Literature review for - Flourish Paediatrics

14 SUGARS (S1.1)
SUGARS and DENTAL DISEASE
Does a particular intake of sugars effect the risk of dental disease?
Evidence Statement
Frequent consumption of added sugars is
associated with increased risk of dental caries.
Grade
Component Rating Notes
C
Evidence Base Satisfactory 1 level 1V systematic review (low risk bias) and 4
level 111-2 prospective cohort studies (low to
medium risk bias)
Consistency Good The systematic review (25 of 31 studies found no
association) and 1 of the cohort studies determined
that the amount of sugars consumed is not
associated with dental caries. 1 of the cohort
studies report increased risk of dental caries with
increased amount of sugars consumed. However,
the systematic review (19 of 31 studies found an
association) and 3 of the 4 cohort study found an
association with the frequency of sugars consumed
and dental caries.
Clinical impact Good A summary statistic is not reported in the
systematic review. For the cohort studies, the
majority of 95% CIs for RRs exclude 1 (OR range
from 2.0 (1.2 to 3.4)) - 3.04 (1.07 to 8.64)).
Generalisablty Good Males and females less than 35 years of age in
North America and Europe.
Applicability Good Applicable to Australian healthcare context with
few caveats
The systematic review (Anderson et al. 2009) is of people living in Asia, Europe and North America,
who are aged 1 – 35 years. The cohort studies (Levy et al. 2003, Ruottinen et al. 2004, Marshall et al.
2007 and Warren et al. 2009) were of North American and European children (infants to 11 years of
age), and were relatively small for this type of study. While the evidence suggests that a frequent intake
of foods and beverages high in added sugars increases the risk of dental caries there is insufficient
evidence provided in the searched published literature between 2002 and 2009 to determine a doseresponse.
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