Assessing the relationship between diabetes mellitus and dental caries among US adults: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2013–2020

To assess the relationship between diabetes prevalence and dental caries experience among a representative sample of US adults. Cross-sectional study. We used data on participants 25 years and older with complete data from the continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles in 2013-2020. We defined diabetes prevalence using glycohemoglobin and self-reported diabetes. Dental caries was operationalized using the decayed, missing, filled teeth (DMFT) score from a standardized dental examination. We used Poisson models to examine adjusted associations with dental caries experience or the DMFT score. We found a dose-response association between diabetes prevalence and DMFT score (RR = 1.017, 95 % CI: 0.994-1.041 for prediabetes and RR = 1.045, 95 % CI: 1.017-1.074 for diabetes) after adjusting for age, sex, race, education, family income to poverty ratio, smoking status, body weight and last dental visit. Diabetes prevalence was associated with higher dental caries experience. Future studies should examine the mechanism and interventions to ameliorate this association.