Energy and macronutrient intake in relation to dental caries incidence in urban black South African preschool children in 1991 and 1995: the Birth-to-Ten study.

OBJECTIVE

To study energy and macronutrient intake in relation to dental caries incidence among urban black South African children at the ages of 1 and 5 years.

DESIGN AND SUBJECTS

Food frequency questionnaires and WHO caries diagnostic criteria were used. The study sample of 1639 urban black children with nutrition and dental information from the 1991 and/or 1995 Birth-to-Ten (BTT) Study interceptions comprised true longitudinal (n = 259) and cross-sectional (n = 1216 for 1991 and n = 164 for 1995) subjects. For the longitudinal group true dmfs (decayed, missing, filled surfaces) incidence and average intakes of energy and macronutrients between 1991 and 1995 were calculated.

SETTING

South Africa.

RESULTS

Median macronutrient intakes were not significantly different between the cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. Dental caries prevalences at age 1 were 1.2% and 1.5% for the cross-sectional and longitudinal samples, respectively. By age 5 these values were 60.4% and 62.2%, respectively. The median dmfs score at age 1 was 0. At 5 years this was 2 for all children and 5 for those with caries. Statistical analysis for trend at age 5 showed a significant increase in caries prevalence with increasing energy, carbohydrate and added sugar in the cross-sectional sample only. The only significant changes in dmfs scores were seen for energy and added sugar for the whole sample. The r values between log(dmfs incidence + 0.3) and the average nutrient log variables were low, and a general linear models analysis showed no statistically significant effects on log(dmfs incidence + 0.3) of any of the log nutrient variables.

CONCLUSIONS

For the relationship between macronutrient intake and caries (prevalence and incidence), a cross-sectional and true longitudinal study gave similar results.