Background: The prevalence of obesity in adult Egyptians is 39.8%. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore how obesity affects periodontal health in the adult population of Egypt in a case control design.
Method: A total of 384 dental patients were used in the current study. They were divided into two groups based on their body mass index (BMI): the control group was made up of patients who were normal weight (BMI = 18.5-24.9 kg/m2), while the study group was made up of obese patients (BMI 30 kg/m2). The assessments included demographic information as well as clinical periodontal indicators such as bleeding on probing (BOP), clinical attachment loss (CAL), probing depth (PD), and plaque index (PI). The new classification of periodontal disease served as the basis for the periodontal diagnostic and case identification. To compare the two groups, the T-test and Chi-Squared test were applied to numerical and categorical data, respectively. In order to investigate how obesity affects periodontal health, an ordinal logistic regression model was used.
Results: There is no statistical difference regarding BOP and PD meanwhile a statistically significant difference regarding CAL between the study and control group (P value= 0.987, 0.306, 0.001 respectively, significant at 0.01). Obesity is more associated with poor oral hygiene and periodontitis with statistically significant difference than normal BMI patients [(P=0.004, significant at 0.01) and (P=0.000, significant at 0.001) respectively]. Obesity affects periodontal diagnosis significantly.
Conclusion: Obesity has significant association to periodontitis. Poor oral hygiene and CAL is positively related to obese patients.