Teeth are stronger in poorer countries, WHO says

GENEVA (Reuter): People in poorer countries, where health problems are generally more severe, have stronger teeth than the inhabitants of the industrialized world, the United Nations said last week.

It said latest figures showed this was changing with economic and industrial advance.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that in Asia and Africa fewer than one percent of the population aged between 35 and 44 had lost all their teeth and in rich countries the total was more than two percent.

In a report marking annual World Health Day -- focusing this year on dental care -- the UN agency said that more than 10 percent of this age group in some advanced countries no longer had their own teeth.

People of all ages in industrialized states who had lost all their teeth through decay and disease totaled four percent in the United States, 16 percent in Sweden, 27 percent in Scotland and 30 percent in Finland.

The WHO said the figures showed that although oral diseases were among the most widespread infections, developing countries were still relatively free of them.

"Keeping their natural teeth into old age is one of the few health privileges left to the inhabitants of these countries, but even this is likely to change as the ravages of dental caries increase," a WHO statement said.

Mouth diseases were increasing in poorer states but this was not an inevitable outcome of development and industrialization and could be halted by better attention to dental problems, it added.

In many rich countries, despite continuing relatively high rates of tooth decay, the trend had been halted by improvements in hygiene, healthier eating and the use of fluoride, according to the statement.

In 1968, it said, 37 percent of the population of England and Wales had no teeth of their own. In 1978 the figure was 29 percent and in 1988 it had dropped to 20 percent.