Objectives: Reports suggest that periodontitis, along with the number of decayed, filled, and missing teeth from disease (DMFT), may be associated with certain systemic diseases (CVD, diabetes, and obesity). Though causality has not been established, systemic factors may modify host responsiveness resulting in periodontitis and increased DMFT. We investigated inverse “high risk” affects of body mass indices (BMI) : waist to hip ratios (WHR) on oral diseases, to determine if BMI or WHR were predominant periodontal and DMFT risk factors. Methods: This study used the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) data, and was restricted to adults 20 years or older for whom both periodontal and DMFT data were available. Groups were categorized as inversely stratified relationships of twelve (12) BMI&WHR “high risk” disease zones [BMI&WHR (>30&>0.65 through >18&>0.90)], and compared to 12 “safe” zones at predetermined BMI& WHR's [BMI&WHR(<30 and <0.65 through <18 and <0.90)], and percentage of subjects with > 33 percent of sites with periodontal attachment loss of ³3 mm (%PAL>33), mean periodontal attachment loss (mPAL), mean pocket depth (mPD), mean gingival bleeding (mGB), and mean number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) were calculated for each category. Data was analyzed using SPSSTM software for Kendall's W, ANOVA, and post-hoc Scheffe's test. Results: %PAL and DMFT were significantly associated with BMI:WHR “high risk” zone categories (%PAL = 16.43-22.41, DMFT = 13.18-14.15), compared to “safe” zone categories (%PAL = 13.87-14.45, DMFT = 10.45-11.64) (P<0.05). Increasing WHR categories showed increased (%PAL>33%), mPAL, mPD, mGB, and #DMFT, when compared to increasing BMI categories (P<0.05). Conclusions:This study demonstrated that WHR has a more significant effect on oral diseases than BMI.

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