Elsevier

Archives of Oral Biology

Volume 51, Issue 12, December 2006, Pages 1156-1160
Archives of Oral Biology

Short communication
Heritability estimates for dental caries and sucrose sweetness preference

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archoralbio.2006.06.003Get rights and content

Summary

Objective

The aim of this study was to determine heritability estimates for dental caries traits and sucrose sweetness preference.

Design

Participants included 115 pairs of twins 4–7-years-old. Caries exams followed NIDCR criteria where the severity of the lesion was also determined. Twins ranked their preference for five concentrations of sucrose/grape juice solutions (0.15–1.17 M) with a Face Scale. Variables submitted to analysis: (1) surface-based caries prevalence rate (SBCPR); (2) lesion severity index (LSI); (3) sucrose sweetness preference score (SSPS). Heritability analyses were performed with the SOLAR software package.

Results

Heritability estimates adjusted for age and gender were: SBCPR  h2 = 64.6 (p < .00001), LSI  h2 = 61.7 (p < .00001) and SSPS  h2 = 55.2 (p < .00001). Treating SPSS as a covariate in the SBCPR and LSI models did not alter heritability estimates.

Conclusions

These results suggest that variation in dental caries traits and sucrose sweetness preference have a significant genetic contribution that is mediated independently.

Introduction

Early childhood caries is a complex multifactorial disease. A variety of etiologic factors, including microbial, genetic, immunological, behavioural and environmental, may interact to contribute to dental caries development.1, 2 Evidence from animal models indicates that elements of the host genome are important risk factors in the etiology of dental caries.3 Support for a genetic contribution to caries comes primarily from studies of families and twins.4 We have recently demonstrated that a significant proportion of the clinical caries variance in early childhood caries is heritable, indicating elements of the host genome are etiologically important.5

Dietary substrates, particularly sucrose are believed to be important in the pathogenesis of caries.2 The cariogenic flora can sequester sucrose moieties in the oral environment in a very unique manner allowing for the production of acid that can demineralise the tooth structure.2 It is well established that the frequency of sucrose intake, particularly between meals, is associated with increased levels of caries occurrence.6 Several factors may influence sucrose intake, including taste preference. Evidence in animals and humans indicate that taste preference is significantly modulated by host genetics.7 Studies of the heritability of sucrose sweetness taste preference have shown conflicting results and are scarce.8, 9, 10

The aim of this investigation was to dissect the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to variation in dental caries traits and sucrose sweetness preference by employing the twin study model. In addition, we modelled the relative contribution of sucrose sweetness preference on the heritability of dental caries traits.

Section snippets

Demographic characteristics of the study population

Consent was obtained following the University of Pittsburgh and Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros Institutional Review Boards’ guidelines in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki statement. Twins were ascertained from a government registry and they were from low socio-economic families who resided in the city of Montes Claros, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. City water supplies have fluoride levels of <0.2 ppm, and parents reported 91% of the children having never visited a dentist.

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 shows the distribution of the SSPS for all children. Although variation in sucrose sweetness preference tended to exhibit a unimodal distribution, some variation was apparent. Assessment of individual sucrose/grape solutions for sucrose sweetness preference also showed a unimodal distribution (data not shown). Other studies have demonstrated that variation to sucrose sweetness preference in children 4–6-years-old is apparent when assays similar to ours were submitted to these children.17

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by NIH/NIDCR grants DE15351 and DE14528.

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