THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERIODONTAL CONDITION AND CERTAIN DIETARY FACTORS

¹ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.

1. Dietary records of freely chosen diets submitted by patients who applied for prophylactic or periodontal treatment at the dental school, supplemented by Tishler's data, were studied. The cases were divided into 4 groups, on the basis of sex and source of data. Thus, there were 135 females and 49 males in the 2 experimental groups, and 65 females and 31 males in the 2 Tishler groups. Conclusions are based on separate statistical treatment of each group. 2. Study of X² and P indicated little or no association between periodontal condition and age, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, or acid-base excess. 3. Study of X² and P indicated association between periodontal condition and calcium, phosphorus, protein, animal protein, and milk intake. 4. The association between calcium and periodontal condition for a group of 135 females computed by the method of mean square contingency was found to have the value of 0.5. Examination of the observed frequency in each cell as compared to the theoretical frequency, showed that the association was negative; that is, the lower the calcium intake, the greater the tissue involvement. 5. The coefficient of contingency of 0.5 probably underestimated the true association. 6. The coefficient of contingency for milk intake and periodontal condition in the group of 135 females was 0.44, as contrasted to 0.51 for calcium, indicating that computation or estimation of milk intake is not quite as valuable for prediction as computation of calcium. Yet the correlation coefficient of 0.95 between calcium and milk intake shows that the calcium in the diet comes predominantly from milk. 7. Inclusion of factors other than calcium in the prediction of periodontal condition results in values no greater than for calcium alone. Therefore, of the factors considered, i.e., protein, animal protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, age, vitamin A, vitamin C, and acid-base excess, calcium is the most useful in prediction. These results were obtained when foodstuffs provided the source of the calcium. 8. Consistent results were found between the experimental and Tishler groups. 9. This study suggests that more cases of periodontal disease in human adults may have a systemic factor, in this case diet, than has been commonly stated by research workers. Therefore it is not considered feasible to separate periodontal disease into local and systemic categories.