AUTHOR=Homsi George , Trulsson Mats , Grigoriadis Anastasios , Kumar Abhishek 

TITLE=Nutritional status and dietary habits in older adults with fixed implant dental prostheses: a case-control study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1373372

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2024.1373372

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Aim</title><p>To evaluate the nutritional status, nutritional risk, and dietary habits of patients treated with bimaxillary implant-supported fixed prostheses in comparison with a group of natural dentate patients.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>A study group (<italic>n</italic> = 25, 8 women, mean age = 70.6 ± 7.5 years) with bimaxillary implant-supported fixed prostheses and a control group (<italic>n</italic> = 25, 13 women, mean age = 69.0 ± 5.3) with a mean of 27.7 ± 1.8 natural teeth were recruited. The nutritional status and nutritional risk of the participants were evaluated with Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition; (SCREEN-14), while the dietary habits were recorded by data from a three-day dietary record. The data were analyzed with the Mann–Whitney U-test and independent <italic>t</italic>-test to evaluate the differences between the groups.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>The results showed that although both the groups had normal nutrition status as revealed by the MNA scores the study group showed significantly higher BMI (<italic>p</italic> = 0.005) but lower SCREEN-14 (<italic>p</italic> = 0.012) scores, than the control group. The results also showed that higher SCREEN-14 scores were significantly associated with higher odds of being in the control group, with an odds ratio of 1.159 (<italic>p</italic> = 0.024). Further, the results of the analysis of the dietary records showed that the participants in the study group consumed fewer meals (<italic>p</italic> = 0.006) and fewer varieties of food (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001), particularly fewer fruits (<italic>p</italic> = 0.011) than the control group.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>The results indicate that people with fixed implant prostheses may be susceptible to nutritional deficiencies according to the SCREEN-14 scores compared to their natural dentate counterparts. Further, people with implant prostheses also tend to have higher BMI and consume a smaller variety of foods, especially fruits, than the natural dentate control group.</p></sec>