Purpose Periodontitis in older adults is a public health issue. There is a growing population of older adults in the United States; furthermore, the proportion of the population of older adults who identify as a racial minority are growing at a faster rate than non-minority identifying older adults. Sufficient lycopene intake is one potential solution for individuals who express reluctance and/or an inability to access preventative oral care particularly by older adults who self-identify as a racial minority, leading to lower levels of periodontitis if they consume a sufficient amount of lycopene. The objective of this paper is to explore the association between insufficient lycopene intake and risk of periodontitis among older adults.

Methods Data analysis was conducted using data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey 2009-2014. Overall, 1227 adults aged 65-to 79-years-old were investigated. The total lycopene intake from daily diet, age, race/ethnicity, living condition, smoking status, body mass index, diabetes, gender, and education level were studied as independent variables. The combination of probing depth and number of interproximal sites was used as criteria for evaluating the risk of periodontitis. Weighted multinominal logistic regression was used.

Results Overall, 48.7% of older adults in this study were classified with different levels of periodontitis and 49.1% of individuals with a form of periodontitis had insufficient dietary lycopene intake.Sufficient lycopene intake was found to be associated with a lower likelihood of severe periodontitis (OR: .33; 95% CI: 0.17-.65; p=0.002). Non-Hispanic Black older adults were more likely to develop severe forms of periodontal disease in comparison to Non-Hispanic White older adults (OR: 2.82, 95% CI: 1.46-5.45, p=0.003). Gender was also found to play a role in periodontitis status, with women being less likely to have severe periodontitis status, compared to men (OR: 0.27; 95% CI: 0.14-0.55; p= 0.0007,). However, only Non-Hispanic White females were less likely to have severe periodontitis compared to Non-Hispanic White males (OR: 0.26; 95% CI: 0.12-0.56; p= 0.001).

Conclusion Dietary intake of lycopene associated with periodontitis disease for individuals over the age of 65; those who consume a sufficient amount of lycopene are less likely to develop severe periodontitis. In general, more men suffered from periodontitis in comparison to women. Such association also has been found between Non-Hispanic Blacks with severe periodontitis. In addition, reduced risk of severe periodontitis is associated with sufficient lycopene intake is explored in Non-Hispanic Whites, future targeted interventions using lycopene in dietary intake as a preventative measure to delay or prevent the onset of periodontal disease needs to be race and gender specific.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Publication of this research was partially supported by the Susan Eckert Lynch 62 Faculty Research Fund at Connecticut College. N.Z. and ZY.H have been supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.62066048 and No.62366057.

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