Frailty index and ten oral conditions in the Coyoacan cohort study: A cross-sectional analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To analyse the relationship between the Frailty Index and 10 oral conditions controlling for nutritional status among Mexican community-dwelling older people. BACKGROUND: Studies suggest that the association between frailty and oral conditions are mediated by nutrition. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional analysis includes 487 community-dwelling men and women aged ≥70 years old. Interview and clinical examinations were performed at participants' homes. Objective (number of natural teeth, root remnants, dental condition, utilisation and functionality of removable dental prostheses and periodontitis) and subjective (utilisation of dental services, self-rated oral health, chewing difficulties and xerostomia) oral variables were collected by trained personnel. The Frailty Index was calculated considering 35 deficits. Nutritional status measured with the Mini-Nutritional assessment (MNA), age, sex, education, and marital status were included as covariates. We fitted 11 multivariate generalised linear models (one for each oral condition), assuming gamma distribution for Frailty Index as the outcome. RESULTS: Participants average age was 78.1 years, 52.1% were women. We observed a higher Frailty Index among those rating their oral health as worse than others their age (5.1%), reporting chewing difficulties often (4.9%) and fairly and very often (7.0%), and xerostomia (4.8%). Age, gender and MNA were consistently associated with the Frailty Index. CONCLUSION: Subjective oral conditions are compatible with the Frailty Index after controlling for older people's nutritional status and covariates.

Association of changes in income with self-rated oral health and chewing difficulties in adults in Southern Brazil.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether short-term changes in income (IC) in adulthood were associated with self-rated oral health (SROH) and chewing difficulties (CD). METHODS: Secondary analysis of a longitudinal study in Florianópolis, Southern Brazil (EpiFloripa); a total of 1720 adults participated in 2009 and 1223 in 2012. Logistic regression analysed the variation of SROH and CD according to short-term changes in income (IC) groups ('high income-stable', 'increased income', 'decreased income' and 'low income-stable') and adjusted for covariates (age, sex, marital status, skin colour, self-reported number of teeth and education). RESULTS: After adjusting for covariates, participants in the 'decreased income' were more likely to have poor SROH and CD than those at the 'high income-stable' group (OR: 1.78, 95% CI: 1.23, 2.58; OR: 2.76, 95% CI: 1.61, 4.74, respectively). Significant differences were also found between the 'low income-stable' and 'high income-stable' groups, but these differences were explained when adjusted for potential confounders. There were no significant differences in SROH and CD between the 'increased income' and the 'high income-stable' groups. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, SROH and CD were adversely influenced by negative changes in income during adulthood in a short period of 3 years.