency of nutritional snacks consumed was determined in the following week on each individual. The role of the frequency of nutritional snacks to predict dental caries incidences was determined by means of regression analysis by backward method.
Results:
The study showed that the consumption of snacks including green vegetables, greengages, fries, soft sweets, oranges, potato chips and fried vegetables significantly decreased dmft, while the use of other snacks such as cream-filled biscuits, plain cakes, cookies, caramel cream, milk-based ice creams, hard candies, popcorn, cheesy snacks and bananas considerably increased dmft in the study group. Furthermore, eating snacks like oranges, Hamburgers, peanuts, plain milk, carrots and diet sodas significantly reduced DMFT. Meanwhile, the use of snacks such as pistachios, cookies, caramel cream and sugar-based chewing gums showed a consequential relationship with the increase in DMFT.
Conclusions:
According to the results, the variety of the consumed snacks were high among 9-year-old students in primary schools of Tehran on Districts of 4, 7 & 8 .The frequency of the dietary nutrients including oranges ,pies and caramel cream affected the incidence of the dental caries.