LIFE-STYLE, DENTAL-CARIES AND NUMBER OF TEETH

All 55-yr-old citizens (n = 1012) of Oulu (a middle-sized Finnish town ) were invited to a clinical examination; 780 agreed to participate. T he associations of lifestyle with decayed tooth surfaces and the numbe r of teeth were studied in the 533 dentate subjects. Meaures of lifest yle included dietary habits, a smoking habit, alcohol consumption and physical activity. When the associations of dental caries with lifesty le, sex, dental, health behavior, social class and number of teeth wer e studied by logistic regression analysis, lifestyle was shown to have an independent association with dental caries. Further analysis of th e data showed that dental caries increased with a more negative lifest yle in every social class, but most significantly in the lowest. Numbe r of teeth was not associated with lifestyle, but subjects with lower social statust had fewer teeth than those with higher social status. T he association of lifestyle with dental caries supports the idea that behavior in a broader sense should be taken into consideration in cari es prevention.