44 - Association Between an Individual’s Physical Activity Level and Periodontal Health

Abstract:

Objectives: The objective of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between an individual’s physical activity level and periodontal health.

Methods: This cross-sectional study consists of 6923 participants from NHANES cycles 2011-2012 and 2013-14, aged 30 years and above. Metabolic equivalent (MET) scores were used to measure the intensity of physical activity. Total physical activity hours were categorized based on the US Department of Health and Human Services guidelines. Periodontitis was defined as per the CDC/AAP surveillance definition and recategorized as none/mild, moderate, and severe periodontitis. Analyses were weighted to account for the complex sampling methodology for NHANES surveys. Chi-square tests were used to analyze the relationship between predictors and level of periodontitis. A multinomial logistic regression model examined the association between physical activity level and periodontitis adjusting for covariates.


Results: Univariate analyses revealed that 6% of individuals who reported >20 MET hrs./week of vigorous physical activity) had severe periodontitis compared to 10% of those who did < 10 MET hrs./week (p < 0.0001). Regression analysis showed that individuals who did only vigorous physical activity had a significantly lower risk of both moderate (OR 0.77, p-value 0.041) and severe periodontitis (OR 0.58, p-value 0.007), compared to those with low or moderate physical activity.

Conclusions: This study showed a significant positive relationship between vigorous physical activity and low levels of both moderate and severe periodontitis, leading us to recommend dentists educate their patients follow about the benefit of staying physically active for their periodontal health.

Source of Funding: None