Association of periodontitis, missing teeth, and oral hygiene behaviors with the incidence of hypertension in middle‐aged and older adults in Korea: A 10‐year follow‐up study

Abstract Background The relationship between periodontitis and hypertension remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the association of periodontitis, missing teeth, and oral hygiene behaviors with the incidence of hypertension. Methods A total of 104,349 participants were selected from the National Health Insurance System‐Health Screening (NHIS‐HEALS) cohort. Incident hypertension and periodontitis were diagnosed based on the patients’ clinical records and health examinations. A multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, coexisting disease, and health behaviors. Results The mean age of the participants was 51.1 years (range, 40–79 years) at baseline, and 55.1% were men. A total of 52,855 incident hypertension cases were identified during the median follow‐up period of 9.6 years. Among the participants, periodontitis (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.02; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.00–1.04), number of missing teeth (for ≥15 group, HR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.29–1.52), dental scaling (HR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.91–0.95), and toothbrushing frequency (for ≥3 group, HR: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.83–0.88) were significantly associated with incident hypertension after full adjustments for covariates. While periodontitis was significantly associated with incident hypertension (HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02–1.06) in the middle‐aged group (40–64 years), the effect was insignificant in the older group (≥65 years). Conclusions Oral inflammation could contribute to the incidence of hypertension; thus, efforts to reduce oral inflammation should be encouraged. Future intervention studies are warranted to determine whether oral health care could be beneficial in the management of hypertension.