Abstract
Obesity is an increasing problem of the 21st century. A frequent intervention is bariatric surgery. The impact of bariatric surgery on oral health is largely unknown. The aim of the present case-control study was to survey the perceived oral health amongst individuals that had undergone bariatric surgery and compare the measures with two cohorts consisting of healthy individuals with respectively at or below versus above a body mass index score of 30. Study volunteers were recruited from interest group on the Internet. The study participants completed online a validated oral health-related quality of life scale, that is, OHIP-S. The three cohorts consisted of individuals that had undergone bariatric surgery (OS, n = 77) and the healthy obese (ONS, n = 45) and nonobese individuals (HNS, n = 71). Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests were used to estimate likelihood of nondifference amongst the three cohorts. Individuals that had undergone bariatric surgery reported significant more oral health problems than the study participants in with the two other cohorts. Their perception of oral health-related quality of life was higher or similar to the obese study participants and lower than for nonobese study participants. Perceived oral health problems appear to be more frequent amongst individuals that have undergone bariatric surgery in comparison with healthy obese and nonobese individuals. Bariatric surgery may be consider a risk marker for impaired oral health.