Abstract
Purpose
To investigate the impact of giving children younger than 2 years foods and beverages with free sugars on the prevalence of early childhood caries at 5 years.
Materials and methods
The study group consisted of 208 children (105 boys and 103 girls) with a complete set of data on nursing, diet and caries from birth to 5 years. We collected feeding habits and dietary data through structured questionnaires at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months and the presence of decayed (d), missed (m) and filled (f) teeth was scored according to the WHO criteria at five years of age. We processed data with chi-square tests and expressed as relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence intervals.
Results
At the age of 5 years, 22% of the children had caries. Intake of fruit juice with meals (RR 2.3) and cookies or biscuits at 24 months of age (RR 2.4), as well as fast food consumption at least once every week (RR 2.9), more than doubled the risk for early childhood caries (p < 0.05).
Conclusions
Within the limitations of the present study, we found a relationship between consumption of free sugars early in life and dental caries prevalence at 5 years. It therefore seems important to embrace and emphasise the current sugar recommendations in primary and dental care to educate caregivers to avoid serving free sugars to their children before the age of 2 years.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all parents and children for their kind willingness to invest time and take part in the present project and Dr. Jovanna Dahlgren for data access.
Funding
The project was funded by grants from Region Halland, Sweden and the author’s institutions.
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Boustedt, K., Roswall, J. & Twetman, S. Free sugars and early childhood caries development: a prospective cohort study. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 23, 829–833 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40368-022-00745-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40368-022-00745-3