ArticleGerodontology2025
Number of teeth and functional disability in community-dwelling older adults.
Article in Gerodontology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Functional Dentition Life Expectancy (FDLE): a novel indicator for monitoring oral health in ageing populations.Clinical oral investigations · 2026Article
- Association between tooth brushing habits and incident disability in community-dwelling older adults: a prospective cohort study.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of dental prostheses and occlusal force on adverse health outcomes in community-dwelling older adults lacking functional dentition: The Longitudinal Study of the Tsurugaya Project.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2025Article
- Number of teeth and functional disability in community-dwelling older adults.Gerodontology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThis study determined whether tooth loss was associated with the development of functional disability and estimated the population attributable fraction (PAF) of functional disability due to tooth loss, along with risk factors for functional disability such as physical function and cognitive impairment.
methodsThe participants were 838 community-dwelling older adults aged ≥70 years living in the Tsurugaya district in Japan in 2003. The exposure variable was the number of remaining teeth (counted by trained dentists). Other variables were age, sex, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, educational attainment, physical function and social support. The Cox proportional hazards model was applied to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the incidence of functional disability for each risk factor, such as tooth loss. The functional disability PAF due to tooth loss was estimated, and risk factors for functional disability were identified.
resultsIn total, 619 (73.9%) participants developed functional disability during follow-up. A multivariable model showed that those with <20 teeth (HR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.08-1.53) were more likely to develop functional disability than those with 20 teeth or more. PAF estimation for functional disability was shown to have decreasing values in the following order: age, female sex, tooth loss and reduced physical function.
conclusionsTooth loss was associated with the development of functional disability in community-dwelling older Japanese adults. While retaining teeth may be a potential strategy for avoiding functional disability, clinical studies on the effect of dental treatment on preventing functional disability are warranted.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.