TUESDAY, March 11, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Parents have yet another reason to quit smoking: Passive smoke from their puffing could be ruining their children's baby teeth.
That's what researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York conclude in a new study, although at least one dental expert isn't convinced this study proves such a link.
In the March 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Rochester researchers report that children who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke have almost twice the risk of cavities that youngsters in smoke-free homes do.
"This is just one more piece of evidence that passive smoke harms children," says study author Dr. C. Andrew Aligne, who was with the University of Rochester Medical Center at the start of the study but finished it after founding a company called Pediathink.
Aligne says further research needs to be done to corroborate their findings, but adds, "if this relationship is causal, one quarter of children with cavities in their baby teeth would be cavity-free if tobacco smoke exposure could be eliminated."
However, Dr. Manuel Cordero, a New Jersey dentist and a spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry, isn't convinced. "There may be a connection [between passive smoking and children's cavities], but it has not been proven by this study," he says.
Despite advances in dental care, tooth decay remains a common childhood disease, costing the U.S. more than $4 billion a year, according to the study. Tooth decay causes pain, poor appearance and possible problems with speech development.
The researchers gathered data on 3,531 children between the ages of 4 and 11 for this study from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. All of the children had a complete dental examination and blood tests that measured their cotinine levels. Cotinine is a byproduct of nicotine that is present in the blood of people who are exposed to smoke, either directly or indirectly.
Fifty-three percent of the children had cotinine levels high enough to indicate passive smoke exposure, according to the study. Nearly half of all the children had at least one decayed or already filled baby tooth, while 26 percent already had a cavity in one of their permanent teeth.
Children exposed to passive smoke had almost twice the risk of having a cavity in their baby teeth, according to Aligne. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between cavities in permanent teeth and passive smoke. While the researchers weren't able to address the reason why with the data available, Aligne believes that as with other health risks, younger children and their developing bodies are simply more susceptible.
Cordero points out the researchers found that cavities in baby teeth were nearly three times as common in kids whose parents had less than a high school education compared to those with more than a high school education. This factor, he says, is probably more of an influence on cavity development than passive smoking.
Aligne, however, says he and his colleagues tried to control the data for other potential risk factors -- such as poverty, race, sugar intake and family income -- and that they still found an association between passive smoke and cavities in baby teeth after doing so.
In the study, the researchers explain it may not necessarily be the smoke exposure, but that parents who smoke may also have other unhealthy behaviors, such as not brushing teeth regularly or eating too much candy, which could be causing the cavities.
Cordero believes these explanations are much more likely. "Parents who smoke are teaching poor overall health habits," he says.
Whether the connection between passive smoke and cavities holds up in future studies or not, Aligne says, "Dental cavities and passive smoking are still very big public health problems and we need to do more to prevent them."
More information
To read more about how smoking can affect your teeth, visit the Academy of General Dentistry or the American Dental Association.
