People who lose their teeth from poor oral hygiene more likely to suffer chronic back pain, new research shows
- An international team of researchers collected information on 8,662 Americans
Losing a tooth is nothing to laugh about – but scientists have now discovered it can also be a pain in the backside.
People who lose their teeth due to poor oral hygiene are more likely to suffer from chronic lower back and buttock pain, according to new research.
And the more teeth are lost, the worse the pain.
It’s unclear exactly why the back should be affected, but one theory is that the gum disease periodontitis can trigger an immune response that causes painful inflammation elsewhere.
Previous research has shown that people with gum disease are two to three times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke, but the new study is the first to examine the links between chronic pain and tooth loss.
People who lose their teeth due to poor oral hygiene are more likely to suffer from chronic lower back and buttock pain, according to new research. (Stock Image)
It’s unclear exactly why the back should be affected, but one theory is that the gum disease periodontitis can trigger an immune response that causes painful inflammation elsewhere. (Stock Image)
An international team of researchers collected information on 8,662 American men and women, counting their teeth and recording existing health conditions and lifestyle data such as dietary habits and smoking, as well as recording their chronic pain levels.
“The results suggest a clinically significant link between chronic pain and tooth loss,” said study co-author Dr. Kevin Sheng-Kai Ma of the University of Pennsylvania.
‘We thought that was toothless [toothless] patients were significantly more likely to experience chronic pain in their lower limbs or buttocks for more than three months compared to those with more than twenty teeth.”
The study, published in the academic Journal Of Pain, also found that people who suffered from chronic pain had an average of 22.2 teeth, while those without pain had an average of 24.5 teeth.
Chronic pain was experienced in a number of different places in the body, including the back and legs. People without teeth were 50 percent more likely to have chronic pain in the buttocks and almost 80 percent more likely to have pain in their legs and feet, regardless of other health and lifestyle factors.
Pain is considered chronic if it persists for more than three months despite treatment.