Dietary practices and their relationship to early childhood caries in preschool children.

Abstract

Introduction: Early childhood caries is a multifactorial disease in which diet plays a role in its etiology. Evidence shows that dietary practices are of great importance for the development of the disease. Objective: To evaluate some dietary practices and their relationship with early childhood caries in preschool children. Material and method: The sample consisted of 214 children aged 2 to 5 years, with and without caries, attended at the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of the University of Chile. The information was collected through an oral examination in the children and a diet diary, which was applied to the parents. The dietary practices evaluated were: number of daily feeding bottles with sugar, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, consumption of cariogenic foods and number of daily carbohydrate intake. Results: It was observed that 58% of the children studied consumed more than 2 bottles with sugar daily; 70% consumed sugary drinks between meals; 97% consumed cariogenic foods between meals and 67% had more than 4 times of carbohydrate intake during the day. A bivariate analysis was performed between the different variables studied and caries, showing a significant association between early childhood caries and the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (p= 0.002) and cariogenic foods between meals (p= 0.019). Conclusion: The results obtained show that the consumption of sugary drinks and cariogenic foods between meals were the dietary practices most related to early childhood caries.