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Association between blood ethylene oxide levels and the prevalence of periodontitis: evidence from NHANES 2013–2014

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Abstract

Background

The study aimed to establish a link between blood ethylene oxide (EO) levels and periodontitis, given the growing concern about EO’s detrimental health effects.

Materials and methods

The study included 1006 adults from the 2013–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset. We assessed periodontitis prevalence across groups, used weighted binary logistic regression and restricted cubic spline fitting for HbEO-periodontitis association, and employed Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves for prediction.

Results

In the periodontitis group, HbEO levels were significantly higher (40.57 vs. 28.87 pmol/g Hb, P < 0.001). The highest HbEO quartile showed increased periodontitis risk (OR = 2.88, 95% CI: 1.31, 6.31, P = 0.01). A “J”-shaped nonlinear HbEO-periodontitis relationship existed (NL-P value = 0.0116), with an inflection point at ln-HbEO = 2.96 (EO = 19.30 pmol/g Hb). Beyond this, ln-HbEO correlated with higher periodontitis risk. A predictive model incorporating sex, age, education, poverty income ratio, alcohol consumption, and HbEO had 69.9% sensitivity and 69.2% specificity. The model achieved an area under the ROC curve of 0.761.

Conclusions

These findings suggest a correlation between HbEO levels and an increased susceptibility to periodontitis.

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Data availability

The NHANES dataset is publicly available online, accessible at cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm.

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Acknowledgements

The authors extend their gratitude to Zhang Jing from Shanghai Tongren Hospital for his substantial contributions to the development of the nhanesR package and webpage. Additionally, the authors express their appreciation to the NHANES databases for granting access to the data.

Funding

This work was funded by the Science and Technology Planning Project of Sichuan Province (2021YJ0170), the Project of Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau (2019-YF05-00498-SN), National Natural Science Foundation of China (82370884), Sichuan Province science and technology plan project (2021YFS0101), National Natural Science Foundation of China (82104069), and Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2022089).

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Author notes

  1. Yan Xue, Yujing Tang and Zhengyun Ren contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, The Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University & The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu, Chongqing Medical University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    Yan Xue, Li Linke & Jiang Xie

  2. Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China

    Yan Xue, Yujing Tang, Zhengyun Ren, Li Linke & Yanjun Liu

  3. Center of Gastrointestinal and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of General Surgery, The Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University & The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu, Chongqing Medical University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China

    Yujing Tang, Zhengyun Ren & Yanjun Liu

  4. Medical Research Center, The Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University & The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu, Chongqing Medical University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    Yan Xue, Yujing Tang, Zhengyun Ren & Li Linke

  5. The Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China

    Yanjun Liu & Jiang Xie

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Contributions

XY drafted the manuscript and conducted statistical analysis. TYJ, RZY, and Li Linke conducted statistical analysis and contributed to the writing of the methods section. LYJ and XJ were responsible for guiding and reviewing this article. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yanjun Liu or Jiang Xie.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate

All the data used in our study were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). NHANES is a nationally representative cross-sectional study conducted under the direction of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) to assess the health and nutrition status of the non-institutionalized population of the United States using a complex, multistage, and probabilistic sampling design. All of the surveys were authorized by the NCHS Ethics Review Board before being conducted, and all participants signed informed consent forms. More information is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/.

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Xue, Y., Tang, Y., Ren, Z. et al. Association between blood ethylene oxide levels and the prevalence of periodontitis: evidence from NHANES 2013–2014. Clin Oral Invest 28, 293 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00784-024-05690-7

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