Version 1
: Received: 21 May 2023 / Approved: 22 May 2023 / Online: 22 May 2023 (10:42:40 CEST)
How to cite:
Gallaba, S.; Perera, I.; Gunasekara, U.; Gamlathge, P. Nipping at the Bud Stage: Controlling Future Diabetes Burden by Preventive Oral Health Care Approach for Early Childhood Dental Caries. Preprints2023, 2023051504. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.1504.v1
Gallaba, S.; Perera, I.; Gunasekara, U.; Gamlathge, P. Nipping at the Bud Stage: Controlling Future Diabetes Burden by Preventive Oral Health Care Approach for Early Childhood Dental Caries. Preprints 2023, 2023051504. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.1504.v1
Gallaba, S.; Perera, I.; Gunasekara, U.; Gamlathge, P. Nipping at the Bud Stage: Controlling Future Diabetes Burden by Preventive Oral Health Care Approach for Early Childhood Dental Caries. Preprints2023, 2023051504. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.1504.v1
APA Style
Gallaba, S., Perera, I., Gunasekara, U., & Gamlathge, P. (2023). Nipping at the Bud Stage: Controlling Future Diabetes Burden by Preventive Oral Health Care Approach for Early Childhood Dental Caries. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.1504.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Gallaba, S., Uthpala Gunasekara and Pushpa Gamlathge. 2023 "Nipping at the Bud Stage: Controlling Future Diabetes Burden by Preventive Oral Health Care Approach for Early Childhood Dental Caries" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.1504.v1
Abstract
Diabetes mellitus and dental caries (tooth decay) are not only common Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) contributing to high burden of diseases but costly diseases to manage. Diabetes mellitus is a leading cause of mortality and reduced life expectancy across the globe. Early child hood dental caries (ECC) denotes a common chronic childhood disease and cariogenic dietary patterns dominated by refined sugar is one of the main causative factors. Thus, high burden of ECC could be a proxy indicator of excessive refined sugar consumption of a child. If such unhealthy dietary patterns are continued through to adolescent to adulthood, there is a high probability of an individual becoming a diabetic. Therefore, it is rational to argue high ECC burden in a country could be an indicator of future burden of diabetes. Moreover, ECC provides a critical period and a window of opportunity across life-course perspective, to intervene with cariogenic dietary patterns underpinned by common risk factor approach. This could be achieved by tailored dietary counseling for parental care givers of children with ECC. A healthy dietary pattern fostered in the childhood, most probably would continue to adulthood which may become beneficial in reducing the incidence of diabetes. Against this backdrop, we provide a perspective from Sri Lanka: a lower-middle-income country (LMIC) which records the highest prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in south Asia. Our perspective will provide novel insights and innovative ideas into prevention and control of diabetes burden in LMICs, harnessing the potential of preventive dentistry.
Keywords
Diabetes; pre-diabetes; early childhood dental caries; refined sugar; dietary counseling; Sri Lanka
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
