Nutrition and Oral Health: Experiences in Iran

Background: Oral health is a crucial factor for overall well-being and there isa mutual relationship between nutrition and oral health. The aim of this studywas to review the publications which have examined the association betweennutrition or diet and oral health status or oral disease in Iran. Methods: Theelectronic databases of PubMed, Scopus, Google scholar, scientificinformation database (SID), and Magiran were searched using key words ofdiet, nutrition, oral health, oral disease, and Iran to reach the related articlespublished up to 2016. The English and Persian articles with cross-sectional,clinical trial, prospective, and case-control designs were selected. The Persianstudies were then translated into English. The animal studies were notinvestigated. Results: The findings showed that nutrition and diet wereassociated with oral health. However, the majority of studies focused onevaluation of the relation between nutrition and dental caries. Further, a fewstudies were conducted on the association between nutrition and other oralproblems such as periodontal disease or oral cancer. Moreover, the limitednutritional or dietary factors were investigated in the literature. Conclusions:Nutrition and diet are related to oral health and prevention of oral disease.Further studies are therefore recommended to evaluate the association betweennutrition and oral health with considering various dietary or nutritional factorsand different types of oral problems in Iran.