We are very happy and proud to announce that our research ‘Oral Health and Sports Injuries’ has been published in BMC Sports Science Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Abstract Background
Although it is well known that oral pathogens can enter the systemic circulation and cause disease, it is largely unknown whether poor oral health increases the risk of sports injuries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between poor oral health and re-injury in male elite soccer players, adjusted for psychosocial problems and player characteristics.
Methods
184 Players in premier league soccer clubs and 31 elite junior soccer players in the Netherlands, Belgium and England were enrolled in a retrospective cross-sectional study. The Sports Injury Risk Indicator, a self-assessed questionnaire, was used to obtain information on re-injury, age and player position, oral health and psychosocial problems. The number of different types of oral health problems was used as an indicator of poor oral health. (SumDental, range 0–2: 0 = no oral health problems, 1 = one type of oral health problem and 2 = two or more types of oral health problems).Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate whether SumDental was associated with re-injury, after adjustment for psychosocial problems and player characteristics.
Results
37% Of the players reported no oral health problems, 43% reported one type of oral health problem and 20% reported two or more types of oral health problems. After full adjustment for age, player position and psychosocial problems (i.e. injury anxiety, psychophysical stress, unhealthy eating habits and dissatisfaction with trainer/team), poor oral health (SumDental) was positively associated with all kinds of re-injury, whether analyzed as a continuous variable or as a categorical variable. The fully adjusted odds ratios for SumDental analyzed as a continuous variable were: in relation to repeated exercise-associated muscle cramps: 1.82 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07, 3.12), in relation to muscle or tendon re-injury 1.57 (95% CI: 1.01, 2.45) and in relation to multiple types of re-injury 1.88 (95% CI: 1.19, 2.97).
Conclusion
The results from this study justify thorough examination of the effects of oral health problems on the injury risk of male elite soccer players.
You can view the entire research article here.
